7 ms·

Lunch with Sean Parker: on how he's coping with his new reputation

jkaljundi 16y ago
Loved the attitude in the quote: "So is a billion dollars cool? He ponders the question carefully. “No, it’s not,” he says. “It’s not cool. I think being a wealthy member of the establishment is the antithesis of cool. Being a countercultural revolutionary is cool. So to the extent that you’ve made a billion dollars, you’ve probably become uncool.” "
- dweekly 16y ago
  It's a good idea to ask yourself what your goal is. Do you actually want to make a billion dollars? At what expense? Some things correlate much better with happiness than cash.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    Money has made more happiness than has poverty.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      Sure, but "have enough money to avoid poverty" is a much different goal than "make a billion dollars".
      - ytNumbers 16y ago
        Wanting to make a billion dollars leads to this sort of silliness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aRor905cCw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aRor905cCw
      - jonah 16y ago
        Yes. Once you reach a certain level of income the increase in happiness levels off. (Around 60k in the US apparently.)
    - zaidf 16y ago
      [citation needed]
  - sobbybutter 16y ago
    I think Thoreau said it best: "The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."
    - RyanMcGreal 16y ago
      For a detailed, pragmatic exegesis of this insight, see Your Money Or Your Life by Joe Dominguez.
  - pyre 16y ago
    Making a billion dollars, and holding on to it are separate things. If you feel that being a billionaire will make you 'uncool,' then why not just donate a large portion of it to some charity. What could be 'cooler' than making $1B and then turning around to donate $900M to charity?
jakarta 16y ago
I thought this was a great quote: “You have got to be willing to be poor [as an entrepreneur],” he says. “There was a time when I was living out of a single suitcase. I had a rule that I wouldn’t stay on one person’s couch for more than two weeks because I didn’t want to become a bother.” You've got to be willing to make sacrifices if you want to chase your dreams. A lot of people don't fully grasp that when they are coming in.
- tastybites 16y ago
  Even small-scale stuff that nobody writes articles about like putting a personal guarantee on a 2-year commercial office lease or a line of credit qualifies as sacrifice and is actually quite risky. I'd offer a small edit on the premise and say that it isn't necessarily a willingness to be poor, but a willingness to go broke for your convictions that is important. Being poor/impoverished is a mindset, being broke is a temporary condition. Somewhat tangentially related is the derivatives trader mindset which I have been reading about recently.
  - paulbaumgart 16y ago
    Chapter 7 bankruptcy doesn't even sound so bad if you don't have dependents. Although next time around you'll probably have to find someone else to guarantee that lease...
  - paulbaumgart 16y ago
    "Being poor/impoverished is a mindset, being broke is a temporary condition." I'd say being poor/impoverished is a lack of money and a lack of friends or family with money (otherwise whose couch are you going to crash on?). (Only) being broke is just the former.
  - helwr 16y ago
    tastybites, I wish I could upvote your small edit 1000 times There is this russian proverb that goes: бедность не порок, нищета порок.
gruseom 16y ago
Here we have a headline that for once is exquisitely accurate: the article is more about lunch than it is about Sean Parker.
- reduxredacted 16y ago
  I completely agree. While sitting in my basement in a t-shirt and sweatpants, I happened upon a very interesting headline on Hacker News... (I'll stop, I'm no good at it) I found it really excruciating to read this article. I realize that there's a sort of formula for telling a story in news magazines (and I appreciate that it is an art form), but it drives me crazy when the story is more about the interview circumstances and less about ... anything, really. ... Then I realized something that I've found unique about Hacker News over the last several years: The submitter added the bit about "how he's coping with his new reputation". So I can neither fault FT for writing a story, nor can I fault the submitter for finding something about the story that I'd find interesting (to the contrary, I greatly appreciate the service). Perhaps it's a new startup idea (or an old one done in many different ways [newser or even wikipedia]) ... the point in more than 200 characters and less than 4 paragraphs. Bonus if it includes customization to the reader's interests. EDIT: phrasing.
  - InfinityX0 16y ago
    I think the thing about this story clickbaitable is nothing about what surrounds the noun, Sean Parker. It's the noun, Sean Parker. Sean Parker is an enigma the hacker community wants to know about, because he has been insanely successful and at once is largely anonymous. So, I will click a post that says "Sean Parker's drooling habits" little because of what surrounds it - I will click it because have strong interest in finding out more about the noun, Sean Parker, without caring much at all about the totality of the title. The more I know about the noun, the less I click on the titles (especially as they parse down to less interesting things), but the less I know, the more likely I am to click something as snore-inducing as "Lunch with Sean Parker".
  - kvdr 16y ago
    All of you thinking about this is such a long article with no meat, why he describes food so much, hold off a bit. This is THE format of the column, he does this every week with interesting people (mostly in showbiz), its just relevant to HN due to Sean Parker.
TamDenholm 16y ago
Its a pretty interesting read. I've got to say i can see the similarities between his portrayal in the movie and his portrayal in the article and while both of those might be untrue, its still interesting. Personally though, i dont really think hes an asshole.
rcavezza 16y ago
What's the purpose of including the entire bill? They also left out some key details: (1) Who paid? (2) How much did they tip?
- jasonlynes 16y ago
  it's the format of the piece. he goes to lunch with interesting people at interesting places and includes what they ate.
  - angstrom 16y ago
    That's great and all, but what I really wanted to know is how he used his napkin? Was it folded in a triangle in his lap or a rectangle...gasp, did he use one at all?! Superfluous information is superfluous information. That said, I still skimmed it for the bits and pieces I found interesting.
- rdouble 16y ago
  As part of the format, the magazine pays except in one of the articles where the interviewee insisted on paying.
  - tesseract 16y ago
    My understanding is that it is the norm in journalism for the interviewer to pay for the meal, when an interview is conducted over one. I can think of a few reasons for this, but the ethical one (avoiding the appearance of bribery etc.) seems by far the most obvious and important.
- chalst 16y ago
  The bill is fascinating! The FT is always supposed to pay; if somehow it didn't, you can expect the piece to say so. The tip is grouped together with tax, not separately enumerated.
jasonlynes 16y ago
his character in the film was my favorite. i didn't think he was portrayed as an asshole at all; in fact, he seemed pretty badass. and the scene with the stanford girl was like the quintessential moment every geek dreams of. "you just slept on sean parker." classic.
- narag 16y ago
  I'm happy to see I'm not alone. I wondered if the fact I saw the film dubbed to Spanish made me lost some nuances. To those who think that the character is an asshole, maybe you could answer if it's because the interpretation (demeanor or tone of voice) or the behavior.
camdykeman 16y ago
I also noticed the similarities between the article and his character's introduction in The Social Network. In fact, the similarity is a bit suspect. Either Sean is actually a socialite robot who operates the exact same way every time he enters a restaurant or the author saw the movie first and has some unconscious drive to make the real Parker fit that mold. Either way, he doesn't seem like an asshole, he seems calculated. He's branded himself; he makes you hate him then like him...he keeps people interested and as a result hes extraordinarily successful.

Loved the attitude in the quote: "So is a billion dollars cool? He ponders the question carefully. “No, it’s not,” he says. “It’s not cool. I think being a wealthy member of the establishment is the antithesis of cool. Being a countercultural revolutionary is cool. So to the extent that you’ve made a billion dollars, you’ve probably become uncool.” "

dweekly 16y ago
It's a good idea to ask yourself what your goal is. Do you actually want to make a billion dollars? At what expense? Some things correlate much better with happiness than cash.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  Money has made more happiness than has poverty.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    Sure, but "have enough money to avoid poverty" is a much different goal than "make a billion dollars".
    - ytNumbers 16y ago
      Wanting to make a billion dollars leads to this sort of silliness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aRor905cCw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aRor905cCw
    - jonah 16y ago
      Yes. Once you reach a certain level of income the increase in happiness levels off. (Around 60k in the US apparently.)
  - zaidf 16y ago
    [citation needed]
- sobbybutter 16y ago
  I think Thoreau said it best: "The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."
  - RyanMcGreal 16y ago
    For a detailed, pragmatic exegesis of this insight, see Your Money Or Your Life by Joe Dominguez.
- pyre 16y ago
  Making a billion dollars, and holding on to it are separate things. If you feel that being a billionaire will make you 'uncool,' then why not just donate a large portion of it to some charity. What could be 'cooler' than making $1B and then turning around to donate $900M to charity?

jakarta 16y ago

I thought this was a great quote: “You have got to be willing to be poor [as an entrepreneur],” he says. “There was a time when I was living out of a single suitcase. I had a rule that I wouldn’t stay on one person’s couch for more than two weeks because I didn’t want to become a bother.” You've got to be willing to make sacrifices if you want to chase your dreams. A lot of people don't fully grasp that when they are coming in.

tastybites 16y ago
Even small-scale stuff that nobody writes articles about like putting a personal guarantee on a 2-year commercial office lease or a line of credit qualifies as sacrifice and is actually quite risky. I'd offer a small edit on the premise and say that it isn't necessarily a willingness to be poor, but a willingness to go broke for your convictions that is important. Being poor/impoverished is a mindset, being broke is a temporary condition. Somewhat tangentially related is the derivatives trader mindset which I have been reading about recently.
- paulbaumgart 16y ago
  Chapter 7 bankruptcy doesn't even sound so bad if you don't have dependents. Although next time around you'll probably have to find someone else to guarantee that lease...
- paulbaumgart 16y ago
  "Being poor/impoverished is a mindset, being broke is a temporary condition." I'd say being poor/impoverished is a lack of money and a lack of friends or family with money (otherwise whose couch are you going to crash on?). (Only) being broke is just the former.
- helwr 16y ago
  tastybites, I wish I could upvote your small edit 1000 times There is this russian proverb that goes: бедность не порок, нищета порок.

gruseom 16y ago

Here we have a headline that for once is exquisitely accurate: the article is more about lunch than it is about Sean Parker.

reduxredacted 16y ago
I completely agree. While sitting in my basement in a t-shirt and sweatpants, I happened upon a very interesting headline on Hacker News... (I'll stop, I'm no good at it) I found it really excruciating to read this article. I realize that there's a sort of formula for telling a story in news magazines (and I appreciate that it is an art form), but it drives me crazy when the story is more about the interview circumstances and less about ... anything, really. ... Then I realized something that I've found unique about Hacker News over the last several years: The submitter added the bit about "how he's coping with his new reputation". So I can neither fault FT for writing a story, nor can I fault the submitter for finding something about the story that I'd find interesting (to the contrary, I greatly appreciate the service). Perhaps it's a new startup idea (or an old one done in many different ways [newser or even wikipedia]) ... the point in more than 200 characters and less than 4 paragraphs. Bonus if it includes customization to the reader's interests. EDIT: phrasing.
- InfinityX0 16y ago
  I think the thing about this story clickbaitable is nothing about what surrounds the noun, Sean Parker. It's the noun, Sean Parker. Sean Parker is an enigma the hacker community wants to know about, because he has been insanely successful and at once is largely anonymous. So, I will click a post that says "Sean Parker's drooling habits" little because of what surrounds it - I will click it because have strong interest in finding out more about the noun, Sean Parker, without caring much at all about the totality of the title. The more I know about the noun, the less I click on the titles (especially as they parse down to less interesting things), but the less I know, the more likely I am to click something as snore-inducing as "Lunch with Sean Parker".
- kvdr 16y ago
  All of you thinking about this is such a long article with no meat, why he describes food so much, hold off a bit. This is THE format of the column, he does this every week with interesting people (mostly in showbiz), its just relevant to HN due to Sean Parker.

TamDenholm 16y ago

Its a pretty interesting read. I've got to say i can see the similarities between his portrayal in the movie and his portrayal in the article and while both of those might be untrue, its still interesting. Personally though, i dont really think hes an asshole.

rcavezza 16y ago

What's the purpose of including the entire bill? They also left out some key details: (1) Who paid? (2) How much did they tip?

jasonlynes 16y ago
it's the format of the piece. he goes to lunch with interesting people at interesting places and includes what they ate.
- angstrom 16y ago
  That's great and all, but what I really wanted to know is how he used his napkin? Was it folded in a triangle in his lap or a rectangle...gasp, did he use one at all?! Superfluous information is superfluous information. That said, I still skimmed it for the bits and pieces I found interesting.
rdouble 16y ago
As part of the format, the magazine pays except in one of the articles where the interviewee insisted on paying.
- tesseract 16y ago
  My understanding is that it is the norm in journalism for the interviewer to pay for the meal, when an interview is conducted over one. I can think of a few reasons for this, but the ethical one (avoiding the appearance of bribery etc.) seems by far the most obvious and important.
chalst 16y ago
The bill is fascinating! The FT is always supposed to pay; if somehow it didn't, you can expect the piece to say so. The tip is grouped together with tax, not separately enumerated.

jasonlynes 16y ago

his character in the film was my favorite. i didn't think he was portrayed as an asshole at all; in fact, he seemed pretty badass. and the scene with the stanford girl was like the quintessential moment every geek dreams of. "you just slept on sean parker." classic.

narag 16y ago
I'm happy to see I'm not alone. I wondered if the fact I saw the film dubbed to Spanish made me lost some nuances. To those who think that the character is an asshole, maybe you could answer if it's because the interpretation (demeanor or tone of voice) or the behavior.

camdykeman 16y ago

I also noticed the similarities between the article and his character's introduction in The Social Network. In fact, the similarity is a bit suspect. Either Sean is actually a socialite robot who operates the exact same way every time he enters a restaurant or the author saw the movie first and has some unconscious drive to make the real Parker fit that mold. Either way, he doesn't seem like an asshole, he seems calculated. He's branded himself; he makes you hate him then like him...he keeps people interested and as a result hes extraordinarily successful.