I get why this is being downvoted but it's still a very good point: an ex-con needed a previously-established connection with someone who just so happens to be CTO of a reasonably successful startup who knows another engineering lead at a fintech company who took mercy on the ex-con's predicament to get a job.
It's brazen, I admit, but the ex-con part can be substituted for other more fortunate people, like those with little experience, non-traditional backgrounds, those who never got advanced degrees (undergraduates mostly). The oh-so-different software industry isn't that different from any other industry these days in that it's more about who you know rather than what you know to find employment, but the added bonus for software types is that often enough it's both! Maybe I'll look back at this comment and feel it's overly pessimistic, but I hope that's because things changed for the better.
I mean yeah in this particular case, but the broader point still stands that prison needs to be less of a career death sentence and employers should open up to the idea of hiring former prisoners. And that there needs to be substantial reform for the prison system and that you should join a support group similar to hers to help these people out.
Yes, this bolsters the author's point that it is essential to create more opportunities because what she had to do to help her friend was only possible because of her extraordinary connections. The author herself points out that most parolees will not be released to the Bay Area with a tech exec friend willing to spend many hours to stick their neck out for them.
Comes to show, you still need connections to make it. Connections are everything, skill and intellect is largely secondary when removed from how well you network and gain friends in the industry or otherwise.
