michael_nielsen

would grad school count, then? (at least under some conditions)

definitely! But I do think that as it becomes known that it's a good way to buy runway, it becomes less useful for that.

this one is more in how you *present* the narrative, but: repeatedly build expectations, then subvert in an interesting way

so explain how you did all the usual prep/prereqs for X, then suddenly turned & (successfully) did Y instead

A concrete example of this would be interesting

hm…I think "be successful" obviates the need for runway; don't think it qualifies.

well, it’s not so much that each step was successful (several weren’t) as that they presented each step as unexpected