roletype
Theory, methodology, and strategy for navigating technology hype cycles.
Bootstrapped, autonomous, optimizing for freedom instead of market dominance. The Scaler fault line, the honest 12-36-month economics, and the failure modes that turn a product into a second job.
CoinMarketCap started as a spreadsheet. The Curator creates signal out of noise — databases, leaderboards, structured overviews — and the trust asset can end in acquisition. The shapes, the economics, the failure modes.
Rigorous evaluation for decision-makers — and the map's only counter-cyclical role: skeptical analysis rises in value exactly when the bust hits. Independent vs. institutional, the economics, the failure modes.
Anthony Di Iorio ran Bitcoin meetups in Toronto — at one he met Vitalik Buterin. The Organizer builds the social substrate of a wave, and the network converts into founding, investing, and advisory positions.
The Developer builds the second layer of every hype cycle: the products and tooling on top of foundational technology. The three subtypes, how the role actually earns, its failure modes, and how to start.
Merged PRs are credentials no résumé can fake. The Open-Source Contributor builds reputation in public and converts it into hiring, consulting, or founding. Subtypes, economics, and the failure modes that waste years.
Not 'which tech job' — which role. Every technology wave produces the same 23 roles, and most people pick theirs by identity instead of fit. The full map, the fit criteria that actually matter, and three questions that narrow it fast.
Well paid, technically deep — and watching the wave from an employee seat. 'Stay a developer, add AI' is the answer almost every developer gives, and for a third of them it's wrong. The four realistic directions, and how to tell which is yours.
You're a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, an accountant — and someone just asked you to join an AI startup, advise a crypto project, or jump to a 3D-printing venture. There's a right way in and a wrong one. The outsider's guide to entering any hype cycle without getting stuck as an advisor.
roletype is an applied synthesis, not an invention from scratch. Where it sits relative to Gartner, Perez, Moore, Rogers, Amara, and Porter — plus the career-science and psychometric literatures — and the one question none of them ask.
Every early team is really just three roles: someone who builds, someone who understands the market, someone who makes it desirable. Everything else — PM, UX, DevOps, sales engineer — is what those three become when a company scales. Those fragments are the 23 archetypes.
Linux, Bitcoin, Ethereum, AI. Different waves, strikingly similar cast of characters. The structural argument for why 23 roles keep recurring across every technology cycle.
90 questions, 5 equally weighted dimensions, 23 roles, capacity flags. A complete breakdown of the scoring engine — transparent enough to verify with pencil and paper.
Some roles generate cash on day one. Others build assets that pay off later. Neither is better — they suit different risk tolerances and time horizons.
The Educator is the translator layer of every hype cycle. This deep-dive covers the four subtypes, how the role monetizes, its failure modes, and how to get started.
Ikigai asks what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. The assessment honestly measures the two circles that live inside you — and shows the other two as a separate market reality check.
The complete thematic bibliography behind the assessment: technology-cycle theory, innovation-ecosystem research, competitive strategy, career science, network theory, and psychometric methodology.