8 ms·

Really awesome that he was able to do this and give back, but none of this would have been possible without his unfathomable wealth and access.

yieldcrv 6mo ago
Feeling inspired?
- croes 6mo ago
  It’s more like I hope more bad things happen to rich and powerful people so they start doing something against it. As long as it happens to ordinary people most of then hardly care. Reminds me of the GOP who was against stem cell treatments until Reagan got Alzheimer‘s
rvz 6mo ago
> ...but none of this would have been possible without his unfathomable wealth and access. ? What's that supposed to mean? Is that bad? You can do the same thing as he did, what's stopping you?
- croes 6mo ago
  Wealth is mostly based on either luck and more often heritage.
  - rvz 6mo ago
    Not only Sid didn't come from any of those backgrounds, neither did the founder of Freshworks who literally started his company based on reading a hacker news comment. [0] So I only see more excuses here. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28336815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28336815
    - croes 6mo ago
      So it was luck
      - rvz 6mo ago
        Nope. He applied to YC and took that risk and already knew how to make money. You miss 100% of the shots if you do. not. try.
        croes 6mo ago
        But you don’t hit 100% if you try. That’s where the luck part comes into play. Right time, right place
        rvz 6mo ago
        > But you don’t hit 100% if you try. That’s where the luck part comes into play. Nope. Sid just knows how to make money and that's him being more than 'lucky' with his experience and marketing GitLab right here which you could have done that as well. > Right time, right place Just use Sid's story as motivation for yourself.
- TobTobXX 6mo ago
  wealth and access that is merely fathomable
  - rvz 6mo ago
    You can literally apply to YC, just like Sid and now you are reading his story. He did not come from any of those backgrounds.
Noumenon72 6mo ago
That's not a "but". Because he developed wealth and access, this is possible for one person when before it wasn't possible for anyone. This is how societies developed everything from refined sugar to rockets, as they passed various thresholds where individuals could afford to try things out.
perch56 6mo ago
According to some online sources his total wealth is under $3B. Hardly ‘unfathomable wealth’ IMO. Sure, billionaire territory but nowhere near the ultra-wealthy.
- chaps 6mo ago
  Friend, $3B is unfathomable wealth for an individual.
  - perch56 6mo ago
    I can fathom 3B, I can’t fathom 300B
    - orf 6mo ago
      Yes, big number better, everyone gets it. The point is that you’re deluding yourself if you think that there is any difference in terms of relative “unfathomability” between 3 billion and 300 billion. 3 billion generates more in interest per day than 99.99% of people make in a year. That’s unfathomable volumes of wealth for even the very rich.
    - crote 6mo ago
      Quick, without doing any kind of Googling or calculation: if I asked you to count 3B grains of rice by hand, how long would that take you? How big would that pile of rice be? How long would it take you to eat it? A billion is already unfathomably large. If you think it isn't, you just haven't tried imagining what a billion of anything would be like.
      - arjie 6mo ago
        The problem with this exercise is that I have a few million in wealth and I cannot actually visualize a few million grains of rice but I am fully aware of my total capacity to allocate capital to problems. Neither $3b nor $300b are realistically unfathomable to me. I find them easy to consider in terms of the projects I can build if I achieved each of these amounts. As an example I’d have to allocate somewhere between $50m to $250m to get people to vote on a California proposition. I’d need to spend $1.5b to create a wing of a major hospital. I’d need between $100m and half a billion to create a new K-12 school in my city. These are large sums of money and are currently out of my reach so if AI doesn’t destabilize everything my best bet is to take the same approach each of my ancestors did. Move my children one level up the wealth ladder and hopefully give them the values that help them prioritize these actions and the optimal way of getting there. I think that involves some amount of compounding and then some amount of spending.
junofan 6mo ago
There are grad students babying organoids right now. Saturday morning. If you can work a pipette you can do this.
esafak 6mo ago
This is an excellent use of his wealth and skills. Much better than Steve Jobs' response. I remember reading a similar article about a (cancer?) patient who used 3D printing for his personalized cure.
fragmede 6mo ago
And all of a sudden, I was bestowed with the greed to acquire more money than I can spend in a single lifetime. If I get cancer, I'd rather be rich and be able to do stuff like that, rather than die quietly.

yieldcrv 6mo ago

Feeling inspired?

croes 6mo ago
It’s more like I hope more bad things happen to rich and powerful people so they start doing something against it. As long as it happens to ordinary people most of then hardly care. Reminds me of the GOP who was against stem cell treatments until Reagan got Alzheimer‘s

rvz 6mo ago

> ...but none of this would have been possible without his unfathomable wealth and access. ? What's that supposed to mean? Is that bad? You can do the same thing as he did, what's stopping you?

croes 6mo ago
Wealth is mostly based on either luck and more often heritage.
- rvz 6mo ago
  Not only Sid didn't come from any of those backgrounds, neither did the founder of Freshworks who literally started his company based on reading a hacker news comment. [0] So I only see more excuses here. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28336815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28336815
  - croes 6mo ago
    So it was luck
    - rvz 6mo ago
      Nope. He applied to YC and took that risk and already knew how to make money. You miss 100% of the shots if you do. not. try.
      - croes 6mo ago
        But you don’t hit 100% if you try. That’s where the luck part comes into play. Right time, right place
        rvz 6mo ago
        > But you don’t hit 100% if you try. That’s where the luck part comes into play. Nope. Sid just knows how to make money and that's him being more than 'lucky' with his experience and marketing GitLab right here which you could have done that as well. > Right time, right place Just use Sid's story as motivation for yourself.
TobTobXX 6mo ago
wealth and access that is merely fathomable
- rvz 6mo ago
  You can literally apply to YC, just like Sid and now you are reading his story. He did not come from any of those backgrounds.

Noumenon72 6mo ago

That's not a "but". Because he developed wealth and access, this is possible for one person when before it wasn't possible for anyone. This is how societies developed everything from refined sugar to rockets, as they passed various thresholds where individuals could afford to try things out.

perch56 6mo ago

According to some online sources his total wealth is under $3B. Hardly ‘unfathomable wealth’ IMO. Sure, billionaire territory but nowhere near the ultra-wealthy.

chaps 6mo ago
Friend, $3B is unfathomable wealth for an individual.
- perch56 6mo ago
  I can fathom 3B, I can’t fathom 300B
  - orf 6mo ago
    Yes, big number better, everyone gets it. The point is that you’re deluding yourself if you think that there is any difference in terms of relative “unfathomability” between 3 billion and 300 billion. 3 billion generates more in interest per day than 99.99% of people make in a year. That’s unfathomable volumes of wealth for even the very rich.
  - crote 6mo ago
    Quick, without doing any kind of Googling or calculation: if I asked you to count 3B grains of rice by hand, how long would that take you? How big would that pile of rice be? How long would it take you to eat it? A billion is already unfathomably large. If you think it isn't, you just haven't tried imagining what a billion of anything would be like.
    - arjie 6mo ago
      The problem with this exercise is that I have a few million in wealth and I cannot actually visualize a few million grains of rice but I am fully aware of my total capacity to allocate capital to problems. Neither $3b nor $300b are realistically unfathomable to me. I find them easy to consider in terms of the projects I can build if I achieved each of these amounts. As an example I’d have to allocate somewhere between $50m to $250m to get people to vote on a California proposition. I’d need to spend $1.5b to create a wing of a major hospital. I’d need between $100m and half a billion to create a new K-12 school in my city. These are large sums of money and are currently out of my reach so if AI doesn’t destabilize everything my best bet is to take the same approach each of my ancestors did. Move my children one level up the wealth ladder and hopefully give them the values that help them prioritize these actions and the optimal way of getting there. I think that involves some amount of compounding and then some amount of spending.

junofan 6mo ago

There are grad students babying organoids right now. Saturday morning. If you can work a pipette you can do this.

esafak 6mo ago

This is an excellent use of his wealth and skills. Much better than Steve Jobs' response. I remember reading a similar article about a (cancer?) patient who used 3D printing for his personalized cure.

fragmede 6mo ago

And all of a sudden, I was bestowed with the greed to acquire more money than I can spend in a single lifetime. If I get cancer, I'd rather be rich and be able to do stuff like that, rather than die quietly.