FWIW, many of the folks I know that are shooting for the 'big payout' aren't really chasing after the fast cars and material side of things - it's simply what t

FWIW, many of the folks I know that are shooting for the 'big payout' aren't really chasing after the fast cars and material side of things - it's simply what the definition of 'success' has been in the tech world for a long time. TechCrunch (and that ilk) is a sort of porn, and I've known some folks become addicted to that narrative. Some of the stories on HN probably feed in to that as well. If/when you're down, seeing so much seemingly easy success (and, let's be fair, some of it really was easy - there are people we read about who didn't slave away for 10 years to become an 'overnight sensation') is difficult to deal with. I don't think Dennis in particular was necessarily after the fast cars and million $ mansion (actually, he had a million dollar house already, on mortgage).