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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 th

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
        Well, the Gates Foundation is funded by a monopoly that intentionally restricted competition and progress in the computing industry for at least a decade, so maybe there's a better way of obtaining it.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - appleiigs 9y ago
    I don’t much about Social Capital, but $10 million is plenty to start a fund. (plenty even if you only use a portion of it)

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
      Well, the Gates Foundation is funded by a monopoly that intentionally restricted competition and progress in the computing industry for at least a decade, so maybe there's a better way of obtaining it.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- appleiigs 9y ago
  I don’t much about Social Capital, but $10 million is plenty to start a fund. (plenty even if you only use a portion of it)