Dylan Patel: evaluation

Transcript context

…How does one go from Reddit shitposter to running a semiconductor research and consulting firm? Let's start with the shitposting. It's a long line. I had immigrant parents and I grew up in rural Georgia. When I was seven, I begged for an Xbox and when I was eight I got it. It was the 360. They had a manufacturing defect called the red ring of death. There are a variety of fixes that I tried like putting a wet towel around the Xbox, something called the penny trick. Those all didn't work, my Xbox still didn't work. My cousin was coming next weekend and he's like two years older than me. I look up to him. He's in between my brother and me but I'm like, “Oh, no, no, we're friends. You don't like my brother as much as you like me.” My brother's more of a jock-y type. It didn't matter. He didn't really care that the Xbox was broken. He's like, “You better fix it though. Otherwise parents will be pissed.” I figured out how to fix it online. I tried a variety of fixes, ended up shorting the temperature sensor. That worked for long enough until Microsoft did the recall. But in that, I learned how to do it out of necessity on the forums. I was a nerdy kid, so I liked games, but whatever. There was no other outlet so once I was like, “Holy shit, this is Pandora's box what just got opened up,” then I just shitposted on the forums constantly. I did that for many, many years and then I ended up moderating all sorts of Reddits when I was a tween and teenager. Then as soon as I started making money… I grew up in a family business, but I didn't get paid for working, of course, like yourself. But as soon as I started making money at my internships, I was like 18 or 19, I started making money. I started investing in semiconductors. I was like, “Of course, this is the shit I like.” By the way, the whole way through as technology progressed, especially mobile, it went from very shitty chips and phones to very advanced. Every generation they'd add something and I'd read every comment, I'd read every technical post about it. Also, I was interested in all the history around that technology and who's in the supply chain and just kept building and building and building. I went to college and did data science type stuff. I went to work on hurricane/earthquake/wildfire simulation and stuff for a financial company. During college I wasn't shitposting on the internet as much. I was still posting some, but I was following the stocks and all these sorts of things, the supply chain, all the way from the tool equipment companies. The reason I liked those is because all this technology, it’s made by them. Did you have friends in person who were into this shit, or was it just online?…

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