I did learn lessons. I mistimed commodities and got burned. I mistimed the 2008 recession (thought it would be 2007) and the put options expired worthless (though still dodged the recession).

But anytime I mention my gains on HN the crowd says the same two or three things:

1. You're just lucky.

2. Herp quit your job and work Wall St. (No. I'm not primarily money motivated and those people generally, um, are far from my cup of tea.)

3. You're just lying.

They can keep saying that, they can keep down voting me. They didn't buy Tesla early or Bitcoin early or Shopify early, so nobody did that wasn't lucky. I'm not saying I'm some sort of finance prodigy, but it has been pretty easy to call tech stocks for the past ten or fifteen years and combine that with dodging recessions and an otherwise diversified portfolio and yearly returns after inflation of 15% are achievable, not even counting the Bitcoin payday.