4 ms·

Not buying Apple Stock in 1999 cost me $200M too. Not to mention what not picking those winning lottery numbers cost me...

konfusinomicon 7y ago
Captain hindsight strikes again!
thaumasiotes 7y ago
It might not be too late for the lottery numbers! I can't find it now, but I remember reading about a guy who was arrested in China for buying winning lottery numbers after they'd already been announced. The semi-surprising thing, to me, was that he did this more than once. Seems like a clear example of when you should take the win, and then leave in dignified haste.
- baby 7y ago
  Most criminals get caught because they can’t stop getting bigger. Same with most diseases
  - toyg 7y ago
    After all, it worked once, why would it not work again...?
    - deogeo 7y ago
      "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - perhaps they are too sane for their own good :)
  - MiracleUser 7y ago
    You mean the criminals that we catch are the ones who cant help getting too big
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- neves 7y ago
  This is usually money laundering. A Brazilian politic had won the lottery 7 times.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    This isn't a case of an unknown mechanism. The guy noticed that the lottery didn't close for a few minutes after the winning numbers were announced, making it possible to just watch the announcement and then buy the numbers. As such, there is no reason to believe it's anything more than it appears.
garry 7y ago
Did you get offered 1% of Apple? I mean, getting offered equity at the start of a thing is what I was trying to talk about.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  No, but he did have the option to buy that lottery ticket. If Apple had gone bust there would have been nothing to write about. By the same measure I can review my life and take every decision I took with hindsight and re-calculate what my net worth would be if I had taken the other fork, I'm pretty sure I could come up with a few hundred million as well but that doesn't matter, you only get one life. Next time you have to make a decision like that: take the other fork in the road, and likely you'll still end up frustrated because of the road not taken. Life is a series of 'and' ports, if you miss one it will look like that was the one that did it but in the end random chance had as much to do with it as that one decision did. So the comparison with a lottery ticket is on the money. Besides all that I think you ended up quite well so 'cost' is probably not the best term anyway.
  - ignoramous 7y ago
    > No, but he did have the option to buy that lottery ticket. From Garry's blog [0], it looks the it was more than just buying a lottery ticket. Peter Thiel cut him a great deal, by all accounts, and he still let it go. The equivalent to that, imo, would be to have refused ticket offered to you for free which then won the lottery. [0] (Peter Thiel said) "Cash this check, quit your job. This is a zero risk opportunity for you." I said, "Thank you very much, Mr. Thiel, but I might get promoted to Level 60 next year."
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Quitting your job is not a zero risk opportunity.
- irishloop 7y ago
  Oh for sure. I think the point is, any of these moves is an inherent risk. For every Apple or PayPal there are a thousand startups which fail. Knowing which will succeed and which will fail is sort of the whole caveat. You can't know the future when you make these decisions.
mikestew 7y ago
That's amusing, because shortly after that I was converting MSFT ESPP into AAPL shares (started as diversifying, then turned into an appealing strategy). Still a lottery pick, though; I'm no financial genius. I just really enjoyed the iPods we had recently purchased.
OldHand2018 7y ago
> Not buying Apple Stock in 1999 cost me $200M too. When I was the TA for my high school physics teacher back in 1994, he couldn't ever stop talking about how terrible Apple stock was and how he wished he never bought it. He kept trying to sell it to me; I didn't have a brokerage account or I probably would have just to get him to shut up about it. Back then it was less than $1 per share.

konfusinomicon 7y ago

Captain hindsight strikes again!

thaumasiotes 7y ago

It might not be too late for the lottery numbers! I can't find it now, but I remember reading about a guy who was arrested in China for buying winning lottery numbers after they'd already been announced. The semi-surprising thing, to me, was that he did this more than once. Seems like a clear example of when you should take the win, and then leave in dignified haste.

baby 7y ago
Most criminals get caught because they can’t stop getting bigger. Same with most diseases
- toyg 7y ago
  After all, it worked once, why would it not work again...?
  - deogeo 7y ago
    "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - perhaps they are too sane for their own good :)
- MiracleUser 7y ago
  You mean the criminals that we catch are the ones who cant help getting too big
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
neves 7y ago
This is usually money laundering. A Brazilian politic had won the lottery 7 times.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  This isn't a case of an unknown mechanism. The guy noticed that the lottery didn't close for a few minutes after the winning numbers were announced, making it possible to just watch the announcement and then buy the numbers. As such, there is no reason to believe it's anything more than it appears.

garry 7y ago

Did you get offered 1% of Apple? I mean, getting offered equity at the start of a thing is what I was trying to talk about.

jacquesm 7y ago
No, but he did have the option to buy that lottery ticket. If Apple had gone bust there would have been nothing to write about. By the same measure I can review my life and take every decision I took with hindsight and re-calculate what my net worth would be if I had taken the other fork, I'm pretty sure I could come up with a few hundred million as well but that doesn't matter, you only get one life. Next time you have to make a decision like that: take the other fork in the road, and likely you'll still end up frustrated because of the road not taken. Life is a series of 'and' ports, if you miss one it will look like that was the one that did it but in the end random chance had as much to do with it as that one decision did. So the comparison with a lottery ticket is on the money. Besides all that I think you ended up quite well so 'cost' is probably not the best term anyway.
- ignoramous 7y ago
  > No, but he did have the option to buy that lottery ticket. From Garry's blog [0], it looks the it was more than just buying a lottery ticket. Peter Thiel cut him a great deal, by all accounts, and he still let it go. The equivalent to that, imo, would be to have refused ticket offered to you for free which then won the lottery. [0] (Peter Thiel said) "Cash this check, quit your job. This is a zero risk opportunity for you." I said, "Thank you very much, Mr. Thiel, but I might get promoted to Level 60 next year."
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Quitting your job is not a zero risk opportunity.
irishloop 7y ago
Oh for sure. I think the point is, any of these moves is an inherent risk. For every Apple or PayPal there are a thousand startups which fail. Knowing which will succeed and which will fail is sort of the whole caveat. You can't know the future when you make these decisions.

mikestew 7y ago

That's amusing, because shortly after that I was converting MSFT ESPP into AAPL shares (started as diversifying, then turned into an appealing strategy). Still a lottery pick, though; I'm no financial genius. I just really enjoyed the iPods we had recently purchased.

OldHand2018 7y ago

> Not buying Apple Stock in 1999 cost me $200M too. When I was the TA for my high school physics teacher back in 1994, he couldn't ever stop talking about how terrible Apple stock was and how he wished he never bought it. He kept trying to sell it to me; I didn't have a brokerage account or I probably would have just to get him to shut up about it. Back then it was less than $1 per share.