Once Undesirable, Now Undeniable
How Flipping the Script Made Me the Hunted, Not the Hunter
Table of Contents
Once Undesirable, Now Undeniable
This blogpost was published on my X/Twitter account on April 30th, 2025 .
March 2024, reading through Hacker News Who Is Hiring Thread, I saw a job profile that fits me. I liked it so much that I reached out to the author that same night on LinkedIn (Co-founder & CTO). My profile based on previous employment alone would signal a misfit, but everything I do day-to-day in my own time tells a different story, this is my passion and I do it non-stop. Nevertheless, it was an uphill battle to convince the CTO to get on the phone with me. I basically wrote a 3-pages cover letter about my profile and how it matches their job description. He decided I should get a chance to go through their process, but ultimately they hired someone else who’s more experience with their stack. No hard feelings.
I Quit Your Game
Last month I published From the Shadows to the Feed: Why I’m Finally Playing the Game . Since then, I have been honored with ~3.5k new followers. Superlinear growth is something I’m addicted to; I crave it in anything and everything I do in my life. Once I have the fundamentals down, I obsess over growth rates, getting better at a higher-than average pace is an absolute necessity to me.
Getting a job, however, in this market, was the opposite of superlinear. It was a death-by-a-thousand-cuts. I had already been dabbling with AI/LLMs for the past year or so, and I could foresee what was coming. I told my very supportive better half that I will not be applying for jobs because it’s a waste of time, and that given all indicators, I have to pivot and fully focus on AI, and invest heavily in it right now.
Flipping The Script, Slowly
That’s how I came to build my AI Cluster . I sat down by the hours learning, experimenting, and stressing out about that bet I am taking on myself. I relaunched my website , started blogging, and started putting the time into making myself seen. Tweeting, trying to say hey, I am that kinda-famous user on r/LocalLLaMA .
I am here. I am good at what I do. I just don’t know how to get you to see it. Every now and then I would shamelessly, insert my AI server into replies when it’s relevant. I got invited to livestreams and accepted right away. I started hosting audio spaces on X/Twitter. I tweeted more and more frequently, engaged with people, made friends. I blogged some more. Wrote articles on X because the algo. Started my own YouTube channel. Livestreamed some stuff. Got invited to more live streams and more spaces… Finally, some superlinear growth.
But that’s not what this article is about.
The Profile
When you’re playing the same game as everybody else, you’re pouring everything you’ve got into a game that was never designed to favor you. Unless you have an unfair advantage, you’re just gambling.
What’s my unfair advantage? What makes my profile hunted for? My focus immediately shifted to that after the experience I mentioned at the beginning of the article. I decided to stop playing the game with rules that aren’t meant to make me win. I’ll become the huntee.
Slowly, Becoming The Huntee
In December last year, 3 months from my first blogpost and any of the activity I spoke of above, I cold emailed ~3-4 dozens of AI startups that were hiring on Hacker News. I pretty much wrote a paragraph about myself, attached links to a few of the things I have posted and built, and asked if they’d be interested in chatting.
Every single one of them got back to me except four. That was my litmus test. Just nine months earlier, I was having a hard time convincing someone of my profile. Now? The interest was real, but I still wasn’t being hunted. After some reflection, I chose not to move forward with those opportunities, they just didn’t ignite the kind of passion I look for. To this day, I still get follow-ups checking if the timing’s changed and if I’m ready to re-engage.
Slowly, Then All at Once
Let me be crystal clear, I’m deeply grateful for where I am right now. My DMs are in constant motion. I’m being offered roles I would’ve leapt at just a year ago. But all of this did not happen to me overnight. I was lucky enough to be able to support myself into a soft career shift. I had an understanding support system that believed and continue to believe in me.
That being said, every so often, you feel it. Something shifts. Something clicks. A new chapter is about to begin. Lately, it’s been dawning on me: Somewhere along the way, the chase reversed. I no longer search, they arrive. I’ve become the hunted. A very wise man (WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes) once said, “once undesirable become undeniable.” Now, I am being presented with opportunities as I keep working on myself and building my profile, as I learn and build, as I share my thoughts and make connections. As my network distribution expands, so do the doors that open. I’m lucky, yes; but I’ve also been putting in the work.
Sometimes, you just have to flip the script. You have to refuse playing a losing game. You have to make something out of nothing. And most often, that doesn’t happen until you have your back against the wall. I think I was there. I hope if I take anything from this, it’s the courage to quit games that I know deep down that I won’t be able to win, and to flip the script whenever it’s the right-and courageous-thing to do, not just because there is no other way out.
A long time ago, back when I was still a kid trying to make it and hoping to go to a CS school in the US, I used to whisper a quiet prayer: “Fear is my enemy, keep it far from me. Clarity is my path, let it refine me.” And these days, I walk with less fear, and more fire; not because the road is easy, but because it’s finally mine.
Until next time.