Childhood

Immigrating with my family to the U.S. at the age of 6 in search of better economic opportunities, I had an active childhood both mentally and physically, participating in activities such as soccer and chess. I was also an avid gamer and played online MMORPG games such as Runescape. Looking back, chess and RuneScape played significant roles in helping me achieve success in the financial markets, much more so than any classroom lecture.

Adolescence

Raised with the traditional Asian mindset of "get good grades and get into a good university", I graduated in the top 5% of my state (MD), missing only 1 question on my SATs. My world came crashing down when I was rejected by every single Ivy league school that I applied to, while my friends got accepted into schools like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. In hindsight, that experience was one of the best things to happen to me, as I realized that I could no longer rely on the "system" to guarantee my future (in addition to avoiding $100k+ in student debt!). I swore I would carve my own path and make something out of myself, although at the time I had no clue how.

Early Adulthood

Discovering the power of reading was a pivotal turning point in my life, because I realized that education and schooling are not necessarily one and the same. I would spend every available waking hour reading through topics such as human psychology, finance & economics, computer science, and so on; my thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. When I realized how slow college schooling was in comparison, I decided to drop out of my state university so I could educate myself. Was that the right decision? Not sure, but as they say, it's not always about making the right decision, but about making the decision right.

The Abyss

I stayed in Maryland for another year or so after I dropped out of school and continued to educate myself, especially in computer science. At 21, I had the brilliant idea of moving to Silicon Valley to pursue my own healthcare technology startup. Naturally as a naive kid, I struggled to raise the required investment capital to get my project off the ground, and for about 2 years I slept on a deflated air mattress in a living room of a student house, trying everything to get that project up and running. With my back against the wall, I had to come up with a Hail Mary or else I was done for.

Ascension

This is when I discovered the financial markets, specifically day trading. While many people are quick to dismiss it as "risky" and/or "gambling", to me, it was a logical game similar to poker and counting cards and therefore something that could be mastered with probability and statistics. Of course, I still made all the newbie mistakes that everyone makes. Fortunately, I kept my losses small in the beginning, and my experiencing with chess, poker, and Runescape allowed me to pick it up relatively quickly. Nonetheless, it took me 6 months of waking up at 4am, studying charts every waking hour, and constantly flirting with anxiety & depression to get to breakeven (which is actually a significant milestone). From there, I was able to consistently build up my capital from $30k to cross the $1 million mark 5 years later. Not satisfied with just stocks, I expanded into crypto in 2020 and AI in 2023.

Present & Future

The Modern Capitalist was born out of the many requests from my friends & family to share the knowledge and experience that I've accumulated during my own journey. The lessons I learned during my earlier years, of not relying on the "system" but rather taking one's education into one's own hands, has never been more relevant than today.