I told people I'm a convicted felon after 20 years of hiding it
buford.bgHi there.
I was engineer number 3 at Eventbrite and founding engineer at Reforge. I've created a dozen or so startups myself and have worked in many others, like Instacart. All this time, no one knew that I was a convicted felon.
It wasn't exactly a topic that came up, but it was certainly something that I never brought up. When you're a convicted felon, people look at you as if you are tainted.
I was unable to rent apartments in San Francisco. I was unable to get a job directly after being released from prison. It's funny because when you owe the state $17,000 in restitution and you can't get a job, people become extremely desperate. And that desperation can easily put you right back into prison.
So I went from homeless person at age 19 to 7-figures about 10 years later. I retired at age 38.
What I'm doing now is writing an autobiography. The main theme of it is hope.
And I want to make sure that people know about it. They don't necessarily have to be interested in it, but if people know about what it's like sleeping in a car believing that one day you will travel the world and then actually doing it, then I think I've accomplished my task in writing this book.
If you're interested, please let me know.
I was unable to rent apartments in San Francisco.
I was unable to get a job directly after being released from prison.
It's funny because when you owe the state $17,000 in restitution and
you can't get a job, people become extremely desperate.
And that desperation can easily put you right back into prison.
I suggest that serially denying paid-for redemption (fines, incarceration) forever (never ending punishment delivered via criminal records) is deeply evil.
There's two ways arresting people safeguards society. You mentioned meaningful redemption. The other is removing the criminal from the general public which prevents them from harming others. Time takes care of a lot as it's overwhelmingly < 50 year olds that commit violent crime.
You forgot the other part which is most important to the government that runs the system.
By fining the crap out of these people and putting them on the treadmill of poverty we intentionally economically marginalize them so they with near certainty can't amass the wealth or power needed to threaten the system. Sure, you could go all in on a life of crime, become a drug kingpin, whatever, but in doing so you've also given the state an easy button to come after you if you get uppity. It's intentional. The system does not want these people to go on to be wealthy and powerful decades later. The absolute last thing the system wants is one of these guys going on to run some regional business empire or whatever and going all in on some political candidate that's gonna screw the jailer's union or apply more transparency to the courts or whatever so the system intentionally saddles them with this debt burden when they're rebuilding their lives.
A judge should be the ones handing out sentences, not landlords, recruiters, etc.
Anything requiring safeguarding should be based on a whitelist, not a blacklist, so anybody deemed not suitable to be around young/vulnerable people can be punished by having credentials taken away.
When your punishment is deemed over, that should be that, tbh.
the fact that you're quick to tell me you're a pardoned felon but not why gives me a creepy feeling, and I say that with a lot of felon friends and family..
probably not the detail to omit to try to hook a readership..
technical aside : on low bandwidth connections your site acts really inconsistent and weird; it appears to be downloading those on-hover sound files.
It may be a bit of a "hook." He mentions that he explains it in the book, and provides the first chapter. It's probably in there.
I was a nasty felon, but as a juvenile (13). I got clean at 18, so my adult record is unblemished; but nowadays, I would probably be tried as an adult.
No, I'm not not gonna mention why, here. It's just a distraction.
Unfortunately, it would actually probably matter a lot if you can afford a good attorney.
Glad to see you're doing well now.
It pretty much bankrupted my parents.
I was a bad, bad, boi...
At 18 he hit his father in the head with a baseball bat. Not sure if he killed him.
That's all the info in the first chapter of his book. It's kind of gross gleeful description of the act. Don't think the book is for me.
In the comment he says he was homeless at 19 so at most he got less than 2 years prison.
https://sos.ok.gov/documents/Pardons/204490.pdf
That’s his pardon. That’s about all we got though, the record was expunged.
When I saw "pardoned" on his site I thought "I'll wager January 6 and a MAGA pardon".
But this says 2013 so my guess doesn't line up.
It is not hard to figure out at all. The first chapter of the book is linked on his site.
Thank you for sharing this. I would be excited to read your autobiography.
I find stories like yours inspiring, and reassuring in a way. I'm increasingly worried about this trend toward being tough on crime in response to growing public disorder, increasing maximum sentences, and generally taking a no-holds-barred approach because good society has been wronged.
I've been a victim myself, from petty theft to assault when I intervened to stop a hate crime, by people out on bail with long court records. After being assaulted I really did start to question my beliefs on this. But I still very much genuinely believe that people can change and should be given a second chance, even though some won't take it seriously, and for others it might take a very long time.
I've met quite a few people with criminal records, or records as youth offenders, who genuinely did become better people over time. A former classmate of mine used to deal cocaine and is now a personal trainer with a wonderful personality and sense of morality. Another used to be a lookout for a stash house and has similarly moved on from that life.
I guess that's what I find so reassuring about stories like yours. I've seen people change and move on from what was probably the worst chapter of their lives, and become people I'm genuinely glad to know. I worry that in our societal desire to be tougher on crime, we're becoming less willing to give people that chance. And I think stories like yours are a good reminder of why we shouldn't lose sight of it.
People can change when you have a justice system that is aimed at reforming offenders rather than simply locking them away or punishing them. America's justice system is the opposite of that, socializing even petty criminals that incidentally land in the system into doing more crime. That's why America has so many more people locked up compared to other countries, which is significantly more expensive in the long run, too...
There's a lot of folks who can only feel that justice is served when someone is punished. I guess in their minds a debt exists that can only be paid in pain/suffering. I'm not exactly why suffering would make someone feel whole. Correct me if I'm getting this wrong.
Minor feedback: please don't have your site make noises. It's distracting.
>What I'm doing now is writing an autobiography. The main theme of it is hope.
Hope to work hard and win the lottery ticket when the game is stacked against you? What hope?
I'm happy for your personally, but it doesn't sound like a message of hope.
Reminds me a bit of the actors that tell you they finally broke it big because they didn't quit, or that they made it right before they ran out of money.
That's great and a nice story, but it doesn't take into account the many more that really did run out of money and got into a real tough situation, or didnt quit and just kept trying til their time was over.
I read the first chapter of your autobiography, looking forward to reading the rest. For the current audience reading this, do you mind spoiling/summarizing how you got into software engineering? Had you dabbled in it before your conviction, and did you study it while serving your prison sentence?
Thanks for sharing this!
I tend to hang with a number of folks with similar stories (I've been a Recovering drug addict for 46 years, and only mention it now, occasionally, because I'm not looking for a job -and it's usually not relevant to HN discussions).
Show HN: I write books and stuff and have a juicy clickbait hook
Good for you, mate! Less good for those nuclear secrets you may or may not have stolen and those antelopes you may or may not have sex trafficked
He hit (killed?) his father on the head with a baseball bat.
Telling people that you are a convicted fellon without disclosing what you did is a red flag to me.
Especially if its for the purpose to drum up interest for your autobiography.
This is why i believe, after prison, there shouldn't be any consequences since you already spent your sentence
Mixed feelings about it, though appreciate you sharing. Retired at 38 also sounds way too young, not as in "good job dude" but as in you have so much life ahead of you.
Why do you assume that retirement = life over? If anything, now he has the opportunity to enjoy life on his terms.
I guess maybe it's just how I read that word, dictionary says "having finished one's active working life."
I struggle to relate to that for some reason, for me work brings a bit of meaning to life and it's not just about paying the bills.
We are also social creatures, working is a good way to remain social.
I guess maybe he will now "pick and choose" his jobs? Though sounds like he had already been doing this prior ... unless those jobs were toxic to him and he did it for the cash or other motivations, but in his blog he says he loved startups. (It also says he build companies for fun, that to me isn't the same as "retired")
Anyways, the way I see that is more like someone boasting about financial freedom but still actively working. Is that how people define "retirement" these days?
Is my understanding of retirement wrong?
Does art lack meaning and purpose until it’s sold?
Your interpretation of retirement is probably more strict than most people’s, but even if it wasn’t, how can it be hard to imagine connecting with a community outside your coworkers and customers? That you don’t have to be employed and monetizing your labor to create anything worth sharing?
Even if you would be miserable without some form of external validation how can it be difficult to imagine that others are capable of simply enjoying the limited time they have to be alive, spending it on things that matter more to them than polishing a deck on SaaS sales metrics? How can it be unclear that the reality of work for the vast, vast majority of humans on earth is a brutally costly and undesirable experience? People die in low-paying jobs they took to survive roughly every other minute.
Good for you that you dig what you’re doing though, I hope you never have to see the alternative.
I was talking more about OP, and folks in his position, that seem to chase a bag of cash and then boast about retirement but keep relentlessly doing exactly what they did before.
What you're talking about feels very different to me, this idea of having to work to survive or the idea of an artist that wants to express themselves but ends up selling his art to pay the bills, I find those to be different societal constructs and it doesn't really feel like something I would call "work" either.
If my definition of retirement is different than most, than maybe so is my definition of "work".
I am definitely grateful, and I do value what I have! It wasn't always like this.
That makes much more sense! I was perhaps being uncharitable in my interpretation.
your website uses the exact tech as the openAI website that they had for Astra. Interesting
I don't know anything about this Astra thing but his site looks very AI-generated!
And definitely seem to give off 'smug' vibes about his life afterwards. I'm all for people paying their debt but I didn't get the main theme of hope.
I got a feeling of lack of remorse and someone sort of sociopathically showing off.
There are some parallels with other very successful people I have met in my travels. Thankfully not all, but a lot seem to have this... personality quirk.
It's called reddit derangement.
Care to elaborate?
Assault and Battery with a Deadly Weapon.
Ummmm, actually, I can think of a few politicians who have been accomplices to this, or have authorized this type crime, even one more recent, on a massive genocidal scale, against foreign citizens.
"All this time, no one knew that I was a convicted felon".
Hmm, did he change his name, or ?
Tldr:
Hit his dad on the head with a metal baseball bat with other family members around.
This could be a crazy violent act that deserves making someone a felon, it could be an act of self defense that was unfairly prosecuted, or it could be something in between.
Well it happened when they accused him of being part of a robbery that took place. So, kind of looks like it might be the first one.
In that first chapter, however, he discusses his relief. Even after realizing how horrific what he just did is.
As someone else said, there is no chapter 2.
My own guess is that it was a response to some type of long-term abuse.
I can't even find a mailing list to sign up for. But I'd read the rest of this.
ASPD perhaps which would also explain his fast life type strategies of high risk high reward low impulse control decisions. Which in this case led to success.
Reminds of the veritassium video where it said being persistent is more valuable than being consistent in the sense that you only need to win the lottery once to be rich forever. Whereas you can consistently work a job for an indefinite quantity of time and never be rich.
most people who win the lottery aren't rich forever.
>most people who win the lottery aren't rich forever.
Everytime that gets mentions someone points out it's mostly a myth that lottery winners lose it all shortly afterwards. There are a few high profile instances of people winning millions and then wasting it all and then having to go back to work within a couple of years, but it's not the norm.
I think GP likely meant "win the lottery" metaphorically, like playing the startup game and getting to a large exit.
I imagine this largely depends on whether one elects for the lump sum or annuity payments.
What did you do?
https://buford.bg/books/buford-versus-oklahoma-1
Doesn't go into the why, however. Presumably future chapters will.
I believe I've located a news article which gives a brief description of the altercation, at https://archive.is/utJqE
It says that his mother told police that "her son hit her husband after the couple confronted him about being involved in a robbery. She told police her son had property in his room that they believed may have come from the robbery."
I've read it and besides the "why", I'm also wondering about the long-term impact on the person who was hit (Buford's father).
I guess this means chapter one's a good hook.
Unfortunately there is no chapter 2 for me to pay for…