I've shared that essay so many times. I don't think most of them have read it.
Discussion
lol... or dipped their toe in the btc pool... but you and I got lucky right?
yes. lucky. that's it. nothing about vision or risk tolerance. Just luck. and maybe stupidity.
I was a techie and thought the idea of digital money was ridiculous because I could recreate anything digital at the time... then I read the whitepaper... hundreds of hours of books, videos, courses, meetups, research, etc. later, and I believe bitcoin will help make a better future for my grandkids... and hopefully humanity in general.
I was an educator and thought I was going to doomed to teach forever because public sector pensions suck. I couldn't get a video card in 2017 because people were using them to mine, so I looked into crypto. Started buying bitcoin as fast as I could and as much as I could from there. Then I learned about what I was really buying.
Great history... you don't mention it, but you are lucky you didn't get distracted via the ocean of shiite coins out there, and went straight into the best option. I played around for awhile with ethereum, lite coin, etc. and was open to the faster transactions debate, but eventually read Antonopolous' Mastering Bitcoin and began to really see the btc light. It's been a good ride... looking forward to it continuing down the bitcoin maximalist path. GN to you.
I played around for a little while and being a Ron Paul guy, was also still into gold and silver. But I figured out pretty quickly to focus on bitcoin only. I didn't sell all of my gold and silver until around 2021.
fyi... I have a math/ed degree and understand your concerns... I'm glad that I never ended up officially becoming a teacher... happy to educate people... just not in a typical public education scenario. My mom and dad were both teachers... so I was somewhat following their footsteps... again, glad I made the decision to veer away from it.