At the age of twenty-six, John Roa founded a tech-consulting and design firm which he sold for a fortune to the largest tech company in San Francisco. His account of his rise from a below-average student, to becoming a poster boy for ambitious, successful young entrepreneurs (and nearly destroying himself in the process) is the subject of his memoir A Practical Way to Get Rich . . . and Die Trying. Roa's twenty-year-long journey from being dead-broke to wealth he never imagined is an absurd and often comical story of talent, luck, risk, sex, gambling, and excessive alcohol and drug consumption. For more info, visit https://roa.com/. The Portland Podcast is produced & edited by Gregory Druker Day (greg@pdxpodcast.com). Support the show by visiting http://pdxpodcast.com/ & rating on Apple Podcasts. Music used under license.