Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

[Jarvani]

I'll be brief.
I've been here before.
In 2015 I was in college.
My monthly allowance from my parents was rent + $150. College in my country is free if you have good grades, so at least we didn't have that draining my folks' wallets. But college (computer science) in my country was severely outdated. The computers we were using were older than me, because they were the same ones we had when I was in 3rd grade. No chance you're building a startup when the computer isn't even starting up.

Anyway.
I was hungry. And foolish.
I did what any kid that's told to just stay in his lane does. I started buying stuff from China with my food money. I turned to rice and potatoes for a few months. I put ads in our version of the Craiglist first (having read Tim Ferriss in the past), and only then I'd order whatever I got at least 2-3 calls on. I'd tell them I'm getting a new shipment soon (sometimes 4 weeks, sometimes 10), and contact them when I received them.
I hustled, and after 1 year, I even managed to put together a website (that was 2016) and I was doing quite quite well. More than my folks combined. Life was good, food was a plenty, girls loved that I had free time cuz I only did shipping and ads. Did I mention I dropped out the first month I made double what my professor made?

Soon enough, however, the government started cracking down on sellers that don't pay taxes (huh? I need to pay the government out of my hustle?) and while I was spared, I knew that soon enough I'd be beaten to a pulp by sellers that were buying bulk. 2016 was also when I read MJ's first book and joined a bit this forum. But while I was reading all what you people were doing, I was stuck.
I didn't have a sizeable income, I didn't have a bankable company, it was just me and my soon-to-be obsolete 1-man-shop.

Fast forward 3 years of too little work, too many girls and definitely too much food, all I had in my name was some crypto and a lot of tech toys. I had a chance to make it big, but business became a daunting task in my mind, with some flights to China trying to "make" products turning into seeing those products on amazon a few weeks later. I didn't have Control.

One evening in 2017 I was scrolling facebook business groups, and I saw a "hire" add in a facebook student group. I went there to see what's what, I got along well with the guys, we were doing media for sporty people (trying to not dox myself). Unfortunately, my mom had some issues, and whenever they needed me, I had to leave town, so after a few attempts they stopped contacting me.

Fast forward to 2019, I get a call from one of the guys if I'm still up for something more long term. I said sure.

The first months were a bit intense, but then the hours became quite permissive, needing only 2-3 days/week and paying almost triple the minimum wage in my country. Score!

Then, just as I got in the groove, Covid hit. My "business" died almost overnight. I barely made $100 some months, and at one point I pulled the plug.
Sports events also gonezo. However, the company was generous enough to pay us a % of the salary for that year, regardless of work. That was awesome. I bought 1000 mile plane tickets with $11 at one point, was chilling in Europe, and when lockdowns started lifting and we started working again, I made it a mission to learn as much as possible and outwork people. Within 1 year, the guy that thought me everything was earning half of me. I proved myself over and over again, created and automated tools, hired people that worked under my supervision, and everything was great.

In present, after a few years of getting my foot in the door, I managed to deliver to them almost 3x the usual amount that they were getting before I got involved (from the same amount of people). That translated into some income. Now I make 10x minimum wage in my country, and I probably work 10-15hrs a week.

I know I'm replaceable, but they need 3 or 4 people to do that, and I'm also not a troublemaker for them. Our business is also very resilient (lockdowns excluded), and I think we can easily survive AI for the next 100 years. As long as humans exist, there's not much to automate at what we do (believe me, I've tried).

Now, why do I write this story?

I haven't been hungry in a while. And I'm starting to feel not foolish. AI like Claude is giving me superpowers that I didn't know were possible, and I'm outworking our software developers. The problem is, there's only so much they're willing to pay one person. I could bring in 2 million dollars worth of profit, but they couldn't justify a 500k increase. They'd rather just take the -1.5 millions.

So there's no upside from me going from 15hrs a week to 30 or 40. Which is why I'm starting to get hungry.

I'm doing very well with these golden handcuffs. I'm outearning my parents combined a few times. Not too shabby. But I am getting...hungry.

I know I can do more. I've done a few years automating my job from 40-50hrs/week (post-lockdown got really busy) to 10-15, and now I feel...bored.

I believe humans function in cycles. I believe the next cycle has started, and like any good cycle, you first go down before swinging back up. There's a storm in all markets brewing, I think this end of the decade will be very turbulent, and I think we're positioned quite well to be greedy when others are fearful. There's a few years that will make or break generations, and the 2030s and 2040s will be, if we're still alive and resourceful, a Renaissance for the human body the likes of which we've never seen since antibiotics. I will work on trying to make some CENTS in my life. I hope you do the same.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
-Jarvani

P.S. There are zero connections between my name and google, so whatever you find using my name is irrelevant. I actually have it from my favorite League of Legends champion, Jarvan IV, and John Wick's name, Jardani, so I combined them.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Ximduni, eqqsidoevi vji opvsu.

O'n fuoph wisz ximm xovj vjiti humfip jepfdaggt.

Raovi quttocmz vji xustv vjoph gus nuvowevoup. Dungusv fuit puv nuvowevi. Zua tez zua'si japhsz, cav zuas xusft onqmz zua'si ximm gif. Ot vjisi e qmep, epf og tu, xjev xomm dunqim zua vu hiv vji cemm summoph?