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Hedge Fund Manager: Goodbye and Good Luck
- biohacker42 18y agoWow, a lot of common sense and then BAM - Linux & Hemp, I wasn't expecting that. Not that I don't agree with it, but weird seeing that, I guess that guy is a hippie finance nerd. (I mean that in the best way possible).
- yesimahuman 18y agoNo, he understands that a lot of the things holding us back are rooted in greed and politics. Resistance to hemp would be one of those.
- bgutierrez 18y agoI don't know about common sense.
- biohacker42 18y agoI think that government doesn't work, merit is often overridden by connections, too much greed is pointless, in time we're (almost) all forgotten are all common sense things to say. What's odd is that he would use Linux as a metaphor, who but a hacker would get that?
- fallentimes 18y agoI think you'd be surprised. What many people on HN consider common sense (e.g. Open ID, use complete sentences, use simple design for consumer sites) is not common sense to the general public (e.g. MOM, USE GMAIL INSTEAD OF HOTMAIL - CHRIST).
- neilc 18y agoOpenID is a steaming pile, and I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with Hotmail -- I use Gmail personally, but if you're not a heavy email user, Hotmail is perfectly adequate (and integrates better with the rest of the MSN web properties).
- fallentimes 18y agoThen she complains to me about the spam.
- tertius 18y agoOh the spam. "Why do I get spam?" "I didn't tell anyone to send me these emails about genitalia." Gmail is not for moms I think.
- ChaitanyaSai 18y agoWhy so much resentment for those with rich parents?. A genetic endowment of intelligence and conscientiousness is also a stroke of luck, There's a good chance that his regressed-to-the-mean progeny will avail some of that financial fortune and social capital in getting ahead.
- mwerty 18y agoLuck has nothing to do with it. The point was that we'll have a better society when we filter aggressively for morons. Wealth playing a role in the selection process weakens our ability to do that.
- ChaitanyaSai 18y agoThe author bemoans the fact that he was handicapped in his early life by his unlucky (un-wealthy) circumstances. Being born into money, or with a good intellect, sporting ability, or looks (to name a few other valued traits), that isn't luck? Being born into money is somehow different from the others? Wealth is a proxy for one of the other talents. Wealth has always played a role in our selection process. Smarts, at some point, lead to an accumulation of wealth. Wealth signals, a lot more often than not, good genetic material that was awarded in previous iterations. Wealth offers the carriers of this material a better chance at survival, even if the current generation has regressed to the no-good-frat-boy mean. And if the chances are not availed, wealth is squandered in a few generations. The idea that the wealthy, but dumb get a free ride, ultimately jeopardizing the entire system is foolish. There will always be smart people around to either guide them and their finances for a percentage, or fleece them and penalize them for their ignorance. Enron filtered aggressively for morons. A fat lot of good it did them. A society is only a larger collection of vested interests.
- mwerty 18y agoThe author may bemoan it and may secretly (or openly) want all the unfair advantages he can get but that has nothing to do with the point he is making regarding meritocracy. It may be completely unfair that you are born super-capable but society does better when you get ahead in life because of it.
- ashishk 18y agoit's great to see people who can be so irrationally ambitious at first but become rational AFTER they've achieved significant success
- bgutierrez 18y agoI don't think it was rationality or a lack of it. It sounded like he couldn't stomach the business anymore. Or, he didn't feel like exposing his wealth to the markets for a while. Let's see if he ever comes back.
- stcredzero 18y ago"reigned in?" He asserts that the top-tier schools have been producing straw men -- suckers for the other sides of his trades. I think he's right. The level of education in this country has fallen across the board.
- redorb 18y agoAlways good to see someone get out while the getting is good ...
- j2d2 18y agoMarijuana was not made illegal promptly after WW2. It was illegalized during Nixon's presidency in 1970.
- jbenz 18y ago"They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten." The only thing that motivates me in my professional life more than money is history. I would like to be remembered. I would like a student of history to read about me in 100 years and think that I left this place better than I found it. Alas, this motivation doesn't stick well in my head, and the money is always there for the taking. I like his point that people simply earning money will not be remembered. He's made his money, and he's OK without being remembered. He can now relax (Which by the way, is why money is such a high motivating factor for me, personally. I don't particularly love the sight of money, but I believe it can buy peace of mind.)
- jhancock 18y agoI'm not trying to be insulting. But your post is interesting. You claim not to be motivated by money, but are motivated by a desired to be remembered (fame). I can't properly dissect the ego, but I think both the desire for money and fame stem from similar places. That is, I'm not sure they're that different. I have often though that if we ever do want a society based on merit and humanity, we need to get control of runaway egos. Maybe this requires a gene modification, so maybe we are too many years from it. Who knows. I would love to locate and find remedy for the "asshole gene".
- fallentimes 18y agoI'm actually the opposite of the OP. I would like to have enough money for myself, friends & family never have to worry about it in my life time. But I never ever want to be famous. One of my great fears would be having complete strangers (not founders, not YCers, not HNers) regularly recognize me. Starting your own business, no matter what it is, certainly causes some loss of privacy, but I'd prefer that 100 years from now no one gives a shit about who I was or what I did. Because if they did, it more than likely means I did something wrong.
- jhancock 18y agoWhen you say "would like to have enough money for myself, friends & family never have to worry about it in my life time."... there are two ways to go about this. One is to have a society that allows you to feel secure in that you will always be able to have an income stream that enables high quality of life. The second is to gather enough FU money so you can provide for yourself without regard to what the rest of society does. The second route is what most have been doing. And for good reason; that's mostly all our society allows, there are few occupations or opportunity for taking the high road. The trouble is this route doesn't "scale" as a solution for everyone. This route is "get out of my way, I'm taking care of myself, family, and friends. This requires you grab a bunch of equity. And that's the part that doesn't scale to everyone and therefore not a sustainable model.
- master 18y agoHere is a man who understands how to live.
- tortilla 18y agoI guess this is a perfect example of "fuck you money."
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- marvin 18y agoTo his defense, he didn't actually say "fuck you" - that was a gracious editorial spin.
- niels_olson 18y ago:s/gracious/gratuitous/
- marvin 18y agoThanks, English isn't my native language.
- noodle 18y ago"so long and thanks for all the fish"
- bkj123 18y agoWhere can I track political contributions as well as voting records? I'd like to see which politicians received the most contributions from various industries and compare it with their voting record. Is anyone doing this already?
- blakeweb 18y agoI seem to remember hearing about something similar this past weekend at http://conference.freeculture.org http://conference.freeculture.org in berkeley, but I can't recall it. If you're interested in the area, I'd ask Joshua Tauberer, razor.occams.info, who made http://govtrack.us/ http://govtrack.us/. He's really into it and I think could quickly give you a complete overview of what's been done and what hasn't.
- nihilocrat 18y agoHere's a list (might want to double-check with other sources) of contributors from the video game industry: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/10/01/game-biz-types-leaning-toward-obama http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/10/01/game-biz-types-leanin... You know, after spending years and years to get Spore out the door, I can understand why Will Wright would be fond of dinosaurs...
- gills 18y agoHere's one the Seattle Times maintains for tracking earmarks: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/favorfactory/favorfactory_2008/ http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/favorfactory/favo...
- andreyf 18y agoIs anyone doing this already? Close: opensecrets.org
- JulianMorrison 18y ago1. I've got mine. 2. I'm taking my ball and going home. 3. The sky is falling. 4. Y'all can have socialism. We'll call it "meritocracy". 5. Also, weed is kinda groovy.
- neilc 18y agoExactly. The guy is plainly a crackpot. Making 866% return in a single year makes you lucky, not necessarily intelligent or prone to have an intelligent take on the problems of society. His suggestion for government is particularly laughable: *My suggestion is that this great man start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man's interest, while at the same time creating rewards great enough to attract the best and brightest minds to serve in government roles without having to rely on corruption to further their interests or lifestyles.
- neilk 18y agoWhy is this laughable?
- JulianMorrison 18y agoHe might as well have said "I propose we solve the problem of making Big Government work". "Solve it how?" "Details, schmetails. That's busywork for the little people, I'm an ideas man."
- krschultz 18y agoIsn't that what John McCain said about medicare in the 2nd debate? "What we have to do with Medicare is have a commission, of the smartest people in America come together, come up with recommendations, and then like the base closing commission idea we had, then we should have congress vote up or down" Not to make this political, but why is it laughable when this guy says it, but not laughable when one of our 2 candidates for president says it?
- dejb 18y agoHe made 866% betting AGAINST the subprime collapse? (from the opening sentence of the article). That doesn't make sense. Surely they must mean betting FOR the subprime collapse. Or am I missing something?
- ojbyrne 18y agoYes, if you click on the "866 percent" link it says he bet against the subprime market. Sloppy wording.
- popschedule 18y agoThis guy is truly a bad ass.