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This is the most childish thing I’ve read. And shows a lot about he doesn’t have any people relying on him or community to support. He takes one hike and throws

This is the most childish thing I’ve read. And shows a lot about he doesn’t have any people relying on him or community to support. He takes one hike and throws away 60m. Doesn’t try to find anything interesting to do at Atlassian just calls his coworkers NPCs. This is zero-empathy Peter Pan syndrome at its worse. Sad how he just goes adventure hopping to try and find meaning. The problem is no matter where you are you are also there. Time to look inward and not outward.

antony_pond 2y ago
You are so full of judgmental behavior, envy is probably driving your ego.
ip26 2y ago
As a founder, the people relying on him would have been the employees at Loom. But now that’s done. Far from the first story about a founder feeling unmoored after a buyout.
Pxtl 2y ago
> calls his coworkers NPCs. Seriously, that's kind of a "fuck you" moment to all the people who helped him earn those millions isn't it? Between this and hanging around with the head-cases at DOGE, I think the first thing he should spend his money on is a shrink.
- elevatedastalt 2y ago
  To be fair, he was not calling people at Loom NPCs. He was saying that he didn't feel like joining a big company Atlassian coz he feels he would be surrounded by "NPC coworkers" there.
  - hackernewds 2y ago
    There's absolutely nothing wrong with atlassian employees. High and mighty horse he's on there
    - hackernewds 2y ago
      > So I reached out to some people and got in. After 8 calls with people who all talked fast and sounded very <strike through>autistic</strike through > smart Dude really sounds like a bozo again, being brutally honest is no excuse to be unkind
      - david-gpu 2y ago
        Yeah, self-described "brutally honest" people lean a bit much on the brutal part. You can be direct and kind.
    - capr 2y ago
      there's absolutely something wrong with the fruits of their labor though, which I am forced to use every day
  - mvdtnz 2y ago
    As a proud ex-Atlassian employee, fuck this guy.
  - swiftcoder 2y ago
    Atlassian presumably also hired a bunch of his people from Loom, so to some extent he is implying that all the Loom folks became "NPCs" during the acquisition. I've seen several founders who kept their team together within a bigger company after a buyout, and went on to do pretty significant projects together with big company resources. It's not a given that you have to be swallowed up by the bureaucracy
- dorfsmay 2y ago
  You forgot: > So I broke things off after almost 2 years of unconditional love.
bawolff 2y ago
I don't know i agree. I think its brave to be honest about it. Being able to acknowledge you don't have it together is the first stage of growth. Most people struggle with meaning, most people don't have it figured out. So what, dude who suddenly fell into massive wealth tried a bunch of cliched things to find meaning. Did they work? No, these types of cliched things usually don't. However you don't find meaning without trying things. You have to fail before you suceed.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- m463 2y ago
  It would be interesting to learn what a bunch of people actually do with found wealth. I've read that lottery winners frequently become seriously unhappy. Maybe some of us aren't ultra-rich like this guy, but we might deal with some of the same existential issues either planning or encountering retirement.
  - karmakurtisaani 2y ago
    I also thought about lottery winners. I wonder if this guy will end up like the Minecraft creator.
  - germinalphrase 2y ago
    My intuition is that (sudden) wealth causes some amount of additional isolation (for different reasons: jealousy, privacy, security, etc), so if you are not someone with preexisting social bonds that are strong enough to weather that change, you’re going to ultimately feel emotionally worse off once the quick pleasure hits start to fade. If you’re someone going into that situation without strong social bonds, you end up even further isolated.
- vasco 2y ago
  Yeah that comment just reads like someone who is pointing down at how unenlightened someone is, when that someone just finished telling you that they don't know what they are doing and being honest about it. Would it be so much better for the author to hide this phase of personal growth, and then later on comment on other people's struggles to mock how far they are from them?
awb 2y ago
Abstracting out the details, it’s the same theme as the general who wins the war and now there’s no war to fight and thinks to himself, “Now what?” There are many people struggling with far greater challenges in life and with far less support, but feeling directionless and without a purpose is a common struggle that many people go through.
- necovek 2y ago
  Many "generals" turn to crime because it's largely compatible in the way things are achieved, types of rules in place, and the rewards (at least here in the Balkans). Possibly speaks more of the culture I am surrounded with than "generals", but maybe not.
  - moomin 2y ago
    David Stirling, who is currently being lauded in a show on BBC One for creating the SAS, spent his later life running mercenary companies and, in one particularly ignoble episode, organised a coup against the British government.
shinycode 2y ago
I agree. He could give the money to greater causes and start over. That’s a challenge worth a post and a read and good use of time instead of what he just did.
- nextlevelwizard 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - pierot 2y ago
    How out of touch that you think 60 million would not do any good. You could change so many lives for the better.
    - nextlevelwizard 2y ago
      I am sure the charity founders lives will change a lot when they buy a bigger yacht
      - saagarjha 2y ago
        Something that 60 million gives you is the ability to do research into the places you are sending that money.
      - totallynothoney 2y ago
        Even beyond trying the min max strategy and finding an effective charity you can like, fund free daycare for your community or something. This a really lazy reason to not donate money if you are rich.
  - sausagefeet 2y ago
    Not all charities are created equal and you can find rankings of them to see which would make the best use of the donated money. There are whole organizations designed around tracking this. But one thing to be thoughtful about is it a charity can handle a sudden influx of money. It might be better to make a fund that invests the money and feeds it into various charities over time.
wukerplank 2y ago
Fully agree, and my first association was the "Men Will Do Everything But Go to Therapy" meme.
- dbtablesorrows 2y ago
  What's with this therapy industrial complex? Men need purpose not some consoling words.
  - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
    The purpose of therapy is not "consoling words".
    - mynameishere 2y ago
      [dead]
  - ParetoOptimal 2y ago
    It seems you've not been to a good therapist.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - hylaride 2y ago
    Because most men can't admit they need purpose or what's lacking. Therapy isn't the cliché of bawling into your therapist's shoulders (although it can be that). It's often them telling and pointing out to you what others, including friends, won't. And an experienced professional can be excellent at bringing that out. It's also not for everybody, but often the most hostile people to it are the ones who'd benefit the most. From what I've gathered in his post, this guy needs to be told he pushes people away and has trouble forming non-professional relationships (platonic and romantic) as well as as a deep seated desire to be liked, which he can't get out of a professional setting that he was at the top of. But it could also be much more deep than that. Of course, finding the right therapist is like finding the right mechanical keyboard. You'll go through tons you hate before you find the right one.
throwaway290 2y ago
[flagged]
- jszymborski 2y ago
  What about wanting more people to know you are rich is not childish?
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Status signaling and mating purposes = pretty adultish to me:)
    - piva00 2y ago
      That's one thing you gotta learn by yourself, hopefully.
      - throwaway290 2y ago
        One of us is certainly yet to discover basic human drives!
        kristiandupont 2y ago
        Being insecure is indeed a pretty basic human "drive", but I don't think it's particularly mature either. I don't have any data but my intuition tells me that those tend to wane over time.
        throwaway290 2y ago
        Human drives are reproduction and power. Or maybe just only reproduction actually? This guy blatantly and strategically got himself talked about and you guys call it "insecurity" and "childish". It is a meme that guy in loud ferrari has a small something but we poor people say it to each other to cope. it is a working mechanism to get noticed by girls and girls will look on that ferrari. These are facts. "insecurity" is not it. "childish" is not it. "poor taste" maybe it. "selfish" maybe it. Try those instead. Edit: yes, maybe guy in ferrari has a different taste than you. But also he will get noticed by more girls and that is just fact. Another fact: getting noticed is first step to talk about how sophisticated you are with someone who already has 100 people competing for attention and full DMs. If you ignore those facts and you think you are not the one being childish, I don't know...
nextlevelwizard 2y ago
OK, but what is the solution? To get a (or multiple) child(ren)? Make a "family" that you don't actually want just so you can have people who rely on your support? And what then when you use your millions to support and nourish your kids? Then you get to read on HN about how they are "nepo-babies who did nothing on their own and are worthless human beings". How do you know what he did at the company? When you get acqui-hired for large sums you are dropped somewhere in the management block where lets be real most people have no idea what they are doing and they dont even care they are there just for the money.
- rw_panic0_0 2y ago
  to start going to therapy bro, it's like on the surface
  - vasco 2y ago
    The modern cure to all problems. Pay someone to talk to you. Incredible insight.
    - totallynothoney 2y ago
      I mean yeah? He clearly needs to talk to someone and feels isolated. A neutralish third party to talk to (and is trained to help!) is a excellent suggestion. Therapy isn't a cure all, and is expensive (not that it matters in this case) but your comment sounds like: > The modern cure to all problems. Going to the gym if you feel unfit. Incredible insight.
    - swiftcoder 2y ago
      He's got the money, I don't see how talking to a professional could make things worse
    - wjellyz 2y ago
      i know therapy has helped a lot of people in my personal life, which is why i tried it, but i think it really made me feel alone that the only person i can talk to is someone that i pay to listen to me. i went to therapy for 2 years with this perspective that the therapist would fix me like the mechanic fixes my car. I spent 2 hours a week with a psychiatrist & therapist bitching about my life thinking eventually I would get "better". but then i realized that wasn't getting any better. it's not their responsibility to "fix" me. the only person that could help me was me. the first thing we reach for is an external solution to solve or escape our current problems and everything is so commoditized that there is something that we can fixate our attention on. i think that reflecting this fixation inward has made all the difference for me personally.
antics 2y ago
You are catching a lot of flak for this, but there is one thing you are right about. If you make tens of millions of dollars, and can't figure out what to do with those resources, you shouldn't be calling your coworkers NPCs. You're the NPC. I truly mean this in an entirely non-judgemental way. I wish the author luck in achieving his dream of becoming high agency rather than simply high freedom. I wish it for everyone who wants it.
- dangus 2y ago
  I’m not afraid to be judgmental… The article author hasn’t figured out that he got to where he is because he was lucky, not because he was special in some way. The cringe comes in with the way he does it. He seems to realize he is an Elon bro but still thinks DOGE is an important national priority and not a problematic oligarchic downsizing of our important federal services and regulatory bodies. It’s amazing how even millionaires and billionaires don’t understand that national debt doesn’t work like personal debt. But anyway, that’s a tangent. The guy dumped his girlfriend so he has no family to spend time with, and he’s wondering why he’s bored. His only attempts at stimulation involve self-service: how can I be smart and successful especially in a way that everyone will know it? I can only imagine how being financially set for life would positively impact a typical fiscally responsible family (people with the restraint to hire a financial advisor). Imagine being able to cancel daycare and spend your days with your family instead of burning your life away in the office. I even know a person who has no children but thanks to a windfall just does his hobbies and hangs out with friends. Still works a day job for health insurance but now work doesn’t define their life. They’ve done things like learn how to DJ and travel to see their international friends on longer visits and not just little two week vacations that corporate zombies get to take. But the author is struggling to find a way to make work define their life, to get their life to return to capitalism that they have been blessed to escape. Hey author if you are reading this, try doing something positive like help people. Volunteer. Everything you have tried so far has been self-centered.
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    Yeah, the "I dumped my girlfriend of two years as soon as things got a little bit hard for me, why is my life boring and meaningless?" thing also stood out to me. As well as this: "Within 2 minutes of talking to the final interviewer for DOGE, he asked me if I wanted to join. I said “yes”. Then he said “cool” and I was in multiple Signal groups." DOGE is run on Signal, and his conclusion is "so smart," not "that seems like a huge red flag." This guy sounds like he's in line to be the next George Papadopoulos, the guy who gets thrown under the bus when everything goes sideways.
orochimaaru 2y ago
I have a different take. Most people in corporate jobs are NPCs, me included. I don’t mind it. My meaning and purpose is the family I’m trying to support. If that means things at work are on autopilot so be it. It’s just a matter of priorities. So yeah - it’s fine to call me an NPC. I just have my priorities figured out better than the author.
- rat87 2y ago
  That sounds like the opposite of an npc. Someone with a personal life. One of the reasons its a stupid insult. If you want to rag on people for being shitty or minimumn effort workers then do so. NPC implies you cant tell the difference if they were replaced by a shitty program that repeats the same lines over and over.
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    Well, most people in society are forced to repeat the same behaviors as every one else for a minimum of comfort: friends, family, etc. For the college-educated in the US that often means getting a professional job and joining a hobby club of some sort and getting married and having one or two kids. Most of them are happy with that, but most of them also remember the freedom they had in college and know that deep down they are settling for less than the most they could have, because they’re probably afraid of what that would mean. I can understand why someone who is freed from that world of the “normal” might not know what to do outside of it.
    - jebarker 2y ago
      > Most of them are happy with that, but most of them also remember the freedom they had in college The freedom you have in college is a shallow, parasitic kind of freedom. College is the apex point of your being an uncontributing member of society. Up to that point all you've done is receive. Becoming an adult is taking on responsibility, contributing to society and earning the real freedom to live a life you value. If you maintained the supposed freedom you have at college you're just blind to the fact that you're totally dependent on other people. A more authentic version of the college freedom would be to go live in the woods and forage for sustenance.
danielbarla 2y ago
While the tone of the post might come off as childish, I don't think it should be dismissed quite so off hand, because I think there's a lot more behind it than one might think. I cannot but help think that there's a fair bit of truth behind Terror Management Theory [1], which paraphrased states that a lot of human activity is centered around the need to get our minds off the topic of our mortality, or to find something meaningful in it. I can totally see that someone who spends much of their life working towards a goal of essentially getting rich now finds that he is somewhat rudderless after that point. Is finding something interesting to do meaningful? I mean, it's completely subjective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory
- lazide 2y ago
  Nihilism when understanding/dealing with the problem is also a common trap in Buddhism, and a big reason why Monks will often discourage unguided meditation practice. The Void is a powerful thing to grasp, and can very much be ‘held wrong’ [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81] Ultimately, that nothing ultimately matters, also does not really ultimately matter. All we really have is now, and the conditions which have led to now, and our ability to do things within our power now. And that does matter, as much as anything ever can. Which is something. Getting through to that point is not a given. IMO, part of what made the Buddha, well, the Buddha, is he tried to make it better. Despite knowing all this. And despite it being much, much harder, messier, and more painful than the path he could of taken - which is opting out. Will you make it better (in your judgement)? Make it worse (in your judgement)? Rely on someone else’s judgement? How accurate is your judgement? Or opt out (and what does that mean)? Buddha (depending on the tradition) taught a path to reduce pain, and in some cases opt out (for Monks, at least, to some extent) by hopefully seeing the truth as best as one can. That form of Buddhism is not very popular. Religions that give a narrative involving conquering (Islam, Christianity in the recent past), surrendering (Modern Christianity, Jainism), or being chosen/made (Judaism/Hinduism) for/by a deity to achieve heaven or have one’s fate decided are much more popular. I expect for much the same reason that action movies, dramas, and epics are more popular than quiet walks in the woods.
gamblor956 2y ago
Fully agree. Clients like this are why I left firm life and went in-house doing corporate tax work.
- rideontime 2y ago
  BTW, Honey was, in fact, stealing affiliate commissions.
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    BTW, Honey was, not in fact stealing affiliate commissions. Because if they were, that would have been a crime, and a tort, and at some point in the past 7 years you would have seen a class action lawsuit or criminal investigation over it. Hell, at the very least a short report about their business model being extremely risky. But even though the details of their business model have been public for 7 year...none of those things has happened. (What's the next counter argument guys? That prosecutors in 50 states and countries around the world are all in league with Honey? That absolutely every shortseller on Earth didn't want to make money? That thousands of supposedly aggrieved influencers in the most litigation-happy nation on earth all decided not to pursue any sort of litigation because they were all too embarrassed?) Honey used its own affiliate codes because that is how it tracked purchases. Sales platforms generally don't provide multi-level affiliate reporting, so that is the only technical way they have to capture transaction-related data. Before the Paypal acquisition (and for some time after) they shared their commissions with marketing affiliates. Whether they still do or not depends on the particular arrangement the marketing affiliate makes with Honey, though based on their current website it appears that revenue sharing is now the exception to be negotiated and not the norm. Seriously, honey is not the evil conspiracy you all think it is.
    - rideontime 2y ago
      Oh, I guess you haven't been keeping up with the news? You're a star now. https://youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk?t=360 https://youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk?t=360 As soon as people saw this, they started filing class action lawsuits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H4sScCB1cY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H4sScCB1cY So I guess we'll see!
oliwarner 2y ago
I agree, but rather than just laying into them, perhaps it's a symptom of too much money. Perhaps that's the cause, not something that has happened upon an already vapid simpleton. It follows that completely removing any potential scarcity might separate you from other people. And how long would you last stewing in your own mental urine before you started thinking of others as less? Honestly I read this as something to pity; a situation to avoid. Megalomania robs otherwise interesting people of all their humanity and having read a few more comments here , the best thing he could do would be to throw as much money as possible into therapy. You don't have to spare any sympathy for him but Vinay desperately needs help.
cwalv 2y ago
To me it reads like the author wants you to think this way. There's more than a little self loathing in there, starting with the title. But IMO it's not surprising. When I left my first "real job" after ~4 years, it took months before I stopped dreaming about that job. I was amazed how wrapped-up I was in it. What is surprising is that they put this out there so plainly. Unless they're just trolling .. but I'm going to go with "not trolling", because cynicism just leads to sorrow.
jcgrillo 2y ago
Seems like the ex dodged a bullet
zozbot234 2y ago
OP has enough money to live like an actual Doge [0]. (And get a pet Shiba Inu K-9 while he's at it.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(title) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(title)
martins_irbe 2y ago
The post title should read, "I am poor and have no idea what to do". :D
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
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antony_pond 2y ago

You are so full of judgmental behavior, envy is probably driving your ego.

ip26 2y ago

As a founder, the people relying on him would have been the employees at Loom. But now that’s done. Far from the first story about a founder feeling unmoored after a buyout.

Pxtl 2y ago

> calls his coworkers NPCs. Seriously, that's kind of a "fuck you" moment to all the people who helped him earn those millions isn't it? Between this and hanging around with the head-cases at DOGE, I think the first thing he should spend his money on is a shrink.

elevatedastalt 2y ago
To be fair, he was not calling people at Loom NPCs. He was saying that he didn't feel like joining a big company Atlassian coz he feels he would be surrounded by "NPC coworkers" there.
- hackernewds 2y ago
  There's absolutely nothing wrong with atlassian employees. High and mighty horse he's on there
  - hackernewds 2y ago
    > So I reached out to some people and got in. After 8 calls with people who all talked fast and sounded very <strike through>autistic</strike through > smart Dude really sounds like a bozo again, being brutally honest is no excuse to be unkind
    - david-gpu 2y ago
      Yeah, self-described "brutally honest" people lean a bit much on the brutal part. You can be direct and kind.
  - capr 2y ago
    there's absolutely something wrong with the fruits of their labor though, which I am forced to use every day
- mvdtnz 2y ago
  As a proud ex-Atlassian employee, fuck this guy.
- swiftcoder 2y ago
  Atlassian presumably also hired a bunch of his people from Loom, so to some extent he is implying that all the Loom folks became "NPCs" during the acquisition. I've seen several founders who kept their team together within a bigger company after a buyout, and went on to do pretty significant projects together with big company resources. It's not a given that you have to be swallowed up by the bureaucracy
dorfsmay 2y ago
You forgot: > So I broke things off after almost 2 years of unconditional love.

bawolff 2y ago

I don't know i agree. I think its brave to be honest about it. Being able to acknowledge you don't have it together is the first stage of growth. Most people struggle with meaning, most people don't have it figured out. So what, dude who suddenly fell into massive wealth tried a bunch of cliched things to find meaning. Did they work? No, these types of cliched things usually don't. However you don't find meaning without trying things. You have to fail before you suceed.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
m463 2y ago
It would be interesting to learn what a bunch of people actually do with found wealth. I've read that lottery winners frequently become seriously unhappy. Maybe some of us aren't ultra-rich like this guy, but we might deal with some of the same existential issues either planning or encountering retirement.
- karmakurtisaani 2y ago
  I also thought about lottery winners. I wonder if this guy will end up like the Minecraft creator.
- germinalphrase 2y ago
  My intuition is that (sudden) wealth causes some amount of additional isolation (for different reasons: jealousy, privacy, security, etc), so if you are not someone with preexisting social bonds that are strong enough to weather that change, you’re going to ultimately feel emotionally worse off once the quick pleasure hits start to fade. If you’re someone going into that situation without strong social bonds, you end up even further isolated.
vasco 2y ago
Yeah that comment just reads like someone who is pointing down at how unenlightened someone is, when that someone just finished telling you that they don't know what they are doing and being honest about it. Would it be so much better for the author to hide this phase of personal growth, and then later on comment on other people's struggles to mock how far they are from them?

awb 2y ago

Abstracting out the details, it’s the same theme as the general who wins the war and now there’s no war to fight and thinks to himself, “Now what?” There are many people struggling with far greater challenges in life and with far less support, but feeling directionless and without a purpose is a common struggle that many people go through.

necovek 2y ago
Many "generals" turn to crime because it's largely compatible in the way things are achieved, types of rules in place, and the rewards (at least here in the Balkans). Possibly speaks more of the culture I am surrounded with than "generals", but maybe not.
- moomin 2y ago
  David Stirling, who is currently being lauded in a show on BBC One for creating the SAS, spent his later life running mercenary companies and, in one particularly ignoble episode, organised a coup against the British government.

shinycode 2y ago

I agree. He could give the money to greater causes and start over. That’s a challenge worth a post and a read and good use of time instead of what he just did.

nextlevelwizard 2y ago
[flagged]
- pierot 2y ago
  How out of touch that you think 60 million would not do any good. You could change so many lives for the better.
  - nextlevelwizard 2y ago
    I am sure the charity founders lives will change a lot when they buy a bigger yacht
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      Something that 60 million gives you is the ability to do research into the places you are sending that money.
    - totallynothoney 2y ago
      Even beyond trying the min max strategy and finding an effective charity you can like, fund free daycare for your community or something. This a really lazy reason to not donate money if you are rich.
- sausagefeet 2y ago
  Not all charities are created equal and you can find rankings of them to see which would make the best use of the donated money. There are whole organizations designed around tracking this. But one thing to be thoughtful about is it a charity can handle a sudden influx of money. It might be better to make a fund that invests the money and feeds it into various charities over time.

wukerplank 2y ago

Fully agree, and my first association was the "Men Will Do Everything But Go to Therapy" meme.

dbtablesorrows 2y ago
What's with this therapy industrial complex? Men need purpose not some consoling words.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  The purpose of therapy is not "consoling words".
  - mynameishere 2y ago
    [dead]
- ParetoOptimal 2y ago
  It seems you've not been to a good therapist.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- hylaride 2y ago
  Because most men can't admit they need purpose or what's lacking. Therapy isn't the cliché of bawling into your therapist's shoulders (although it can be that). It's often them telling and pointing out to you what others, including friends, won't. And an experienced professional can be excellent at bringing that out. It's also not for everybody, but often the most hostile people to it are the ones who'd benefit the most. From what I've gathered in his post, this guy needs to be told he pushes people away and has trouble forming non-professional relationships (platonic and romantic) as well as as a deep seated desire to be liked, which he can't get out of a professional setting that he was at the top of. But it could also be much more deep than that. Of course, finding the right therapist is like finding the right mechanical keyboard. You'll go through tons you hate before you find the right one.

throwaway290 2y ago

[flagged]

jszymborski 2y ago
What about wanting more people to know you are rich is not childish?
- throwaway290 2y ago
  Status signaling and mating purposes = pretty adultish to me:)
  - piva00 2y ago
    That's one thing you gotta learn by yourself, hopefully.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      One of us is certainly yet to discover basic human drives!
      - kristiandupont 2y ago
        Being insecure is indeed a pretty basic human "drive", but I don't think it's particularly mature either. I don't have any data but my intuition tells me that those tend to wane over time.
        throwaway290 2y ago
        Human drives are reproduction and power. Or maybe just only reproduction actually? This guy blatantly and strategically got himself talked about and you guys call it "insecurity" and "childish". It is a meme that guy in loud ferrari has a small something but we poor people say it to each other to cope. it is a working mechanism to get noticed by girls and girls will look on that ferrari. These are facts. "insecurity" is not it. "childish" is not it. "poor taste" maybe it. "selfish" maybe it. Try those instead. Edit: yes, maybe guy in ferrari has a different taste than you. But also he will get noticed by more girls and that is just fact. Another fact: getting noticed is first step to talk about how sophisticated you are with someone who already has 100 people competing for attention and full DMs. If you ignore those facts and you think you are not the one being childish, I don't know...

nextlevelwizard 2y ago

OK, but what is the solution? To get a (or multiple) child(ren)? Make a "family" that you don't actually want just so you can have people who rely on your support? And what then when you use your millions to support and nourish your kids? Then you get to read on HN about how they are "nepo-babies who did nothing on their own and are worthless human beings". How do you know what he did at the company? When you get acqui-hired for large sums you are dropped somewhere in the management block where lets be real most people have no idea what they are doing and they dont even care they are there just for the money.

rw_panic0_0 2y ago
to start going to therapy bro, it's like on the surface
- vasco 2y ago
  The modern cure to all problems. Pay someone to talk to you. Incredible insight.
  - totallynothoney 2y ago
    I mean yeah? He clearly needs to talk to someone and feels isolated. A neutralish third party to talk to (and is trained to help!) is a excellent suggestion. Therapy isn't a cure all, and is expensive (not that it matters in this case) but your comment sounds like: > The modern cure to all problems. Going to the gym if you feel unfit. Incredible insight.
  - swiftcoder 2y ago
    He's got the money, I don't see how talking to a professional could make things worse
  - wjellyz 2y ago
    i know therapy has helped a lot of people in my personal life, which is why i tried it, but i think it really made me feel alone that the only person i can talk to is someone that i pay to listen to me. i went to therapy for 2 years with this perspective that the therapist would fix me like the mechanic fixes my car. I spent 2 hours a week with a psychiatrist & therapist bitching about my life thinking eventually I would get "better". but then i realized that wasn't getting any better. it's not their responsibility to "fix" me. the only person that could help me was me. the first thing we reach for is an external solution to solve or escape our current problems and everything is so commoditized that there is something that we can fixate our attention on. i think that reflecting this fixation inward has made all the difference for me personally.

antics 2y ago

You are catching a lot of flak for this, but there is one thing you are right about. If you make tens of millions of dollars, and can't figure out what to do with those resources, you shouldn't be calling your coworkers NPCs. You're the NPC. I truly mean this in an entirely non-judgemental way. I wish the author luck in achieving his dream of becoming high agency rather than simply high freedom. I wish it for everyone who wants it.

dangus 2y ago
I’m not afraid to be judgmental… The article author hasn’t figured out that he got to where he is because he was lucky, not because he was special in some way. The cringe comes in with the way he does it. He seems to realize he is an Elon bro but still thinks DOGE is an important national priority and not a problematic oligarchic downsizing of our important federal services and regulatory bodies. It’s amazing how even millionaires and billionaires don’t understand that national debt doesn’t work like personal debt. But anyway, that’s a tangent. The guy dumped his girlfriend so he has no family to spend time with, and he’s wondering why he’s bored. His only attempts at stimulation involve self-service: how can I be smart and successful especially in a way that everyone will know it? I can only imagine how being financially set for life would positively impact a typical fiscally responsible family (people with the restraint to hire a financial advisor). Imagine being able to cancel daycare and spend your days with your family instead of burning your life away in the office. I even know a person who has no children but thanks to a windfall just does his hobbies and hangs out with friends. Still works a day job for health insurance but now work doesn’t define their life. They’ve done things like learn how to DJ and travel to see their international friends on longer visits and not just little two week vacations that corporate zombies get to take. But the author is struggling to find a way to make work define their life, to get their life to return to capitalism that they have been blessed to escape. Hey author if you are reading this, try doing something positive like help people. Volunteer. Everything you have tried so far has been self-centered.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  Yeah, the "I dumped my girlfriend of two years as soon as things got a little bit hard for me, why is my life boring and meaningless?" thing also stood out to me. As well as this: "Within 2 minutes of talking to the final interviewer for DOGE, he asked me if I wanted to join. I said “yes”. Then he said “cool” and I was in multiple Signal groups." DOGE is run on Signal, and his conclusion is "so smart," not "that seems like a huge red flag." This guy sounds like he's in line to be the next George Papadopoulos, the guy who gets thrown under the bus when everything goes sideways.

orochimaaru 2y ago

I have a different take. Most people in corporate jobs are NPCs, me included. I don’t mind it. My meaning and purpose is the family I’m trying to support. If that means things at work are on autopilot so be it. It’s just a matter of priorities. So yeah - it’s fine to call me an NPC. I just have my priorities figured out better than the author.

rat87 2y ago
That sounds like the opposite of an npc. Someone with a personal life. One of the reasons its a stupid insult. If you want to rag on people for being shitty or minimumn effort workers then do so. NPC implies you cant tell the difference if they were replaced by a shitty program that repeats the same lines over and over.
- DiscourseFan 2y ago
  Well, most people in society are forced to repeat the same behaviors as every one else for a minimum of comfort: friends, family, etc. For the college-educated in the US that often means getting a professional job and joining a hobby club of some sort and getting married and having one or two kids. Most of them are happy with that, but most of them also remember the freedom they had in college and know that deep down they are settling for less than the most they could have, because they’re probably afraid of what that would mean. I can understand why someone who is freed from that world of the “normal” might not know what to do outside of it.
  - jebarker 2y ago
    > Most of them are happy with that, but most of them also remember the freedom they had in college The freedom you have in college is a shallow, parasitic kind of freedom. College is the apex point of your being an uncontributing member of society. Up to that point all you've done is receive. Becoming an adult is taking on responsibility, contributing to society and earning the real freedom to live a life you value. If you maintained the supposed freedom you have at college you're just blind to the fact that you're totally dependent on other people. A more authentic version of the college freedom would be to go live in the woods and forage for sustenance.

danielbarla 2y ago

While the tone of the post might come off as childish, I don't think it should be dismissed quite so off hand, because I think there's a lot more behind it than one might think. I cannot but help think that there's a fair bit of truth behind Terror Management Theory [1], which paraphrased states that a lot of human activity is centered around the need to get our minds off the topic of our mortality, or to find something meaningful in it. I can totally see that someone who spends much of their life working towards a goal of essentially getting rich now finds that he is somewhat rudderless after that point. Is finding something interesting to do meaningful? I mean, it's completely subjective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory

lazide 2y ago
Nihilism when understanding/dealing with the problem is also a common trap in Buddhism, and a big reason why Monks will often discourage unguided meditation practice. The Void is a powerful thing to grasp, and can very much be ‘held wrong’ [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81] Ultimately, that nothing ultimately matters, also does not really ultimately matter. All we really have is now, and the conditions which have led to now, and our ability to do things within our power now. And that does matter, as much as anything ever can. Which is something. Getting through to that point is not a given. IMO, part of what made the Buddha, well, the Buddha, is he tried to make it better. Despite knowing all this. And despite it being much, much harder, messier, and more painful than the path he could of taken - which is opting out. Will you make it better (in your judgement)? Make it worse (in your judgement)? Rely on someone else’s judgement? How accurate is your judgement? Or opt out (and what does that mean)? Buddha (depending on the tradition) taught a path to reduce pain, and in some cases opt out (for Monks, at least, to some extent) by hopefully seeing the truth as best as one can. That form of Buddhism is not very popular. Religions that give a narrative involving conquering (Islam, Christianity in the recent past), surrendering (Modern Christianity, Jainism), or being chosen/made (Judaism/Hinduism) for/by a deity to achieve heaven or have one’s fate decided are much more popular. I expect for much the same reason that action movies, dramas, and epics are more popular than quiet walks in the woods.

gamblor956 2y ago

Fully agree. Clients like this are why I left firm life and went in-house doing corporate tax work.

rideontime 2y ago
BTW, Honey was, in fact, stealing affiliate commissions.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  BTW, Honey was, not in fact stealing affiliate commissions. Because if they were, that would have been a crime, and a tort, and at some point in the past 7 years you would have seen a class action lawsuit or criminal investigation over it. Hell, at the very least a short report about their business model being extremely risky. But even though the details of their business model have been public for 7 year...none of those things has happened. (What's the next counter argument guys? That prosecutors in 50 states and countries around the world are all in league with Honey? That absolutely every shortseller on Earth didn't want to make money? That thousands of supposedly aggrieved influencers in the most litigation-happy nation on earth all decided not to pursue any sort of litigation because they were all too embarrassed?) Honey used its own affiliate codes because that is how it tracked purchases. Sales platforms generally don't provide multi-level affiliate reporting, so that is the only technical way they have to capture transaction-related data. Before the Paypal acquisition (and for some time after) they shared their commissions with marketing affiliates. Whether they still do or not depends on the particular arrangement the marketing affiliate makes with Honey, though based on their current website it appears that revenue sharing is now the exception to be negotiated and not the norm. Seriously, honey is not the evil conspiracy you all think it is.
  - rideontime 2y ago
    Oh, I guess you haven't been keeping up with the news? You're a star now. https://youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk?t=360 https://youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk?t=360 As soon as people saw this, they started filing class action lawsuits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H4sScCB1cY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H4sScCB1cY So I guess we'll see!

oliwarner 2y ago

I agree, but rather than just laying into them, perhaps it's a symptom of too much money. Perhaps that's the cause, not something that has happened upon an already vapid simpleton. It follows that completely removing any potential scarcity might separate you from other people. And how long would you last stewing in your own mental urine before you started thinking of others as less? Honestly I read this as something to pity; a situation to avoid. Megalomania robs otherwise interesting people of all their humanity and having read a few more comments here , the best thing he could do would be to throw as much money as possible into therapy. You don't have to spare any sympathy for him but Vinay desperately needs help.

cwalv 2y ago

To me it reads like the author wants you to think this way. There's more than a little self loathing in there, starting with the title. But IMO it's not surprising. When I left my first "real job" after ~4 years, it took months before I stopped dreaming about that job. I was amazed how wrapped-up I was in it. What is surprising is that they put this out there so plainly. Unless they're just trolling .. but I'm going to go with "not trolling", because cynicism just leads to sorrow.

jcgrillo 2y ago

Seems like the ex dodged a bullet

zozbot234 2y ago

OP has enough money to live like an actual Doge [0]. (And get a pet Shiba Inu K-9 while he's at it.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(title) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(title)

martins_irbe 2y ago

The post title should read, "I am poor and have no idea what to do". :D

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