7 ms·

He has good and true advice: If you approach challenges with tenacity, always be curious to learn, and be open and thoughtful with your team, you too can be an

He has good and true advice: If you approach challenges with tenacity, always be curious to learn, and be open and thoughtful with your team, you too can be an early employee at the next FB and become a billionaire.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
If you are a worthless idea guy, have lots of money, or know the right people, you too can be an early employee at the next FB and become a billionaire. Woo another billionaire! Just what society needs. If you approach challenges with tenacity, always be curious to learn, and be open and thoughtful with your team, you too can do something that actually matters. Don't mean to be rude, but being a billionaire is a boring goal with no value in and of itself.
- vikiomega9 9y ago
  > Don't mean to be rude, but being a billionaire is a boring goal with no value in and of itself. Are you a billionaire?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    Do you need to break your leg to know that would be painful? Do you need to be a billionaire to have an opinion on billionaires or be aware of human behavior? Really rich people aren't a new thing. What's inherently valuable about being a billionaire? What values and standards does the end goal of being a billionaire tend to produce in people?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - PacifyFish 9y ago
      The point of the comment you are responding to is that there is indeed inherent value to being a billionaire, for the person who is a billionaire. "Are you a billionaire?" --> if you were a billionaire I imagine you would be pretty stoked.
    - vikiomega9 9y ago
      > Do you need to break your leg to know that would be painful? You certainly don't need to break your leg to deduce that the action results in pain. You do however need to know and experience a nontrivial amount of wealth to realize how much power and inherent value being a billionaire affords. One becomes a radical agent of change at this point. It is thus a worthy goal.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
jforman 9y ago
To be fair, there are a LOT of early employees at Facebook that got churned through, or who didn't make it to the executive tier. Chamath almost got churned through, but he hit it big on the Growth team. That's the difference between an early employee with $10M and an early employee with $500M. Moskovitz (now Asana), D'Angelo (now Quora), Vernal (now Sequoia), Bosworth (still at FB on hardware/Building 8), Cohler (now Benchmark), Hammerbacher (now ?), Chamath (now Social Capital) ... those are some of the standouts off of the top of my head, out of hundreds of early employees.
- lfischer 9y ago
  But what’s the difference between $10M and $500M? In both cases, you can stop working for a living and do whatever you want with your life instead.
  - jforman 9y ago
    Only if "whatever you want" means lounging on a beach or a yacht. Most of the people on that list had aspirations to impact the world as much as possible, and there isn't a limit to the wealth you can use to do that. You couldn't start Social Capital on $10M, for example.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      You can change the world on 10k, we believe otherwise because we're lazy, and to be fair, it's a lot more fun to have 10 million than 10 thousand. Sure, if you have a bunch of money and throw that money at things, you'll "change the world", but that doesn't mean that's an effective way of making lasting or useful change.
      - jforman 9y ago
        Of course you CAN impact the world on $10k. But the Gates Foundation doesn't run on $10k. You can found zero biotech companies on $10k. Money, alas, has value, believe it or not.

aaron-lebo 9y ago

If you are a worthless idea guy, have lots of money, or know the right people, you too can be an early employee at the next FB and become a billionaire. Woo another billionaire! Just what society needs. If you approach challenges with tenacity, always be curious to learn, and be open and thoughtful with your team, you too can do something that actually matters. Don't mean to be rude, but being a billionaire is a boring goal with no value in and of itself.

vikiomega9 9y ago
> Don't mean to be rude, but being a billionaire is a boring goal with no value in and of itself. Are you a billionaire?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Do you need to break your leg to know that would be painful? Do you need to be a billionaire to have an opinion on billionaires or be aware of human behavior? Really rich people aren't a new thing. What's inherently valuable about being a billionaire? What values and standards does the end goal of being a billionaire tend to produce in people?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - PacifyFish 9y ago
    The point of the comment you are responding to is that there is indeed inherent value to being a billionaire, for the person who is a billionaire. "Are you a billionaire?" --> if you were a billionaire I imagine you would be pretty stoked.
  - vikiomega9 9y ago
    > Do you need to break your leg to know that would be painful? You certainly don't need to break your leg to deduce that the action results in pain. You do however need to know and experience a nontrivial amount of wealth to realize how much power and inherent value being a billionaire affords. One becomes a radical agent of change at this point. It is thus a worthy goal.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

jforman 9y ago

To be fair, there are a LOT of early employees at Facebook that got churned through, or who didn't make it to the executive tier. Chamath almost got churned through, but he hit it big on the Growth team. That's the difference between an early employee with $10M and an early employee with $500M. Moskovitz (now Asana), D'Angelo (now Quora), Vernal (now Sequoia), Bosworth (still at FB on hardware/Building 8), Cohler (now Benchmark), Hammerbacher (now ?), Chamath (now Social Capital) ... those are some of the standouts off of the top of my head, out of hundreds of early employees.

lfischer 9y ago
But what’s the difference between $10M and $500M? In both cases, you can stop working for a living and do whatever you want with your life instead.
- jforman 9y ago
  Only if "whatever you want" means lounging on a beach or a yacht. Most of the people on that list had aspirations to impact the world as much as possible, and there isn't a limit to the wealth you can use to do that. You couldn't start Social Capital on $10M, for example.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    You can change the world on 10k, we believe otherwise because we're lazy, and to be fair, it's a lot more fun to have 10 million than 10 thousand. Sure, if you have a bunch of money and throw that money at things, you'll "change the world", but that doesn't mean that's an effective way of making lasting or useful change.
    - jforman 9y ago
      Of course you CAN impact the world on $10k. But the Gates Foundation doesn't run on $10k. You can found zero biotech companies on $10k. Money, alas, has value, believe it or not.