Thread by @flanbites

I’m sick of selling shit. I’ve been hustlin since I was 4 yrs old, in the flea markets around the Bay Area.

As a teen I saved up $40 of my lunch money to buy Magic cards, then sharked my way into a collection worth thousands.

Our entire economy is predicated on selling shit. 🧵

I’m officially done.

When I was 18 I was the youngest salesman in all Sears Brand Central depts in California. This was big ticket stuff; I sold computers.

We were encouraged to sell extended warranties, called MAs. One quarter I had the highest MA % in NorCal.

I killed a man.

I killed a man but not w/ my own hands: He tried to pass a bad check for a computer. I spotted it, reported him to Loss Prevention. They chased him into a rainy holiday intersection.

He was hit by a truck and flattened by another motorist.

I got $50 for this.

Does life = $50?

If not $50 then how much? This is a terrible game we play.

We have devalued life to the point that we’re taught that others represent opportunity. This idea is sold to us every day; each day we’re encouraged to be our own product, our own brand. Pricetags are on everything.

$50

One of the reasons I had the highest MA% in Sears was b/c I was a tenacious salesman. I had a knack and I’d been doing it since selling remnant tool bits at my dad’s stall at the flea markets at age 4. People just loved me as a kid; I’d get more than the items warranted, always.

As a teen I would carry this on. I once sold a lady so hard on an extended warranty she cried.

But she bought the warranty.

It was a simple hard sell. I was friendly. The thing about a hard sell tho, is you don’t accept No; I was 18, that’s what I did.

After that my MA % fell.

My life has been a series of disillusionments w/ our present system.

When I was 19 I taught myself HTML on the display computers at Sears. I went on to start a homepage which blew up—coincidentally—alongside the Dot Com Boom.

I was a millionaire at the age of 21.

Soon however my hard work—sacrificing friends, a relationship, my own health—amounted to nothing: the Bubble had popped.

I was young. Back then I thought contracts meant something. They don’t. They only matter insofar as you have lawyers to back up your end.

The rug was pulled.

I had 5 full-time employees, 25 contractors and 1200 volunteer staff. I managed to pay my people for a while by requesting my tax payment back; I am in debt to the IRS to this day.

That was 20 years ago.

But I paid my people.

For a while.

We aren’t rewarded for good behavior.

When things were real low—our big contract out of NY had decided not to exist (they broke it) & the online ad market had cratered—we’d get more traffic and I would mourn; how could we pay? We barely had. Once, Electronic Arts hosted my network things were so bad.

I got an offer.

So I’d had to let all but 1 of my full-timers go, stop paying contractors—amazingly these last stayed w/ me for free alongside all but 1 of our volunteer staff.

Our traffic ballooned to something like 50M pageviews and 5M unique visitors per month. We were bleeding.

The offer.

I want to ask you a Q: What have you given up? To do the right thing? No condescension intended, I’m curious.

If I asked you to boycott Amazon would you be like “Mmm gosh but they’re so conveeenient”?

What would you do to do the right thing?

I turned down a million dollars.

A now-billionaire used to follow me around to gaming conference bathrooms. He was obsessed; he would constantly call me and offer things like ringside tickets to the big fight in Vegas, a trip to Space Camp, a luxury private casino converted from suites at the top of Bellagio…

…if I would join him in the good times. But the thing is I didn’t want to hang out w/ the guy—he’d been involved in really bad shit. His company sourced slave labor out of the SEA region. If I were to describe the terrible shit he did you may not believe me.

Actually you might.

Pretty soon his Goldman Sachs–backed company was joined by none other than Steve Bannon.

I didn’t know who Bannon was.

I turned down the million-dollar offer b/c I would never betray the community I’d built. A lot of people had put in a lot of time.

I placed people over money.

I also valuated my company higher. 😊

So the Crash of ‘08 hits and I’m flattened. I’d just had a data loss that would make Murphy blush: 3 data copies all failed at once. The housing market tanks; there goes my house.

So I reach out to Steve Bannon.

We have some conversations.

I’m in a face-to-face w/ Bannon. I can tell this guy is just fuckin devoid of humanity, just like his friend. It’s all business to them. They don’t give a single fuck unless there’s a dollar bill attached; whatever “ideologies” they have mask this, they’ll gladly occupy beliefs.

The billionaire who introduced me to Bannon warned me, he even sounded nervous: “He’s kinda up the ladder,” he said to me.

I was like IDGAF MF I came up in the flea markets I been hustlin since I was 4.

So I’m sitting there w/ Bannon and I’m like I’m just gonna hustle this guy.

I mean, my company’s value has tanked, the community members I was loyal to have abandoned ship; lemme just sell this stinking crater to Bannon for whatever I can get.

But he wanted me. Probably an exec VP of what would become Breitbart or some shit. Maybe not. Dunno.

I’m like.

Pretty soon Bannon pulled a power play via his “business guy” and I’m like fuck this I BOW TO NO ONE.

Anyway, years pass and I’ve checked out of politics, of business. I damn near went homeless instead of selling to Bannon and the now-billionaire.

I’m the freest I’ve ever been.

So I’m watching SNL w/ the wifey and they keep mentioning “Bannon”; but instead of an impersonation they just have this grim reaper come out.

I laugh. Haha.

It wasn’t till a friend died of HIV and I was looking through my contacts to reach out to people we knew…

I see Bannon.

I’m like, WHAT THE FUCK, I know this guy! Wait, THAT’S the MF who got Trump elected?!

I’m about to fall out my chair.

Then I find out about the intersections b/t the alt-right and the online gaming space—my space.

I could’ve sold my soul for a million dollars.

I’m floored.

For so long I felt like an idiot. I borrowed money to keep my company afloat. I lost EVERYTHING and that is no exaggeration—errrverything.

Can you imagine? It’s like having Palpatine go undercover and tempt you to join the Dark Side and you say no and then get punished for it.

So I’m falling out my chair, putting 2+2 together: The Dark Side is real, our country is being torn apart and the two guys who pursued me and my company are in the thick of it.

So lemme ask you again: What are you willing to do?

Willing to stop selling? How ‘bout your soul?

🧶