> This is unbelievable. If the author absolutely can't resist giving patio11 a bunch of advice about how to live his life, then write an email.
There was two other things I wanted to do - increase Patrick's profile in a positive way, and also make the point at the very bottom especially to young people in technology who are underpaid because they don't value/price their skills enough.
> If the author wants to tell us how super important it is to self-promote and make a lot of money, then don't make an example out of a dude whose mind and motivations are clearly completely fucking opaque to you.
He was saying he was upset when a public school teacher wanted wanted a discount because the teacher only made $60k - and he said he'd never made $60k.
Anyways, it looks like this has been popular with a lot of people and hopefully helpful, but also drawn some really strong negative reactions. I guess that's okay - ideally some good things comes out of this, I think it's quite possible. We'll see.
For what it's worth, I didn't interpret that as him being upset that he wasn't making more money; I thought he was upset because the teachers are treating him like some amorphous business-entity instead of a normal, hard-working guy who deserves what they're paying him.
Beyond the fact that I consider it extremely rude to write something like this about a private person without permission, I am strongly negative about this piece because it reinforces the bizarre idea that making money is somehow a really good and important value to have. If you have a particular passion that requires a lot of money, like running a huge business, or helping a ton of people through charity, then great -- make some money and do it! But most things that humans like don't require a lot of money!
Imagine I wrote this post:
The Genius and Tragedy of Sebastian
Sebastian is a multi-faceted genius. He’s amazingly talented, I can’t even explain how talented he is. But all is not rosy... His story thus far is a story of tragedy and wasted potential. I assumed he was a successful chessplayer. He's very smart, and has a good memory. Then I read this comment Sebastian wrote earlier today:
"I like chess, but I wish my dad would stop bragging when he beats me (I'm not even a C-class player.)"
WTF? Sebastian, dude, with your focus and brains, you could be an international master. Even if you don't fully appreciate the beauty of chess, your tournament games would entertain hundreds of players online, and help educate and inspire young players. Anyone who says "I don't care about competitive chess" clearly hasn't thought about it very much.
[insert ten pages of chess advice]
I find that to be totally identical to your post about why he should try to make a lot of money.
> Imagine I wrote this post: ... Even if you don't fully appreciate the beauty of chess, your tournament games would entertain hundreds of players online, and help educate and inspire young players. Anyone who says "I don't care about competitive chess" clearly hasn't thought about it very much.
It's a little different than that - there's some smart and accomplished people who read my site, and I was hoping to introduce them and connect them with Patrick, maybe creating some opportunities. If you posted on a Chess blog and told all your readers to go look the person up if they wanted an exceptional Chess student, and I was looking to be apprenticed, then I'd appreciate that.
I don't know how it'll go over, we'll see what Patrick says. If he's displeased or this brings ill on him, I can edit or delete the post as suits him. I wrote it with good intentions, we'll see how it goes.
> It's a little different than that - there's some smart and accomplished people who read my site, and I was hoping to introduce them and connect them with Patrick, maybe creating some opportunities.
I'm sure that if that was your true goal that there would have been better ways of going about it.
There was two other things I wanted to do - increase Patrick's profile in a positive way, and also make the point at the very bottom especially to young people in technology who are underpaid because they don't value/price their skills enough.
The latter you could have done without using patio11's real name.
The former - you are misguided. I accept that you didn't intend it, but the thing reads like "this guy is too dumb to make money from his assets".
> especially to young people in technology who are underpaid
Young people who have built up a skillset similar to Patrick's are willing to sacrifice 60-120k paying jobs in their early years in favor of going out an learning how to build a company. It takes a lot of trial and error to get it right.
While Patrick may be making less at the beginning of his career, I guarantee he'll be making more than the average bay-area developer once he really begins to nail down how to build profitable companies.
Granting a discount to that particular teacher would have been an even greater insult to any of Patrick's other customers who don't make 60K (and I'm sure there are more than one). I mean come on, anyone who makes 60K should be able to spare $30 on something that makes his/her life easier.
There was two other things I wanted to do - increase Patrick's profile in a positive way, and also make the point at the very bottom especially to young people in technology who are underpaid because they don't value/price their skills enough.
> If the author wants to tell us how super important it is to self-promote and make a lot of money, then don't make an example out of a dude whose mind and motivations are clearly completely fucking opaque to you.
He was saying he was upset when a public school teacher wanted wanted a discount because the teacher only made $60k - and he said he'd never made $60k.
Anyways, it looks like this has been popular with a lot of people and hopefully helpful, but also drawn some really strong negative reactions. I guess that's okay - ideally some good things comes out of this, I think it's quite possible. We'll see.