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June 29, 2026
How to Hustle Like a Tech Founder
by Andrew Patrick Clark
Mind on the Grind
Founders know how to grind. Grind on the job. Grind at the gym. Grind your spices in an authentic molcajete. Grind your own meat for a perfect blend of Chuck, Skirt, and Sirloin. Grind your teeth as you lie in bed at night. When your dentist gives you a retainer to protect your teeth, grind right through it to prove your hustle.
Hit the Ground Running
You can’t hustle alone. Move to a city where founders thrive and get to work. Head to Miami if you want to scam people with crypto, or San Francisco if you want to scam people with AI. If you’re scamming people the old-fashioned way, stick with New York.
Optimize Everything
Set yourself up for success with an efficient morning routine. Wake up and go for a jog, followed by light yoga and meditation. Hit the sauna, then an ice bath, then a fire bath. Get some breakfast and treat the third-degree burns from the fire bath. Write down what you want to accomplish today, this week, and over the next half century. Contemplate your own mortality. Stare into the void for five and a half hours. Once that’s finished, it’s time to start your evening routine.
Bootstrap It
Founders don’t take handouts. If you want to build something, you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Clench your fists, grab those laces, and show the world how hard you can pull. Tell everyone that you’re pulling your bootstraps as hard as you can, but for some reason, you can’t get off the ground. If you pull hard enough, then one day you’ll be a CEO, as long as you don’t throw your back out yanking on these damn bootstraps.
Find, Solve, Repeat
The best founders identify a human problem. Pinpoint a social ill, monetize it for your personal gain, then spread the problem to increase your market share. Before the pitchforks come out, set up a fake charity that claims to solve the problem you just exacerbated. Remember, it’s not white-collar crime if you’re wearing a hoodie.
Get Jacked
You think those bootstraps are going to pull themselves? Bulk up and get tugging. From South Florida to Silicon Valley, everybody knows that more muscle equals more money. Hit the gym until your dress shirt looks like it’s three sizes too small. You want every button just on the verge of popping, like the blood vessels in your forehead. Now you’re ready for your first podcast appearance.
Spread the Word
Why build a company when you can tell other people how to build a company? Write and sell an ebook sharing your wisdom. Reveal insider secrets like “securities fraud is no biggie” and “it’s not a Ponzi scheme if you’re the only one making money.” You have every right to call a twelve-page PDF a "book." You’re basically Herman Melville, if Moby-Dick was about tax evasion.
Technology
Startups
Ceos
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