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No offense but Pieter Levels seems like a bit of a bastard, and you can see it in that thread. I don't pay much attention to him, but when I do come across his
by _xzxj 9y ago
No offense but Pieter Levels seems like a bit of a bastard, and you can see it in that thread. I don't pay much attention to him, but when I do come across his social media posts they're pretty off-putting. He's pretty successful yes, but €50k/mo is not exactly f-you money.
- gkya 9y agoFrankly all the messages he has to put up with are plain stupid, so if he's being a bit of a bastard, rightly so. I just found about his websites, bookmarked nomadlist.com already. It's funny, to say the least, how people exaggerate taking some data from a database and spitting it out as HTML. The important bit here is the data and the presentation, nothing else. WRT $50k/mo, for any sane person that's two times more-than-enough. If I could stably do $5k/mo from an app or website I'd be happy.
- jgh 9y agoSo I'm going to reply here because I think this is a good one (of the replies I've gotten) to express my thoughts a little bit more clearly: 1) I was wrong about what was going on in that thread. I sort of scanned it at first and saw that snarky "this is why I build companies and you do contracts" post and it rubbed me the wrong way. 2) The $50k (or €50k, im not sure which it is now) number is a lot, but given the way I originally interpreted the thread my initial reaction was more of one like "who does this guy think he is?" 3) I later went back over the thread and saw that people were being needlessly critical of a tiny webapp. All that being said, I do agree with the replies that are being critical of my thinking here -- I just can't go back and edit it on HN!
- gkya 9y agoYeah, that sometimes happens, totally understandable. You can't edit after 2 hours, and I think that's too short of a window. After posting the comment you replied to, I saw you made similar clarifications elsewhere, where if you could edit you could've added a little "whoops" message under your original one. I think it's the word you chose that brought it all on you though. Yet empathising with the way you interpreted the thing, I could've made a similar rant too, frankly.
- jgh 9y agoYeah I definitely used unnecessarily harsh language. Lesson learned: read thoroughly before being a jerk ;)
- matte_black 9y agoIt is far easier to become a bastard when running a one man business than if you had a team. With a team no one person can take all the credit.
- faitswulff 9y agoI think you underestimate the human capacity for opportunism/narcissism :p
- adbachman 9y agoHe's already his own boss, the whole point of f-you money is being able to tell your boss, "f you!" That means you can either go for the lump sum or the annuity, either one gets you out from under The Man.
- pieterhg 9y agoYes exactly. Also why would anyone need more than $50k/m? Even if you have a family?
- chadwilken 9y agoNot to mention he could probably have f-you money if he accepted an acquisition. So I would say that he is double smart for not doing that and continuing to build.
- tuananh 9y agoi dont think VC would be interested.
- sinnet11 9y agohey man i love my boss :).
- pieterhg 9y agoNot sure where I’m being a “bastard”? I answer most replies, many of them odd questions about tech stack when the whole point of the original tweet is that tech stack is irrelevant here.
- jonmb 9y agoYou weren't being a bastard at all. That tweet shows several people telling you that you're doing it "wrong", and your responses were concise and kind. If anything, I think some of those people were being a little rude. Can't argue with results. I don't personally care if you have one file with 4500 lines or 100 files with 45 lines. You have a successful and helpful business. Good job!
- jgh 9y agoAfter re-reading that thread I can see why you were frustrated with the people arguing over minutiae. So I apologize for that.
- pieterhg 9y agoThanks!
- jamiegreen 9y agoI don't know what makes HN so civilised but it is great. An oasis of peace in the cesspit of the internet :) Just had to add that...
- pieterhg 9y agoHaha I agree, this happens nowhere else.
- pc86 9y agoWhen it's $50k/mo revenue from business you built and do not need to needle with day in and day out, it absolutely is. Can you sit back and live off dividends from that? No of course not. You don't have Hollywood money or VC money but you sure as shit don't need to spend an afternoon polishing your resume for a day job. If unemployed and broke is at one end of the spectrum and living off investment dividends is the other, this is 95% of the way there.
- stagbeetle 9y agoOn more levels than just one. Take a look at the bottom right hand corner of one of his projects[0]. No publicity is bad publicity, but I'm certain that violates proper attribution for Open Maps. If it were Google Maps instead, I'm sure he'd have gotten a very suggestive letter by now. [0]https://hoodmaps.com/ithaca https://hoodmaps.com/ithaca
- pieterhg 9y agoOops! That wasn’t on purpose. I have “by @levelsio” on most of my projects on the bottom right corner: see https://nomadlist.com https://nomadlist.com and https://remoteok.io https://remoteok.io. I’ll try moving the map attribution to left tomorrow or move the “by @levelsio” box! Thanks for telling me.
- pieterhg 9y agoFixed now: https://hoodmaps.com https://hoodmaps.com. Moved to top right.
- jimmy1 9y ago50k a month isn't f-you money? What???? What in the world is wrong with this place? My wife and I are combined pulling 10k a month. I can only imagine that I would need to come up with creative ways to actually burn through the other 40k.
- gtsteve 9y agoIt's certainly impressive for a one person company. Is that 50k a month profit though? I co-own a company that turns over a similar amount but you wouldn't be jealous of my bank balance.
- ezekg 9y agoI think he said in his recent announcement that his profit margin is ~90% before taxes, so definitely good.
- blocked_again 9y agoHe doesn't employ anyone, doesn't spend money on advertising and runs the entire thing in a PHP digital ocean server. Now you do the math.
- joelrunyon 9y agoSo he's a 1) bastard 2) off-putting and 3) not as successful as you want him to be. C'mon dude. At least be consistent with your line of reasoning.
- jgh 9y agoYes I was wrong in that comment. I re-read the twitter thread and apologized for it in a different reply chain to Pieter.
- RikNieu 9y agoWhere do you live? I always find it fascinating how the same amount of money can be valued so differently by people. €50k/mo would absolutely be f-you money in my world. Hell, €5k that's just about passive income(like Levels business are close to being) would set me free and change my life in ways I cannot describe.
- quickthrower2 9y ago> €50k/mo is not exactly f-you money. I f-you money is saying f-you to your boss, then yes it is. Even in the most expensive cities in the world. Hong Kong, SF
- squarefoot 9y ago$50k/month may seem not much to you but a lot of us earn much less. I would sign now to get 10 times less that figure for life. Besides, that amount is well above the necessary "critical mass" of money needed to make it grow by itself if carefully used: just resist the temptation to waste them immediately in new cars, luxury homes etc. That's the mistake most "rich quick" people (mainly sport players, top chart artists etc.) make when they believe that money will flow forever (it won't).