Suffering from success
Two years ago my life changed. After locking myself in my room since the beginning of the year I was hungry to run it up turbo. Peak 2021, money was being sloshed around and pictures of rocks were trading for hundreds of thousands. After being wiped out completely, I was ready to quit finding some edge in this pvp landscape and focus back on remote-learning in the only UC that accepted my gpt2 generated essays. Out of sheer luck and desperation I won a giveaway for some barely liquid token… I took whatever I had left scraped together and started deploying contracts to try doing arb on developing chains. By the end of the month I got a lot more lucky — most ppl weren’t technical on-chain which gave me some edge.
I moved into college for the first time from remote learning trying to find some semblance of where I was and what I should do next. Taking calls with lawyers, accountants, friends, and trying to mingle with my roommates. None of it made sense and as the days went on an unsettling feeling seeped in — what if that was just luck?
Before I could think about it, I was abruptly kicked out on a Saturday morning after admins realized I failed to meet GPA reqs and moved out promptly back to the South Bay. There I started living a life I thought would make me happy -- going to Whole Foods, exploring Los Altos, speeding through highway 9.
By the end of it I had no friends, no formal education, and for the first time got depressed. I was bullied out of my high school because of poor grades, now a college dropout because of grades, and the only thing that I had was an inflated ego.
I was being rejected from every job I felt qualified for, not for the money, just to talk with people who weren’t my parents. Fellowships, EIR positions, internships, even this camp called rabbit-hole-athon. Out of desperation I flew to NY for the first time to attend some hacker house. Soon enough I fell in love with the walkability and the anonymity a densely populated city gives you.
Even there I thought about if I really wasn’t “talented”. I saw my peers raising multiple rounds, getting into YC, fellowships and I felt like I didn’t belong. Soon enough I left crypto because I felt like I had lost everyone I knew and had no direction to take in the space solo.
24 months later now 2023 -- I feel a lot happier with where I am at. Hiking, skiing, going to the gym, sleeping, and overcoming a lot of my social anxiety has helped me a lot in looking inwards on who I am. Not a lot of my friends come from school, and most are some semblance of hackers and founders, who inspire me greatly. I attribute a lot of my initial community meeting Tom who runs Solaris, I’ll be forever grateful to find interesting ppl in the heart of SF.
I feel more confident that the first time wasn’t a one hit wonder and I’ll be able to achieve that level of success again, evident with logging into Stripe. I have found a new pvp landscape that drives me into becoming the winner who takes all, which is ultimately the only place I want to be. After the 24 months nothing makes me happier than customers reaching out telling me I've added value for them.
Nevertheless I’ve been rejected from every fellowship and opportunity I can think of this year — openai, ai grant, hf0, pear, conviction, Neo, and probably any other program you can think of for “talented founders”
From the stories founders have openly bragged to me about Seqouia writing them a check to “f around and find out”. I find solace in finding viral distribution loops in unexplored areas or finding PMF and keep on experimenting until something hits. Deeply inspired by Midjourney’s team and journey.
Don't get me wrong these programs are great -- I want to find a mentor, fellowship, a tight-knit community of founders at some point, but clearly I don't fit some box on their list right now.
I'm not strapped by cash, but by the number of hours in the day. VCs are great people to know but maybe not take money from all the time.
All of that to say — They didn't believe in us, God did