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Only on Hacker News would we consider making over a billion dollars "absolute peanuts," and criticize Thiel for not being enough of a visionary to wait. When y
by gkoberger 9y ago
Only on Hacker News would we consider making over a billion dollars "absolute peanuts," and criticize Thiel for not being enough of a visionary to wait.
When you're Thiel, having the money liquid is more valuable than waiting. One way to look at is that he could have 5x'd the money had he not touched it. But I'd bet whatever he did with the money since the 2012 IPO (starting companies, investing in companies, etc) had a much better return than 5x.
- hristov 9y agoOnly on Hacker News I can write an entire paragraph explaining how I am not criticizing Thiel and then still get slammed for criticizing him.
- csallen 9y agoThe culture here is often contrarian to a fault.
- huiuyhn88 9y agoOnly the Sith deal in absolutes!
- api 9y agoThere's a lot of really weird vicarious worship of the wealthy around here. It's ironic that it's called Hacker News since traditionally hackers came from more of a "fight the man" zeitgeist. At times it borders on sycophancy, like when every single utterance of a VC no matter how banal is analyzed as if it's the words of some venerated guru. The extreme of this would be the Silicon Valley right and its full and explicit embrace of feudalism and monarchy. ... and no, I'm not criticizing Thiel. The vicarious sycophancy of the HN community is a lot weirder and at times more troubling than the behavior of the actual SV rich.
- fullshark 9y agoThat’s cause we are all temporarily embarrassed billionaires.
- bradleyjg 9y ago> But I'd bet whatever he did with the money since the 2012 IPO (starting companies, investing in companies, etc) had a much better return than 5x. reply The top post in this chain says that he sold 17 mln shares for $38 and another 20 million for about $20. The stock is currently trading at $180/share. If he had held on to those shares they would have been worth $6.66B today. According to Forbes his total current net worth is $2.6B. I certainly won't criticize someone for making a diversification play after having already made such a huge gain (his initial investment was $500k) but in retrospect it very much looks like a mistake.
- gowld 9y ago> retrospect it very much looks like a mistake Judging decisions based on future knowledge is utterly worthless. "In retrospect, picking the losing lottery numbers was a mistake. In retrospect, picking the winning lottery numbers was brilliant." It was only a mistake if it was a wrong choice given the information knowable at the time.
- bradleyjg 9y agoThat's true enough. But you said that you bet whatever he did with the money since had a much better return than Facebook. You were wrong.
- joshuamorton 9y agoDifferent commenters. But yes, the original g...grandparent was mistaken.
- bradleyjg 9y agoYou’re right. I missed that.