The Ponzi Career
I enjoyed the piece.<p>Personally, I want no part of it, but I think it might work well for people who are not me.<p>I&#x27;ve always been &quot;on my own.&quot; My life really is a series of watersheds, where I&#x27;ve been the only person to believe in me, before the event, and a whole bunch of folks seemed to believe in me, after the fact. Not a particularly good setup for selling &quot;Chris-Tokens™.&quot;<p>Not a bad thing, in the long run. It hurt like hell, the first few times, but I realized that I don&#x27;t have the personal skills to &quot;sell&quot; myself (like being able to spew jargon, sound like I&#x27;m TED-talking all the time, or beat LeetCode tests), so I can&#x27;t blame folks for not wanting to &quot;invest&quot; in me. It is what it is. I come across as a socially-awkward dork, so people don&#x27;t take me seriously. I&#x27;m actually fairly good at what I do, but If I mention that, it comes across as &quot;arrogant,&quot; despite the enormous ocean of hubris that pretty much defines today&#x27;s tech scene. I don&#x27;t really have the skill to &quot;humble-brag.&quot;<p>It taught me to live a conservative lifestyle, be Honest and Honorable, do top-shelf work, bust my ass, and not expect much from others.<p>I couldn&#x27;t rely on anyone else to clean up my messes, or get me out of jackpots. It has taught me to learn what I have needed to learn, despite active roadblocks being tossed out by &quot;gatekeepers,&quot; and it also prevented me from getting mixed up with some truly awful disasters; both personal, and business.