They underestimated me. They always underestimate me.

I didn’t have one of the most successful real estate businesses in the state of California for nothing, you know. Coming to Mars was an easy choice - the colonies here would absolutely need someone with an eye for development, an eye for the long term goal - and that’s me.

I had offers from all over, of course, but the Russians always provided the best benefits. They had me settle on Thaumasia Planum, which certainly didn’t look like much at first, but I knew I would fix that before long.

Some others thought to set up shop around the same time I did. I think they assumed that just because I move a little more slowly than they do that they’d have the advantage on me. And I guess I can’t blame them for making that mistake - after all, for awhile I was paying out my ears for some of the supplies I needed that I just didn’t have access to.

Our location of choice didn’t have a lot in the way of resources, frankly. We had to jump through lots of hoops to get by. Funny thing about hoops, though, is that they’re awfully distracting - none of the others noticed the silicon mines I founded after locating a couple of rare deposits. I was doubling my profits in a matter of days and selling supplies to the colony hand over fist. I’m pretty sure the others found it exceptionally difficult to keep operations profitable without the silicon to make the glass they needed in order to expand. I’d say I was sorry about it, but that wouldn’t be truthful, and I’m an honest man.

Even my former intern, Maisie, was surprised. Either that means I've managed to keep up the element of surprise all these years, or it means she just never paid attention when things were important. Still, the kid seems to have a good head on her shoulders and definitely keeps me on my toes, so there's got to be potential in there somewhere. Now that the rest of the competition have seen what I'm capable of, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get by with fooling them as easily for here on out.

Which is fine by me... I've got quite a few more tricks up my sleeve yet.