I was a total Hulkamaniac. I loved Hulk Hogan. When I was about 10
my mom took me to see WWF live in person in Regina, SK. It was an all-undercard event, no real big stars, and def no Hulk Hogan. I didn’t care. I came home with a Hulkamania yellow torn tank top, red bold letters across the front, rips across the back. I wore it to bed every night. I wondered if I would ever have a moment big enough to warrant tearing it off, a one time deal. I never did. But I loved wrestling, and decided I was going to be a pro wrestler one day. Riding in the tractor or combine beside my dad or grandpa, I daydreamed about it. My middle name is Tyler, so my name would be Hurricane Tyler Hudson. I wondered what my killer move would be. I didn’t know any moves. My sister was dating a guy named Rich. He was a wrestler. He said I should try it, so I asked my parents and they signed me up. Maybe I would learn my move. This of course was real wrestling. It was the closest I could get. I got obsessed. It became my winter sport. I cut weight to make the lower weight classes. I made best friends. I worked hard. In high school the coach from the university, the legendary Leo McGee, saw me wrestle. He asked if he could take me out for lunch. I said I live in Moose Jaw, 45min away. I assumed he would lose interest. When he showed up, he asked me if I had thought about my future. He asked me if I would come wrestle for him at the University of Regina. He told me I was very athletic. I appreciated the flattery, and bit my tongue when I wanted to tell him that he was wrong. But it gave me a path, something that wasn’t farming. So that fall I went to university at the U of R, for one reason - to wrestle. After the first year I had “won” a spot as a training partner to one of the best wrestlers in the country, an Olympic hopeful, who was going to a university worlds meet in Iran. But I still sucked. Part of the reason was my knee. I had destroyed my ACL in a car accident in high school, and my knee would never allow me to reach the Olympics, which by then had displaced becoming Hurricane Tyler Hudson as my dream. So that spring I had ACL reconstruction, done by the orthopedist who treated the Saskatchewan Roughriders CFL team. I spent 6 weeks on crutches that summer. During that time I still went to the YMCA and lifted weights 5 days a week. I did my rehab. At the 4 month follow up, they told me the surgery had failed. Still didn’t have an ACL. I set out on another year of wrestling and a workload of phone-in humanities classes, no major. I started to wonder. The next summer, my last year as an Under 20, I blew a 9-0 lead in the national semifinal to the eventual national champion (you win the match instantly if you ever lead by 10 points). I was lost. I was browsing the university bookstore and saw a book by John Gribbin called The Living Universe. It had a Da Vinci painting on the cover. I had never read anything like that. I picked it up. That fall I flamed out on wrestling and chose my major as Physics. I had been told it was the hardest major, and that sinched it. I started studying every night. I loved it. It all made sense. It didn’t seem hard. I had been nearly failing my “easy” classes during my two years as a fulltime student athlete. My senior year I got interested in quantum computing. Some folks at Stanford and IBM had just done an experiment to factor 15 using liquid state NMR. I applied to graduate schools. I got into Yale, my top choice. I knew I would go, and I knew I wanted to work with Michel Devoret, my eventual PhD advisor. After 6 years of PhD research, and a year of post doc, I joined IBM Research, in a small group doing quantum computing stuff. I spent about 3 years there before leaving to start my first company, Rigetti Computing (RGTI). A series of life events, decisions, following my heart and my interests, but I got into physics because I went to university to wrestle for Leo McGee. And it all started with chasing my love of Hulk Hogan and wrestling. He was an all time great entertainer. A legend. I am sure he impacted countless others in similar ways. I hope he knows.
I hope he knows.
“I am a real American.
Fight for the rights of every man
I am a real American
And fight for what’s right
Fight for your life”
RIP Hulk and salute to all the Hulkamaniacs out there. 💔