5 ms·

Accurate breakdown. If you looked at my life as a 14 year old, you wouldn't have been able to picture me as a 28 year old. If you looked at me as a 28 year old,

Accurate breakdown. If you looked at my life as a 14 year old, you wouldn't have been able to picture me as a 28 year old. If you looked at me as a 28 year old, you wouldn't have been able to picture me as a 33 year old. In the last 5 years I found the top of my game where people didn't want a poor person there; got knocked down and it's been interesting adjusting to being chronically impoverished with issues increasingly piling up--relatives now comparing me to my cousins who can't hold down dish washing jobs. Meanwhile the tech giants are still trying to recruit me, and I know when I start work I'll be knocked out again because, like my last several high salary jobs in the BA, I've entered $1000s in debt with several years of poverty, causing rejection by coworkers (poor attire, untraveled). Crazy... miracle or relocation seem to be needed. I'm optimistic these last years will be a hilarious memory that toughened me up (in typical ign'nt American fashion, temporarily embarrassed millionaire).

antihero 9y ago
What industry, may I ask?
kevmo 9y ago
I recommend a capsule wardrobe. Buy a decent set of monochrome shirts/pants and mix them around --> many good outfits! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_wardrobe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_wardrobe
Applejinx 9y ago
Yup. I'm an entrepreneur who ran a sole proprietorship software business since 2007 or so. I've been at the top of my game to the point where I now enjoy a reputation as a key DSP guy in my industry (pro audio, recording studios etc) but I watched the income of my business collapse over the years, and got knocked down by that. I observed that my troubles exactly tracked the Labor Share of wages as tracked by the Fed: I was impoverished to the exact proportion that the country (and the world: I did and do a lot of export) didn't itself have money. If labor boomed, so did I: if labor took a downturn, so did I. I retained such a high reputation that I was able to withstand a switch over to Patreon when my payment processor went out of business owing me months of payments: from my observation if you transition to a patron model it literally decimates your earnings, but they become steady and may grow. I am also typically American in that I figure if I double down and work ten times harder and don't die, it'll all work out, and I'm getting up to what would be minimum wage for a factory worker (this is 97th percentile of Patreon accounts, by the way: I'm in the top 3% of all Patreon and trying to get into ITS 'one percent') and doing things like releasing all my existing products for LinuxVST and methodically open-sourcing it all under the MIT license. I figure even as an open-sourcer I will not succeed unless I can be ruthlessly exploited for my work, and even as a patron-supported person I'm still subject to the power-law factor of 2018 life where unless I'm exploding in success, I'm failing. So my motivation can only be: exploit and crush the world, or out-give the most generous people AS IF I was already that millionaire, a Bill Gates just looking for ways to give it away again. So I'm doing the latter, and we'll see whether I literally live to do more of it. Any little financial thing crushes me and breaks my spirit for a while, costing me valuable work time. My only recourse is to charge off entreprenurially into new prospects and hope for the best. The funny thing is, that's the same recipe for if I was trying to prosper with new commercial products, and I do free everything now (increasingly including ideas). In an America with a saner Gini coefficient, I would probably still be close to broke, but I'd have a much huger cash flow and would probably be employing people. I know I can't do everything I envision, and I would absolutely be hiring if that was remotely possible.
- harlanji 9y ago
  Hang in there man. You're going to be competing with me for the top spot on Patreon ;). I've been setting up the same style operation. Willing to live in car if I need to, the stuff I experienced in the workplace actually had me walk off my last two jobs ($150k range). For personal reasons I refuse to tolerate mistreatment, so I've 'dug my own grave' so to speak... although I really see light in this new economic model. Personally I'm shooting to form a B corporation. I think you can do better on licensing. I'm doing AGPL, holding my power to individually licensee as necessary (with some pieces under more/fully permissive licenses where it makes sense--not cents :). I've got cool demos online, can track me down pretty easily. Indeed, studying all the Machiavellian stuff I can, given it's clearly being used at higher levels. I just want to be excellent to each other and make cool stuff, and eat.
- owlsaway 9y ago
  Hey, uh. I'm an electrical engineering student looking to go into audio DSP. I'm not sure how much we have in common, but hey, solidarity on the broken spirits bit. I've been having a really emotional day today. Wanted to comment, even if I'm not sure what I intend to accomplish by doing so.
Trundle 9y ago
Am I reading this correctly in that you're getting hired by large tech companies, presumably for large tech company salaries, and then getting fired because of your attire and that you haven't traveled?

antihero 9y ago

What industry, may I ask?

kevmo 9y ago

I recommend a capsule wardrobe. Buy a decent set of monochrome shirts/pants and mix them around --> many good outfits! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_wardrobe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_wardrobe

Applejinx 9y ago

Yup. I'm an entrepreneur who ran a sole proprietorship software business since 2007 or so. I've been at the top of my game to the point where I now enjoy a reputation as a key DSP guy in my industry (pro audio, recording studios etc) but I watched the income of my business collapse over the years, and got knocked down by that. I observed that my troubles exactly tracked the Labor Share of wages as tracked by the Fed: I was impoverished to the exact proportion that the country (and the world: I did and do a lot of export) didn't itself have money. If labor boomed, so did I: if labor took a downturn, so did I. I retained such a high reputation that I was able to withstand a switch over to Patreon when my payment processor went out of business owing me months of payments: from my observation if you transition to a patron model it literally decimates your earnings, but they become steady and may grow. I am also typically American in that I figure if I double down and work ten times harder and don't die, it'll all work out, and I'm getting up to what would be minimum wage for a factory worker (this is 97th percentile of Patreon accounts, by the way: I'm in the top 3% of all Patreon and trying to get into ITS 'one percent') and doing things like releasing all my existing products for LinuxVST and methodically open-sourcing it all under the MIT license. I figure even as an open-sourcer I will not succeed unless I can be ruthlessly exploited for my work, and even as a patron-supported person I'm still subject to the power-law factor of 2018 life where unless I'm exploding in success, I'm failing. So my motivation can only be: exploit and crush the world, or out-give the most generous people AS IF I was already that millionaire, a Bill Gates just looking for ways to give it away again. So I'm doing the latter, and we'll see whether I literally live to do more of it. Any little financial thing crushes me and breaks my spirit for a while, costing me valuable work time. My only recourse is to charge off entreprenurially into new prospects and hope for the best. The funny thing is, that's the same recipe for if I was trying to prosper with new commercial products, and I do free everything now (increasingly including ideas). In an America with a saner Gini coefficient, I would probably still be close to broke, but I'd have a much huger cash flow and would probably be employing people. I know I can't do everything I envision, and I would absolutely be hiring if that was remotely possible.

harlanji 9y ago
Hang in there man. You're going to be competing with me for the top spot on Patreon ;). I've been setting up the same style operation. Willing to live in car if I need to, the stuff I experienced in the workplace actually had me walk off my last two jobs ($150k range). For personal reasons I refuse to tolerate mistreatment, so I've 'dug my own grave' so to speak... although I really see light in this new economic model. Personally I'm shooting to form a B corporation. I think you can do better on licensing. I'm doing AGPL, holding my power to individually licensee as necessary (with some pieces under more/fully permissive licenses where it makes sense--not cents :). I've got cool demos online, can track me down pretty easily. Indeed, studying all the Machiavellian stuff I can, given it's clearly being used at higher levels. I just want to be excellent to each other and make cool stuff, and eat.
owlsaway 9y ago
Hey, uh. I'm an electrical engineering student looking to go into audio DSP. I'm not sure how much we have in common, but hey, solidarity on the broken spirits bit. I've been having a really emotional day today. Wanted to comment, even if I'm not sure what I intend to accomplish by doing so.

Trundle 9y ago

Am I reading this correctly in that you're getting hired by large tech companies, presumably for large tech company salaries, and then getting fired because of your attire and that you haven't traveled?