
As an angel investor, Peter Shankman has made millions investing in startups, yet it wasn’t easy getting to the top of the ladder. He’s also a person with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and as such still bears the psychological scars of navigating a society that punishes people who aren’t neurotypical.
“Growing up, I spent my entire life being told I talked too much,” Shankman told Salon. “My middle name was ‘sit down, you're disrupting the class.’ I scraped by in school and college through the skin of my teeth, and have spent the last 25 years in therapy trying to undo the damage that constantly being told I was broken my entire childhood did to me as an adult.”