A story you might find interesting...

First, some context: I'm what you might consider an expert on Postgres (google: Jim Nasby). That knowledge has landed me my last 5-6 jobs, all of which have paid very well.

The important question is: how did I get here?

First, ever since I discovered databases at about age 10, something about relational theory just clicked. I was lucky to find something that I enjoyed that I could also make a living out of (though I didn't really know it back then).

In college, I discovered distributed.net and started helping out there. I'd already done a fair amount of database design by then, so I mostly worked on the stats system. But by hanging out on IRC with the other leaders, I discovered unix (specifically, FreeBSD).

FreeBSD was my first exposure to OSS. I was blown away that I could download something for free that was pretty much as good as windows as a desktop (and of course MUCH better as a server). I wanted to give back to the FreeBSD community that had created this. Not really being a programmer (I certainly wasn't good at C and knew nothing about operating systems back then), I did what I could by trying to help people on the mailing list.

A bit later I discovered Postgres. I was immediately impressed by it's capabilities. Then I looked into the community. Now here was someplace I could actually help! I'd been doing database design for over 10 years at that point. At first I was just helping users out, but over time I started interacting with people who were actually writing Postgres itself.

That interaction resulted in a very high google ranking for both my name, as well as my showing up on searches like "PostgreSQL Austin Texas". Which led to those nice paychecks.

Tying this back into your post:

• I created Intellectual Capital by studying or becoming involved with things I found interesting (database design, distributed computing, and OSS).
• I used that intellectual capital to create Social Capital by helping others and strengthening a community (all for free, and with no expectation of payment).
• Eventually, that social capital put me in positions that improved my Financial Capital.

It's certainly been a great ride for me. I'm excited to see how Steem does.