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Find what's fulfilling for you. For me, it was not fulfilling to be shut out of the private equity markets because I made too little as a wage slave. It was no

Find what's fulfilling for you. For me, it was not fulfilling to be shut out of the private equity markets because I made too little as a wage slave. It was not fulfilling for me to not have the choice of hopping out to month long festivals, because I was merely earning UP TO 2 weeks of time off, or the unlimited vacation policy was just 2 weeks of time because the expectations from the manager were the same. For others, wage work subsidizing some local recreational activities and eventual downpayment on a home is enough. Thats perfectly fine. So for you, relationships are fulfilling, and maybe creativity is. But maybe wage work is too. In your situation, I would at least be prioritizing finding out (maybe by making a post like this as a start). But its better for me to know, than to not know. and I will do that at the expense of personal and professional relationships if a choice needed to be made. One thing to know about both the entrepreneurial and creative side, is that the people you are inspired by always had a choice. They did not need a job to exchange time for food and shelter. Failure would not impact their life. Whereas for people reliant on wage-based professional attainment, the stakes are much higher and its not just a casual decision or path to take. If you fail at the entrepreneurial pursuit, you might actually be reliant on the wage work for the next decade - hoping - that nothing goes wrong to make you further reliant. Whereas the "fun" entrepreneurs have a survivorship bias in their favor because they can try and try and try again, in quick and simultaneous succession.

softcactus 4y ago
What life choices did you make to be able to have access to private equity markets but also go to month-long festivals? Also what festivals are a month long? I have a feeling we may be in different tax brackets haha.
- vmception 4y ago
  > What life choices did you make to be able to have access to private equity markets but also go to month-long festivals? Some entrepreneurial things worked out, some speculative things worked out, they're not mutually exclusive to me. (When I do an entrepreneurial thing, I think of the shares I create as being part of my portfolio just like shares I bought from someone else. Its the same buy low, sell high mentality to me. Pocketing some/alot of the revenue is an option as well, if there is any revenue, ha.) Also, turns out accredited investor status (and similar wealth thresholds for financial products) are "self-certifications", which is a euphemism for lying. Took me longer than it should have to catch on to that. The only exception being a Reg D 506(c) offerings, which require proof of accredited investor status. It also took me a while to understand that the consequence isn't on the individual, its on the person selling shares. And they want your money, they just need to check a box. The government says "you can check that box, if they say so". So, no sanction on them as long as they ask (for the most part), and you don't act like a poor person scrounging around for the money you said you had. Maybe one of those private investments hit, and never look back. Better than wasting 4-8 years of your life being paid in lottery tickets across a handful of companies, lottery tickets that have worse odds than the investors of the same company have purchased.
  - h-w 4y ago
    Do you have two million liquid bucks or not?
    - astrange 4y ago
      You don’t need that if you earn $200k a year, have two kinds of stockbroker licenses, or are good at lying. I signed up for some accredited investor sites after passing via the income rule and was kind of annoyed that it just causes people to call you who expect you to have $50k to invest like it’s pocket change.
    - vmception 4y ago
      The first time I passed accreditation, I created a crypto token with a super high supply and sold one, this affected some applications to extrapolate the value of my holdings. A lawyer looked at it and made the attestation that I was accredited and I was able to participate in a couple offerings over the next few months. (Lawyer verified onchain as well) The second time was after some professional and speculative successes, and I realized that people expected me to be accredited. That was nice. So I “self certified” that I was accredited and got to participate in the rounds. No need to bother with extremely low float assets, although still an option. All subsequent times I continued to self certify regardless of the economic reality, periodically it’s above the threshold in pure liquid assets, otherwise it was a stretch of the imagination and pure financial engineering. There are also much higher monetary thresholds like “qualified investor”. Everything higher is also a self certification. Its a dumb caste system so I have dumb solutions for it, its super effective. I took it waaay too seriously when I was younger, I just didn’t know the consequences and expected to be treated as a joke by super serious people, turns out nobody cares and capital games are all casual entertainment to the wealthy, show up if you’re interested, bring your own capital. You still have to actually have the cash to invest. If you can’t come up with $25k minimum it’s going to be weird.
- vmception 4y ago
  > Also what festivals are a month long? I have a feeling we may be in different tax brackets haha. Usually not just a single thing, but if you go to some main ones its easy to get caught up in a string of things with other people that think its normal to keep going. Art Basel in Miami last December was 1 week long, and surrounded by multiple other festivals. The energy stays there for some time, and next thing you know its New Years which has its own surge again. Cannes Film Festivals is two weeks and goes right into the Monaco Grand Prix, and the opening parties in the party areas (St Tropez, Ibiza). SXSW is the same way. Oh, the seasonal Fashion Week's are actually the best example. NYFW goes into London Fashion Week, into Paris, into Milan. Then a month has definitely gone by. This happens in both February and in September. There are a bunch of bullshit tech conferences if thats more your speed, just excuses to go to some cities with other people that want to party, or are kind of looking for deal flow, or are in sales at a big company. A lot of VC people wind up at those for their endless excuses to get on a stage and talk amongst themselves in a "fire side chat". You can invite them out more easily when you don't seem like someone that needs them.
  - softcactus 4y ago
    I haven't heard of half of these or been to Europe for that matter, but it's cool insight. What was your path as an entrepreneur to be able to afford to go to these events?

softcactus 4y ago

What life choices did you make to be able to have access to private equity markets but also go to month-long festivals? Also what festivals are a month long? I have a feeling we may be in different tax brackets haha.

vmception 4y ago
> What life choices did you make to be able to have access to private equity markets but also go to month-long festivals? Some entrepreneurial things worked out, some speculative things worked out, they're not mutually exclusive to me. (When I do an entrepreneurial thing, I think of the shares I create as being part of my portfolio just like shares I bought from someone else. Its the same buy low, sell high mentality to me. Pocketing some/alot of the revenue is an option as well, if there is any revenue, ha.) Also, turns out accredited investor status (and similar wealth thresholds for financial products) are "self-certifications", which is a euphemism for lying. Took me longer than it should have to catch on to that. The only exception being a Reg D 506(c) offerings, which require proof of accredited investor status. It also took me a while to understand that the consequence isn't on the individual, its on the person selling shares. And they want your money, they just need to check a box. The government says "you can check that box, if they say so". So, no sanction on them as long as they ask (for the most part), and you don't act like a poor person scrounging around for the money you said you had. Maybe one of those private investments hit, and never look back. Better than wasting 4-8 years of your life being paid in lottery tickets across a handful of companies, lottery tickets that have worse odds than the investors of the same company have purchased.
- h-w 4y ago
  Do you have two million liquid bucks or not?
  - astrange 4y ago
    You don’t need that if you earn $200k a year, have two kinds of stockbroker licenses, or are good at lying. I signed up for some accredited investor sites after passing via the income rule and was kind of annoyed that it just causes people to call you who expect you to have $50k to invest like it’s pocket change.
  - vmception 4y ago
    The first time I passed accreditation, I created a crypto token with a super high supply and sold one, this affected some applications to extrapolate the value of my holdings. A lawyer looked at it and made the attestation that I was accredited and I was able to participate in a couple offerings over the next few months. (Lawyer verified onchain as well) The second time was after some professional and speculative successes, and I realized that people expected me to be accredited. That was nice. So I “self certified” that I was accredited and got to participate in the rounds. No need to bother with extremely low float assets, although still an option. All subsequent times I continued to self certify regardless of the economic reality, periodically it’s above the threshold in pure liquid assets, otherwise it was a stretch of the imagination and pure financial engineering. There are also much higher monetary thresholds like “qualified investor”. Everything higher is also a self certification. Its a dumb caste system so I have dumb solutions for it, its super effective. I took it waaay too seriously when I was younger, I just didn’t know the consequences and expected to be treated as a joke by super serious people, turns out nobody cares and capital games are all casual entertainment to the wealthy, show up if you’re interested, bring your own capital. You still have to actually have the cash to invest. If you can’t come up with $25k minimum it’s going to be weird.
vmception 4y ago
> Also what festivals are a month long? I have a feeling we may be in different tax brackets haha. Usually not just a single thing, but if you go to some main ones its easy to get caught up in a string of things with other people that think its normal to keep going. Art Basel in Miami last December was 1 week long, and surrounded by multiple other festivals. The energy stays there for some time, and next thing you know its New Years which has its own surge again. Cannes Film Festivals is two weeks and goes right into the Monaco Grand Prix, and the opening parties in the party areas (St Tropez, Ibiza). SXSW is the same way. Oh, the seasonal Fashion Week's are actually the best example. NYFW goes into London Fashion Week, into Paris, into Milan. Then a month has definitely gone by. This happens in both February and in September. There are a bunch of bullshit tech conferences if thats more your speed, just excuses to go to some cities with other people that want to party, or are kind of looking for deal flow, or are in sales at a big company. A lot of VC people wind up at those for their endless excuses to get on a stage and talk amongst themselves in a "fire side chat". You can invite them out more easily when you don't seem like someone that needs them.
- softcactus 4y ago
  I haven't heard of half of these or been to Europe for that matter, but it's cool insight. What was your path as an entrepreneur to be able to afford to go to these events?