The B team.

08-06-2026

I've always been apart of the B team.

In high school, I was the Vice President of our CyberPatriot team (cybersecurity tournaments). I never applied to the President position.

I hit Masters in League of Legends. I stopped trying to reach GM after that.

I went to UIUC for Computer Science. I never applied to MIT, CMU, or Stanford.

After college, I joined a remote unicorn company. I didn't get interviews from big tech or any sexy startup with a cool logo and a twitter presence.

You get the point. I've always loved the B team. The B team is safe. The B team is comfortable. The B team is a stamp of approval from those who don't know any better. The B team is a "Hey, that's pretty cool!"

And when you're apart of the B team, you can critique the A team. You can be apart of the crowd that acclaim all Stanford or MIT grads grew up in privilege; all while knowing you didn't have to work a job in high school and could spend all day studying as well.

Ultimately, the B team is a poison, and robs you of wanting to do better. After all, why would you want to the join the A team, when it's filled with rich underdeveloped losers who are actively making the world a worse place? It's much easier to move to Wicker Park in Chicago with my cushy remote software engineer salary and spend my days thrifting and eating at local restaurants, swearing that you "aren't like those other tech people in SF."

Here's the thing. A lot (and I mean a lot) of the hate towards SF is justified. The city is filled with millionnaire tech transplants who attend tech events with free food, while starving, drug addicted people sleep right outside their high rises. It's truly dystopian. With that being said, I do think there is a lot of hate towards SF that come from a place of insecurity. You may feel like how I used to feel: that moving to the city is quietly admitting that you do actually care to participate in the rat race want to join the A team.

My point is that you should try joining the A team. In something. Work, hobbies, anything. Joining the A team doesn't magically signal to the world that you have no taste, or you contribute no good to the world, or that you are a money sucking demon. Because all of that can be true regardless of what team you're on.