When a casual elevator chat ends with you getting CTO-zoned for a startup

Description

Screenshot of a forum-style post on a white interface with the bold heading “Have you ever been CTO’zoned?”. Under the title is the username line “EY · highwy/Rdr”, the date “Nov 11, 2020”, and “529 Comments”. The body text reads: “I’m an Indian guy working on H1B. Met a Chinese girl in the apartment elevator (high rises, so elevator rides are typically longer). Liked her and built up the courage to talk to her before the elevator ride ended. Found a good icebreaker (she was wearing hoodie with a caption, don seem to remember), and then talked about COVID, 2020 and what we do to earn a living! She looked like she was interested and she asked for my number right before leaving. She later reached out and said she wanted to meet and talk. We met soon and she ended up pitching her startup idea to me. She says she wants me to help her build her website and potentially be the CTO. Has something similar happened to any of y’all? Would love to know that I’m not the only one.” Visually, it resembles a Blind or LinkedIn post: minimal icons, small bookmark and share buttons, black text on a light background. Technically, the meme riffs on the dreaded moment when personal interest turns into an unsolicited “co-founder/CTO” pitch, a situation many engineers encounter in startup circles and developer communities