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What is your position? You're bashing the reply for not complaining about all greed, is that it? Like somehow the OP didn't go far enough? I'm struggling to und

What is your position? You're bashing the reply for not complaining about all greed, is that it? Like somehow the OP didn't go far enough? I'm struggling to understand your response, maybe it is to defend greed?

cj 3y ago
The juxtaposition of a entrepreneur recounting his experience building/selling products, with the original commenter criticizing entrepreneurs for being greedy, alongside of stories/comments every week here complaining about how we aren’t paid enough in tech and how it’s immoral to ask tech workers to drive to an office is quite ironic. He has a point.. HN is full of greed (or lack of appreciation for the privilege most of us have) and criticizing a solo bootstrapped entrepreneur for greed feels completely misplaced. To a certain extent, yes, let’s defend and embrace greed when the outcome is a solo entrepreneur doing cool things and sharing the experience publicly.
- demondemidi 3y ago
  > To a certain extent, yes, let’s defend and embrace greed No, let's not do this. That's literally the root of inequity that is rotting western culture. Put down the Ayn Rand and starting thinking about more than your /r/wsb fantasies of become a wolf of wallstreet or an elon musk. Cultures, cities, and nations' people are dying because of this callous attitude.
  - cj 3y ago
    If people had no desire for money, there would be no incentive to start companies. Would that lead to a more peaceful world? Maybe, temporarily. But a lack of companies leads to lack of jobs which leads to lots of other bad things.
    - arthurofbabylon 3y ago
      > If people had no desire for money, there would be no incentive to start companies. This is just ludicrous, and needs to be corrected. The people I know starting companies (and succeeding) are hardly driven by money.
imiric 3y ago
I'm criticizing the hipocrisy of denouncing greed while being part of the tech industry, especially on this forum, and the accusation that the author is guilty of it, based on nothing but a post about a successful entrepreneurship journey taken on "hard mode" (being a solo founder with no VC backing or advertising scam business models). This is a success story we should all celebrate in this community, and it pains me to see this type of response at the top of the comment section.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  I dont think all "success stories" should be celebrated. I think that's what the commenter was trying to highlight. There is such a thing as toxic productivity advice, the internet is full of it. It's easy to spot for me now, because I've noticed a few common threads. 1- The writing typically focuses on how much money the person makes 2- how little they have to work now or how little they had to work to get it and 3- How little time it took. In my career, business, etc. I've learned the exact opposite. I would give the exact opposite advice for people looking to be successful in their lives and careers: 1- Don't focus on how much money you make, but how much value you add to the world and those around you. As you keep investing in your community, it will pay you back dividends right when you need it most. 2- Work hard, even when mo one is watching. Work hard for yourself, no one else. 3- Don't rush things, sometimes taking an extra month to build your business infrastructure properly could save you millions in the future. In one sentence: It's not helpful for me personally for this guy to boast about how much he makes, how little he works, and how quickly he did it. What would be helpful is for him to remove all the concrete numbers ($45k/month, etc.) and boasting which only serves to put up my defenses and force me to start off in a position of comparison. Then he could just have simple prose about things he thinks are helpful that he learned along the way, simple information like a technical paper, not ad copy. This, and other content like it, serves them, not me. I've found that limiting or even completely restricting my consumption of this kind of content for the latter, is better for me.
  - imiric 3y ago
    > I dont think all "success stories" should be celebrated. I agree, and I never said so. I get the perspective of being jaded by vapid success stories of "here's how I got rich, buy my book/merch/MLM and you can get rich too", but this is far from being the case here. If you read the article, the author clearly states they were lucky several times, and towards the end: > There is no formula to guarantee success. This is not someone boasting of their success, or saying there's a quick and foolproof way to reach it, but sharing their journey with others and hoping it inspires people, in the same way they were inspired by similar stories. > how little they have to work now or how little they had to work to get it This was a 2 year journey, where at some point they were working 12 and 16 hours a day, and they said it took a toll on their personal and social life, so this is hardly working little, and having no sacrifices. If they now get to enjoy working 4 hours a day, and taking many days off, then that's a notable reward they get to enjoy from their previous hard work. We should all be thankful that we live in an age where such a work/life balance is even possible. Our ancestors had to do back-breaking labour for 18 hours a day, or work a dead-end office job for their entire lives enriching someone else just so they could earn the right to a meager existence when they retire. Yet we live in a time when computers enable us to not think about our finances, and to do work we actually enjoy doing, rather than because we have to in order to subsist. _This_ is the future technology promised us, where everyone gets to work less and enjoy life more, yet most of us are still stuck in industries with the same grind mentality from 100 years ago. Let's not criticize being able to work less. > How little time it took. They invested 7 years into their career, and did hard work for 2 years, with several failures along the way, so this is not an insignificant amount of time. It's certainly impressive what they've accomplished in 2 years, but this is not an overnight success story. How long would they have to have done "hard" work for their story to hold water? > In one sentence: It's not helpful for me personally for this guy to boast about how much he makes, how little he works, and how quickly he did it. I mean, that's your preference, sure. But companies are measured by their finances, and it's difficult to talk about growth towards financial independence without mentioning numbers. If they were discussing their fitness journey, they would need to mention their weight and exercise statistics, so I don't see how this is any different. > This, and other content like it, serves them, not me. Again, it's your opinion, and that's fine, but myself and many others find it very interesting to hear about someone else's road to "success". We don't need to be so cynical about their intentions just because it fits some preconceived notions about this type of content.

cj 3y ago

The juxtaposition of a entrepreneur recounting his experience building/selling products, with the original commenter criticizing entrepreneurs for being greedy, alongside of stories/comments every week here complaining about how we aren’t paid enough in tech and how it’s immoral to ask tech workers to drive to an office is quite ironic. He has a point.. HN is full of greed (or lack of appreciation for the privilege most of us have) and criticizing a solo bootstrapped entrepreneur for greed feels completely misplaced. To a certain extent, yes, let’s defend and embrace greed when the outcome is a solo entrepreneur doing cool things and sharing the experience publicly.

demondemidi 3y ago
> To a certain extent, yes, let’s defend and embrace greed No, let's not do this. That's literally the root of inequity that is rotting western culture. Put down the Ayn Rand and starting thinking about more than your /r/wsb fantasies of become a wolf of wallstreet or an elon musk. Cultures, cities, and nations' people are dying because of this callous attitude.
- cj 3y ago
  If people had no desire for money, there would be no incentive to start companies. Would that lead to a more peaceful world? Maybe, temporarily. But a lack of companies leads to lack of jobs which leads to lots of other bad things.
  - arthurofbabylon 3y ago
    > If people had no desire for money, there would be no incentive to start companies. This is just ludicrous, and needs to be corrected. The people I know starting companies (and succeeding) are hardly driven by money.

imiric 3y ago

I'm criticizing the hipocrisy of denouncing greed while being part of the tech industry, especially on this forum, and the accusation that the author is guilty of it, based on nothing but a post about a successful entrepreneurship journey taken on "hard mode" (being a solo founder with no VC backing or advertising scam business models). This is a success story we should all celebrate in this community, and it pains me to see this type of response at the top of the comment section.

iancmceachern 3y ago
I dont think all "success stories" should be celebrated. I think that's what the commenter was trying to highlight. There is such a thing as toxic productivity advice, the internet is full of it. It's easy to spot for me now, because I've noticed a few common threads. 1- The writing typically focuses on how much money the person makes 2- how little they have to work now or how little they had to work to get it and 3- How little time it took. In my career, business, etc. I've learned the exact opposite. I would give the exact opposite advice for people looking to be successful in their lives and careers: 1- Don't focus on how much money you make, but how much value you add to the world and those around you. As you keep investing in your community, it will pay you back dividends right when you need it most. 2- Work hard, even when mo one is watching. Work hard for yourself, no one else. 3- Don't rush things, sometimes taking an extra month to build your business infrastructure properly could save you millions in the future. In one sentence: It's not helpful for me personally for this guy to boast about how much he makes, how little he works, and how quickly he did it. What would be helpful is for him to remove all the concrete numbers ($45k/month, etc.) and boasting which only serves to put up my defenses and force me to start off in a position of comparison. Then he could just have simple prose about things he thinks are helpful that he learned along the way, simple information like a technical paper, not ad copy. This, and other content like it, serves them, not me. I've found that limiting or even completely restricting my consumption of this kind of content for the latter, is better for me.
- imiric 3y ago
  > I dont think all "success stories" should be celebrated. I agree, and I never said so. I get the perspective of being jaded by vapid success stories of "here's how I got rich, buy my book/merch/MLM and you can get rich too", but this is far from being the case here. If you read the article, the author clearly states they were lucky several times, and towards the end: > There is no formula to guarantee success. This is not someone boasting of their success, or saying there's a quick and foolproof way to reach it, but sharing their journey with others and hoping it inspires people, in the same way they were inspired by similar stories. > how little they have to work now or how little they had to work to get it This was a 2 year journey, where at some point they were working 12 and 16 hours a day, and they said it took a toll on their personal and social life, so this is hardly working little, and having no sacrifices. If they now get to enjoy working 4 hours a day, and taking many days off, then that's a notable reward they get to enjoy from their previous hard work. We should all be thankful that we live in an age where such a work/life balance is even possible. Our ancestors had to do back-breaking labour for 18 hours a day, or work a dead-end office job for their entire lives enriching someone else just so they could earn the right to a meager existence when they retire. Yet we live in a time when computers enable us to not think about our finances, and to do work we actually enjoy doing, rather than because we have to in order to subsist. _This_ is the future technology promised us, where everyone gets to work less and enjoy life more, yet most of us are still stuck in industries with the same grind mentality from 100 years ago. Let's not criticize being able to work less. > How little time it took. They invested 7 years into their career, and did hard work for 2 years, with several failures along the way, so this is not an insignificant amount of time. It's certainly impressive what they've accomplished in 2 years, but this is not an overnight success story. How long would they have to have done "hard" work for their story to hold water? > In one sentence: It's not helpful for me personally for this guy to boast about how much he makes, how little he works, and how quickly he did it. I mean, that's your preference, sure. But companies are measured by their finances, and it's difficult to talk about growth towards financial independence without mentioning numbers. If they were discussing their fitness journey, they would need to mention their weight and exercise statistics, so I don't see how this is any different. > This, and other content like it, serves them, not me. Again, it's your opinion, and that's fine, but myself and many others find it very interesting to hear about someone else's road to "success". We don't need to be so cynical about their intentions just because it fits some preconceived notions about this type of content.