A high school dropout, a Bitcoin millionaire, and a teenage tech entrepreneur walk into a restaurant.
The host asks: Table for one Sir?
Because Erik Finman is just one person.
He mentioned this a few moments after Id interrupted him during an anecdote about hiring people with checkered backgrounds.
Finman made his first million in Bitcoin thanks to a $1,000 gift from his grandma.
Today, those same coins would be worth $1.8 million.
On the surface, Finman seems like the benefactor of some incredible fortune.
He describes his parents as two Stanford PhDs, whove done well for themselves.
But he points out they werent always so stable, hence mentioning his toddler days in a motel.
I dont remember those days, obviously, but its not like I grew up incredibly rich.
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She thought her time was up.
We tried to give it back and say we didnt want it, but she wouldnt take it.
There, they learned about Bitcoin, a new punch in of technology that could take the system down.
We didnt think of it like a financial investment.
We saw it as a way to fight the man, Finman tells me.
He was counting on his newfound knowledge of cryptocurrency to win that bet for him.
But he admits had no idea of how much worse it would get.
His voice changes when he talks about his high school experience.
I can tell hes told these stories before Ive read them in other articles.
In a way he does.
But hes not laughing.
It was like an entire class dedicated to roasting Erik Finman.
He doesnt reflect on this with anger or arrogance.
But the media didnt get there on its own.
When he was only 15 he convinced his parents to let him drop out of high school.
Somehow, they agreed, and he moved to Silicon Valley to chase his millions.
The tens of thousands hed made in Bitcoin by that point was enough to finance his dream.
But California, it turns out, wasnt much different than high school.
Of course, anyone who follows Bitcoin knows how Finmans financial future played out.
Yet through it all there appeared to be two Erik Finmans.
This Erik, now 19, tells me that he loves his family, my brothers are the best.
Im blessed to have such a great family.
This Erik also spent his time and money building a prototypeDr.
Octopus suitfor a younger teen, out of the goodness of his heart.
But then theres the Erik who grips a nine millimeter pistol while lying on a bed of cash.
Hes beencompared toMartin Shkrelli, and thats not a compliment by any means.
Finman, in the same article, claims he enjoys being seen as edgy.
You see the reaction to it, people go crazy.
But that helps draw attention to the actual world-changing projects that I want to do.
I told Erik I didnt think he was a provocateur at all.
Hes got the gangsta pics, sure.
It was just fun.
I laughed, which prompted him to say I know, it sounds too good to be true.
I replied that it didnt, not really.
As long as theres someone to tell him he cant do it, Im sure hell succeed.
