Harass him? What an outrageously transparent attempt to prejudice the audience, which in this case happens to also be for your own benefit as well: Good judgment would have been that you should stay away from these threads (for those who don't know, tptacek is a cofounder, with patio11, of their "turn HN fame into value" startup), but instead you come rushing in guns blazing.
I found the consulting story incredibly dubious. None of the facts meshed, and I find those sorts of pie in the sky stories to actually be destructive to people entering or in the industry. If you find skepticism "harassment" -- does fame on HN make one untouchable -- you have a very perverse sentiment of what that is.
I think you're having some trouble with the concept of "facts".
Once again: speaking as a consultant myself, and working in a field among many competing consultancies: Patrick's consulting experience is not at all atypical. Patrick was not a top-tier consultant, nor were his outcomes. People start consultancies and do much, much better than he did, or than I did. You seem to imply that you haven't, but I'm not sure why that's something you want to keep highlighting.
(I edited this comment to remove a bit of vitriol from the top, and to add the response to this anonymous commenter's claim that Patrick's experience is atypical, before which mine was a one-line comment.)
> FACT: Patrick's posts about consulting -- which sort of came out of nowhere,
Not a fact. You can go back and read about Patricks consulting efforts at least to 2010. At the time he claimed (and I have no reason to doub) to be billing out around ~5k a week (for his first few engagements).
You can also read through his posts as he mentions walking up his rate.
Again, its possible he was making all this up in a multi-year scheme to make elaborate claims. Personally, I'll take the evidence to read him as being truthful. Especially as it jives with what I've seen paid for consulting on the consumer side.
I found the consulting story incredibly dubious. None of the facts meshed, and I find those sorts of pie in the sky stories to actually be destructive to people entering or in the industry. If you find skepticism "harassment" -- does fame on HN make one untouchable -- you have a very perverse sentiment of what that is.