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• sorenjan 9d ago
  He spent more on gaming computers than my yearly salary, and then follows it up with > I actually find it funny how cheap computers are.
  • birksherty 9d ago
    Yes, this line made me angry. Privileged people from first world countries like these will increase their products prices for growth & more profit saying it's very cheap anyways. Meanwhile common people in other countries can't even think about buying a proper gaming PC now. I bought a pre owned gpu, it stopped working after 5 months and I lost my savings.
    • collabs 9d ago
      It was cheaper than it is now after the AI stuff. I don't think people buying and using computers makes them expensive. Your anger is misplaced. Be angry instead at companies who won't even comply with the most ridiculously basic laws. They are the ones causing all those problems. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/naacp-sues-musks-xai-alleging-illegal-operation-gas-turbines-2026-04-14/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/naacp-...
    • mkirsten 9d ago
      I see and also had some immediate reaction when somebody mentions a $75k figure and says “cheap”. But I think the point really here is that computers are cheap in relation to other items you can buy. Not cheap as in “small part of my wealth”, but as in “about equally much money as something that is not as impressive (as a computer)”. And I really agree. I think it’s amazing that I can get eg a computer I find fast for the price of a kind of bad sofa. 2nd hand MacBook M1 vs dinner for 4 at a nice restaurant. Computers are cheap!
    • ivolimmen 9d ago
      He is an American so 'first world' is kind of debatable now with Trump. /s
  • Jommi 9d ago
    This is from (2024) fyi
    • pooloo 9d ago
      Still not cheap... even in 2024 GPUs were very inflated. The GTX 970 was around 350 at launch in 2014, and in 2024 was 650-ish.
  • iluvcommunism 9d ago
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  • remuskaos 9d ago
    And then it's - objectively! - not even true. That amounts to 3750 per computer. For a 4070, that's insanely expensive. You can get decent gaming pc with this card for less than a thrid of that, even in 2024. I mean I have to admit this house looks live every geeks dream, but come on... Seven figure house price... In my country, most people don't make that much money in their entire working life. I do mean that literally, let's take "seven figure" as 4.5M. Evenly divided by 40 working years, that's 112.5k a year. That's almost double the median income. And I live in Germany, a nation that's considered rich.
    • kentonv 9d ago
      FWIW, the 4070 was $600 at the time. You could indeed build a great gaming machine around a 4070 at much lower cost, but a few things inflated the price for me: * I included the fairly nice 4k monitors ($750) in the price. * The motherboards were stupidly expensive ($450) since I wanted something with 10G networking onboard, to support the netboot setup. * The super-long fiber optic HDMI and USB cables are on the order of $150 each (and each computer needs one of each). * Rackmount gear, which is stupidly expensive when purchased retail. (Datacenters obviously don't buy this stuff retail, so it's a weird market.) * I think I included the networking gear and some other not-per-machine stuff in the figure. My spreadsheet from the time shows $3,067.64 per machine before tax. (I am not trying to make any particular point here, just providing data for those who are curious.)
      • remuskaos 9d ago
        I really appreciate the answer and the detailed breakdown. I should've stated more clearly what particular part of that statement I found untrue: the "computers being cheap" part when you pary 3k for a decent, but not great, gaming pc ;) I absolutely believe that you paid 75k for 22 machines (I've used 20 in my post above in error). From the photos I can clearly and quite enviously see that no part of that setup could have been cheap.
  • kentonv 9d ago
    If you read it in context, I am making a comparison between computers and cabinetry, and noting how absurd it is that the technological marvel that is a computer costs a similar amount of money to the cabinet holding it, which is just some wood and hinges. One would almost expect the computer to cost millions of dollars, but instead it costs thousands. Maybe "cheap" was a poor choice of word for this. Sorry.
    • sorenjan 9d ago
      I get what you mean, the marvels of modern mass production and logistics impress me too, but those cabinets costs as much as a small house in some places so it still comes across as rich people musings. And for the record I'm not poor, I'm just a European engineer. Congrats on all your success though, good to see you're enjoying it with friends.
    • ropeadoge 9d ago
      "Sorry"
      • kentonv 9d ago
        Sorry.
    • 1-more 9d ago
      I always marvel at technology the same way: $200 gets you a whole lot of TV, or a coffee table that will not survive two moves. Also I cut and trimmed a cat door into our laundry room so the girls could do their business, so I very much approve of going a little bit over the top for your kitties. Maybe when my son is old enough for the cats to see him at night I'll work on a solution similar to yours.
    • matheusmoreira 8d ago
      > One would almost expect the computer to cost millions of dollars By 2030 they probably will...
  • thenthenthen 9d ago
    He spend more than 10 yearly salaries of me. Why not get 20 junk computers and lan party classics or opensource incarnations?
• naikrovek 9d ago
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• DarmokTanagra 9d ago
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• Toutouxc 9d ago
  > the original LAN house was not very big: 1400 sqft. This made for a pretty awesome bachelor pad, but would have been a bit cramped for raising a family. That’s 130 m^2. A fucking bachelor pad.
  • deleted 9d ago
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  • jorvi 9d ago
    Yes, the whole post just screams / drips of extreme privilege.
  • Kirby64 9d ago
    1400sqft is relatively small in the US for a house. Typical 3 bedroom house size is going to be a lot closer to 2000 sqft. The only way you would see new construction at 1400sqft is if it’s a condo or something.
    • Toutouxc 9d ago
      Are people that much larger in the US? I’d happily raise three European-sized kids in the 130 sqm bachelor pad.
      • Kirby64 9d ago
        Larger? No, not really. But there’s generally just an expectation that rooms are larger. Most bedrooms you expect to have king size beds for adults, for instance. Master bathrooms and closets also tend to be quite large. Americans just tend to have a lot of stuff…
        • sgarland 9d ago
          Houses are also often poorly laid out. I’m not sure if it’s a side effect of open concept, or cheap builders, but it’s definitely a thing. I toured a new build community north of Austin once that mostly had < 2000 sf homes, and they felt spacious, because the layouts were excellent. In contrast, the house we wound up getting was 2600 sf but felt roughly the same to me, because the layout was just “make square rooms.” The primary bedroom was 400 sf, for crying out loud. We put a couch in there we never used, just to fill some of the space.
• xyzelement 9d ago
  Depending on where you live most cars you see on the road are in the ballpark. It costs about 40k to change the roof on a house around here. So 75k is both objectively massive, and not. I won't argue "privilege" but it seems like both people in the couple have been working for a long time and took equity bets that paid off. Another way to look at it, in many tech jobs 75k could be a bonus (additional to salary an equity)
  • klardotsh 9d ago
    75k bonus? I’ve worked one job ever with a formal bonus structure at all. The annual target for that bonus was less than a third of that amount. Sometimes I wonder if I work in the same tech industry as some of the other folks around here, but then, I guess I haven’t worked FAANG.
    • itake 9d ago
      He is relatively early at Cloudflare, joining via CF’s acquisition of his startup. My understanding most Tier 1 employers are paying $700k-$1.5m usd per year in TC. $75k is less than his tax bill. Also the home is in Texas (I think). So lower cost square footage.
      • m4tthumphrey 9d ago
        [flagged]
        • afavour 9d ago
          Is it hate? Or is it just shock? Tech does have a crazy variance in salary for people who are doing, broadly at least, the same jobs. I don’t see any hate here. Just surprise.
          • throwayay4929 9d ago
            The jobs are massively not the same. It's like saying the IT guy that's in charge of reimaging PCs at your municipal office is broadly doing the same job as the couple that built this lan house. There are relatively large pockets of engineers making great money while coasting at a big company, but more often the engineers are actually doing a more complex job.
• m4tthumphrey 9d ago
  I really didn't expect this to be the take on HN... - He's been in big (huge) tech since 2005 - She is an angel investor - Moved to Austin ... Does privileged just mean wealthy/successful now?
  • tikimcfee 9d ago
    That's... that's all it's ever meant? Since when had wealthy/successful not afforded privilege? I think the point is that posts like this are becoming a sour taste for a greater ratio of humans because of the increase ratio of disparity in global wealth/success. I don't begrudge someone their enjoyment and livelihoods and I'm a fan of DDR and lan parties like every good nerd. But please don't pretend or be ignorant of the idea that there are many more people in the world now that can both see this and likely never attain it despite "hard work" or "good investments".
    • m4tthumphrey 9d ago
      > But please don't pretend or be ignorant of the idea that there are many more people in the world now that can both see this and likely never attain it despite "hard work" or "good investments". Of course - I am one of them - but I can still appreciate the project. Edit: To add, I would probably refer to this purely as hard work, good investments AND lots of good luck and timing, as opposed to privilege.
      • abanana 9d ago
        Regarding investments, I can't believe how often people fail to understand that to make money by investing, you have to have money to invest in the first place! Getting rich by investing is a way to turn a small fortune into a bigger one. It's not a way to make a fortune in the first place. They both came from wealthy families. Of course they worked hard and applied themselves fully, without ever having money worries to distract them. But let's not perpetuate that cliché that it's purely down to "hard work", like the trope from rich people's self-marketing autobiographies. "It's all down to my hard work, nothing to do with my rich family, really, nobody works as hard as me"! People all over the world work very very hard, some much harder than these people, and don't have the privilege of wealthy families to fall back on. To clarify: correcting and clarifying isn't begrudging or complaining. Same for those of us who know we won't attain it because we don't have that privilege. They enjoy it, good luck to them.
• thenoblesunfish 9d ago
  They are rich. But then again plenty of people have multi-million dollar homes. I am sure there are some in your city. In some cities a million dollar home is becoming a normal price. Many people have hobbies and pastimes that they spend many tens of thousands of dollars on. Think about boats. Or how much some hotels and resorts, full of people, cost. These people are, again, rich, but so are millions of other people who don't tell you the details on the internet.
• tecoholic 9d ago
  I think they are more lucky than privileged. Multiple IPO stock options, both well educated and high paying jobs and shared interests. They seem to have hit right timings multiple times. Things compound.
  • xyzelement 9d ago
    Do you think there's any good decision making and hard work involved too, or just pure dumb luck?
    • tecoholic 9d ago
      I think they are smart enough to take advantage of things. Hard work or not doesn’t matter. For example, assessing that their home in California is worth way more than they make out of it and seeking out a cheaper place to convert that “luck” into profit is definitely their smarts and not privilege.
    • AdamN 9d ago
      both. And it's important to remember that. Luck being a main force (which is really true for almost any outcome good or bad). The other forces being talent and labor.
    • bluGill 9d ago
      Both. Everybody gets good and bad luck, nothing you can do about that. However hard work will make a major difference in the outcome. His good luck was in large part only possible because of working for the right company at least hard enough to not get fired. (a different post says he is a principal engineer which implies a lot of hard work to get - edit: also good luck that someone else wasn't also working that hard and got selected, but second to principal engineer is probably still a good income)
    • idiotsecant 9d ago
      The world is absolutely packed with incredibly hard working people who make excellent decisions and die like a dog of a preventable disease in a slum somewhere. Yes, luck. Hard work is table stakes. It is necessary but wholely insufficient. We shouldn't make the mistake of over-attributing our successes to hard work and ignore the massive social and economic advantages that let us capitalize on the work we do. Everyone else works hard too, they just don't get to reap the benefits of that labor.
• roenxi 9d ago
  > I needed like a minute to process this. Something like 1 person in 15 in the US is a millionaire, and a million dollar house + some LAN gear should be well within reach of a millionaire. Obviously they're a comfortable distance from poor but we're not talking unattainable wealth on display here.
• mpeg 9d ago
  I recognised Kenton from his profile pic, he’s definitely doing well but also is a terrific principal engineer, and still somehow finds the time to answer questions on discord, I’ve had chats with him about DOs even though my spend on the cf platform is ridiculously low
• adamtaylor_13 9d ago
  Who cares? They got lucky or worked hard or whatever. Congrats to them. Their success does not make your life worse.
  • deleted 9d ago
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  • haunter 9d ago
    > Their success does not make your life worse Debatable
    • adamtaylor_13 9d ago
      If the people who cry about the rich spent 15% of their time minding their own business and focusing on their own success, they'd actually be successful. Somehow those who cry nonstop about the rich are even more insufferable than the rich.
      • haunter 9d ago
        I mean the guy is coming from Google so they actually made the world worse.
        • adamtaylor_13 9d ago
          Ahh yes. The old "because they were within 10 feet of evil, they are evil." He didn't single-handedly stop Google, so he's guilty of perpetrating the evil himself, right? Go on, next you'll tell me about how your hands are clean. You've never so much as touched a product that made someone's life worse.
          • tikimcfee 9d ago
            Being complicit in feeding a malicious whale is often just as bad as being the malicious whale. When 1000 people all thing "I'm not doing that many objectively bad things at this company," that's 1000 workers under 1 tiny group's control deciding the destinies and "luck" of millions. It's obfuscation of power and responsibility, and I think people "in tech" need to realize this and accept it more than they do right now. If you work for Google, for Apple, for Amazon - if you derive a payment from The Whale and in turn the whale continues to thrive in some way because of your work, you are complicit. Whether or not you or society is ok with it is the problem to discuss.
• deleted 9d ago
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• imjonse 9d ago
  From the Q&A: "Why did you move to Austin? [...] needed a bigger house, but we really could not afford to buy (much less build) anything bigger in Palo Alto." So there are a few more levels of richness above
  • fuzzfactor 9d ago
    Many more. They may be due for a big inheritance but depending on age it probably hasn't happened yet. This looks more like an indulgence that was paid for from the work the couple has done by focusing their earnings over a fairly long period of time. If they were ultra-privileged they would have been destined to arrive at the same place since birth without having to make any effort of their own at all. And they would have other homes in places like Telluride, Paris, Milan, and Montreaux that are over-the-top in a purely domestic way without any need for digital extravagance, since they've got that right here in Austin whenever they want. Even if it was only a month or two out of the year ;) That's something so many people envy or truly dislike even worse, but I admire this effort.
• sailfast 9d ago
  The author goes through this in great detail with some humility in the FAQ. It’s rich, yes. And the author acknowledges that. Still a cool build!
• jms703 9d ago
  Or they just cashed in some stock options.
• larodi 9d ago
  > These folks are privileged as hell. Wonder how a seven-figure house would make feel an engineer/hacker/mind-hacker (which neuroscientists are) from Kenya or perhaps Ukraine, Russia, Nigeria, Malaysia, etc. No offense, but if that whole project was made by refurbished stuff, it would've meant more to hackers and to me personally. In its current form - it means a massive showoff of power, and the location being Texas adds on top. This is luxury on a level that 99% of population would most likely never achieve in their lives, and hacking/gaming should be universally accepted and loved if it is meant to be a uniting factor.
• kubb 9d ago
  This is an underrated property of wealth accumulation: beyond a certain point money doesn’t cover useful things, but vanity projects, and is being wasted. The typical cliches in this subject are that nobody can decide what’s worthwhile or not so we have to let the people with accumulation decide and that it stimulates the economy, no matter what kind of spending it is. Claude can point out the flaws in those arguments fairly easily by now.
  • glitchc 9d ago
    That's good for the economy. Vanity projects help the wealth spread around. Think of all the people who received income by working on this house. It's a much bigger problem when wealth is hoarded.
    • kubb 9d ago
      [flagged]
      • peddling-brink 9d ago
        Yeah well my llm said the opposite, so this is obviously untrue. Also, my llm can beat up your llm.
        • kubb 9d ago
          Being silly and obstinate when knowledge is in arm’s reach? Making people spell it out for you because you don’t have the respect to look yourself? OK here’s the short version: the economy has a limited amount of resources and the way they’re allocated matters. A yacht built means no hospital built. Making people work on useless stuff for the rich is demoralizing because their life’s blood is used on meaningless projects. Growing a luxury industry incentivizes gifted people to seek employment in it rather than in other fields where they’re. It matters what the economy does, not just that it grows. Every LLM will tell you that if you ask. You just didn’t ask. Because you think nothing of others and their time.
• deleted 9d ago
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• zaken 9d ago
  This seems like standard well off bay area family to me TBH... Houses in Cupertino cost $3,000,000 (7 figures), and the owners drive around a pair of $75,000 Teslas.
• sitzkrieg 9d ago
  the amount of people pretending this post is anything but rich rich level of spending is staggering
• oooyay 9d ago
  This is old tech money as I call it. People from the early 2000s and 2010s who owned a home in the Bay area back then through the pandemic. Most of these folks share a characteristic of not knowing how wealthy they are comparatively to new tech entrants or even those than entered in the 2010s. Not to say anything negative of that, I think it's just a byproduct of the free wheeling and fast paced times back then, but if you're not prepared for it then it can rub you the wrong way sometimes.
• iwontberude 9d ago
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• cma 9d ago
  If ever there was a case for cloud gaming.. However these days those machines may be appreciating assets.
• rpdillon 9d ago
  Kenton worked at Google and was instrumental in building capn' proto and protocol buffers and then went to Cloudflare and did huge amounts of infrastructure work there. I wouldn't compare Kenton to a typical dev.
• carlosjobim 9d ago
  Wait a bit... everybody loves looking at and admiring sports cars, even if they are poor and can never afford them. Nobody would hate the car or the owner just because it is out of reach for them. What's the difference here?
• Dig1t 9d ago
  This is not crazy at all for anyone from the Bay Area. A rundown house in a not so great part of the bay is seven figures minimum. 75k is a typical bonus at a company like Facebook or Google. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of tech workers that are at this level of wealth.