TL;DR: He used to use drugs and booze to deal with his insecurities. Then he used money. Now he (apparently) uses the attention that comes from telling everyone how wise and honorable he has become.
This is a perfect example of the cynic snarkiness for the sake of snarkiness that plagues Hacker News; the guy of the article only has written one article besides this one[0] and that's it. He doesn't even have a profile pic or a clickable profile as most journalist in the NYT have. And he seems to spend his time as the director of something called groceryships not creating support groups for money addicts or selling self-help books. So much for an attention-seeker.
"Cynical: believing that people are motivated by self-interest." Call it a plague if you like, but I'm OK with it.
And I wasn't being sharply critical (snarky) for the sake of being sharply critical. Honest.
He's pretty actively promoting himself, his story, and his business (which is what it is) online, and he just successfully SEO-bombed his way to the top of the charts. You may think it's out of an abundance of goodness, but I think that's as naive a view as you think mine is cynically snarky. (Or snarkily cynical.)
Because his name is not clickeable it means 100% of the people that is interested in him had to google him. So it's pretty easy to measure it's impact.
So it's impact augmented by a factor of 20; if he was searched 10 times per month before it means now he is being searched 200. So not that much but even if it were your point still doesn't make sense to me because what difference would there be with anyone writing anything? I guess that your point is not that everyone should write anonymously right? So, what is it?
Well, you're partly right. I don't think he's using attention in the same way. Sure, it's a self reporting story but let's say that he has mostly handled the internal problems that made him an addict. He even admits he still buys lottey tickets. But in his case he's using his tendencies to help rather than hurt people.
I don't doubt that he's doing some real good; it's the self-aggrandizing style that opens him up to a whole host of issues.
It's a dilemma, for sure, but a guy who's so apt to talk specifics in terms of his income and bonuses doesn't present himself as operating from a place of humility. I know people who went through roughly the same evolution he claims to, but the ones who actually internalized the lesson aren't humble-bragging to the NYT under a byline, but are actually out trying to do good with as little self-aggrandizement as possible.
Like it or not, the way in which he chose to share his message completely undermines it, and it doesn't make his current situation seem too terribly different from his previous ones. Less destructive and more functional, sure, but the dynamic seems largely unchanged.
so? good for him.
I think it's an inescapable reality of the human condition:
we suffer an irresolvable emptiness. we make different choices about how to fill the unfillable hole. I think his choice to fill his by spreading hard-won wisdom and describing a path to honour is a smart solution to a problem we all face.
Gaining wisdom by way of being paid massive amounts of money is an odd definition of "hard-won". Many people find out that their career is largely unsatisfying without stockpiling a safety net that could last a lifetime in the process.
It's one rung up the ladder from the guys who make their money in ethically grey ways, find religion, preach their conversion, but keep the money. (But it's still a rung up, mind you, and that's a good thing.)
Good for him that he earned so much, and that he seems to have found meaning in things besides money, but the story is pretty clichéd.
And I'm not sure "irresolvable emptiness" and an "unfillable hole" is quite so universal as you seem to indicate, nor do I think all attempts at filling voids are of equal value. (I'm not saying you do, either, just trying to be clear.)