The Rise and Fall of a Tech Company | Amr Shawky's Blog

The Rise and Fall of a Tech Company

16 Jul, 2026

The Beginning

It’s 2020, I’m a pilot but its the height of COVID, so not really a lot of jobs. I just turned 30 and have decided I’m going to start a hardware company in Dubai. I call it RendeRex. I’m not really sure what it does yet, and I figure I’ll just build and sell workstations for 3D rendering (hence the name). Ironically, for the next 4 years of the company’s life, I’ll never sell a single 3D rendering computer.

While looking up websites of US companies that provide similar services, I notice that the two largest competitors curiously have an ‘AI’ section. This is miles before ChatGPT, so naturally I just slap ‘AI’ onto RendeRex’s website and call it a day - I figure it will make the site look more ‘professional’. Besides, who’s going to contact me asking about AI anyway? After all, my logo is a T-Rex.

RendeRex Logo

Fast forward a couple of months, I’ve gotten a few e-mail inquiries, all of which are for AI workstations from various universities. I should probably learn something about this AI stuff. I start doing some light research. Looks like a lot of math. Pretty cool, but I don’t need to learn how to make AI, I just need to know what it is and how to run it. I learn about the hardware, and I also learn that a lot of this AI stuff runs on Linux. Thanks to an unhealthy obsession with Linux as a teenager (for no reason whatsoever), it should be pretty easy to set up some workstations bundled with useful packages and configs, a practice I would later discover is known as DevOps.

I start replying to the AI-related inquiries, but no bites yet.

An Opportunity

I studied Computer Science at university. Never bothered to finish the degree, but got pretty far. One random night, I remember an old friend from university that I haven’t spoken to in years, and decide to give him a call. Turns out he’s working at some big semi-government software company now. I tell him about my newly minted company that also apparently does ‘AI’ now.

“Oh? Our company just started an AI department, They want me to write the Bill of Materials for 2 new workstations. Why don’t you write it instead, I’ll submit it, and you can bid on it.”

An opportunity. I’m excited and begin frantic research. This was for 2 workstations with 2x 3090’s each, at the height of the crypto mining craze. It would be worth more money than I’ve ever seen a computer be worth. I try to source parts on NewEgg, Amazon, local shops, anywhere. The GPU’s are hard to find but not impossible. I’m sure I have the GPU spacing right for the NVLink, the power supply is the right wattage, and so on. I submit my bid. The procurement department promptly ignores my bid.

Over the next few weeks I am the most annoying supplier on their list. The procurement officer politely tells me that my bid is 30% higher than the nearest competing offer. But how? I’ve kept my margins very low to try and win my first customer, but my competitors obviously aren’t buying their parts on NewEgg. Something however, changes. The new head of the AI department is unhappy with the other bidders, and starts calling suppliers directly. He asks me if RendeRex can pre-install Docker with the NVIDIA Container runtime, PyTorch, and a list of other demands. He sounds relieved when I say yes, and asks if I can deliver by Monday.

I deliver the workstations, and learn that I have an advantage.

Workstations being installed in DC

He gives me a heads up that in the next few weeks, they’re going to be ordering GPU servers next, and that I should be prepared. He also wants pre-configured virtual machines they can easily spin up with GPU’s. I need to learn some new things, but first, I need to do something about improving my parts sourcing.

They want servers with 8x 3090 GPU’s, and there are only 2 companies which make blower-style 3090’s that would fit in a standard server chassis. I begin harassing ASUS customer support, who keep pointing me to their distributor, who then tells me they don’t sell the Turbo RTX 3090 anymore. I try customer support again - relentlessly. They eventually cave and forward my inquiry to the business department, who invite me to coffee.

The business exec begins the meeting by informing me that, the only reason they’ve agreed to meet at all is because its COVID, and this is the only way they can get out of the house during business hours. Good start. I explain the situation and drop the name of the big semi-government I delivered the workstations to, Big Company TM . I tell him I built their entire AI hardware infrastructure, which is technically true, ignoring the fact that it was only 2 baby workstations.

It works, and I see his...