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> It's just baffling they are still getting billions to spend. When you realize that most investors at that level are degenerate gamblers, and that they're eve

> It's just baffling they are still getting billions to spend. When you realize that most investors at that level are degenerate gamblers, and that they're even worse about thinking "the Generals were due!" than your buddy who can't look away from the DraftKings app for more than five minutes, it's not so baffling anymore. The only difference is that when you have that much money, you own the casino.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
It is hard not to love the degeneracy of Son Masayoshi as a gambler. The trick is to not take it seriously. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799821 Bill Hwang of Archegos Capital Management is a close second (lost $20B in two days, and basically brushed off margin calls while his highly overlevered bets were collapsing, incurring $10B+ of losses at the investment banks he worked with). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-08/how-bill-hwang-of-archegos-capital-lost-20-billion-in-two-days https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-08/how-bill-... | https://archive.today/lM0SU https://archive.today/lM0SU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archegos_Capital_Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archegos_Capital_Management
- EFreethought 1y ago
  Son made most of his money with Alibaba. I think he made 500x or 1,000x his original investment. Absolutely crazy. Almost everything he has done since then has lost money. When I read that he is investing in something, I just assume it will end badly.
  - gottorf 1y ago
    Isn't that basically the venture capital model, though? Your winners go many times X, and the losers become worthless.
    - EFreethought 1y ago
      At some point, a good VC would have a second winner. And if that is the VC model, then are the VCs smarter than everybody else?
      - toomuchtodo 1y ago
        VC is just gambling with some status and ecosystem participation. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/charlie-munger-acquired-podcast-vc-venture-capital-berkshire-warren-buffett-2023-10 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/charlie-mung...
      - chii 1y ago
        > At some point, a good VC would have a second winner. but you don't make the same type of deduction for lottery winners - surely a good lottery number picker should get a second win sooner or later!
        EFreethought 1y ago
        Lottery winners do not tell the world they are smarter than the rest of us, or go on podcasts, write op-eds or start websites telling the rest of us how the world should be run.
        cyanydeez 1y ago
        Or buy american democracy
      - marcus_holmes 1y ago
        This is one of my arguments that startups are mostly about luck - because smart people who are highly incentivised to pick wimmers, with all the data they need to pick winners, all the people and compute they need to pick winners, can't pick winners.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  > It is hard not to love the degeneracy of Son Masayoshi as a gambler. The trick is to not take it seriously. Therein lies the problem. People do take it seriously, particularly on the idea that he's now due, and keep feeding him money to make these bets with, instead of tossing him out of the boardroom, like he should have been with his bet on WeWork.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

It is hard not to love the degeneracy of Son Masayoshi as a gambler. The trick is to not take it seriously. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799821 Bill Hwang of Archegos Capital Management is a close second (lost $20B in two days, and basically brushed off margin calls while his highly overlevered bets were collapsing, incurring $10B+ of losses at the investment banks he worked with). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-08/how-bill-hwang-of-archegos-capital-lost-20-billion-in-two-days https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-08/how-bill-... | https://archive.today/lM0SU https://archive.today/lM0SU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archegos_Capital_Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archegos_Capital_Management

EFreethought 1y ago
Son made most of his money with Alibaba. I think he made 500x or 1,000x his original investment. Absolutely crazy. Almost everything he has done since then has lost money. When I read that he is investing in something, I just assume it will end badly.
- gottorf 1y ago
  Isn't that basically the venture capital model, though? Your winners go many times X, and the losers become worthless.
  - EFreethought 1y ago
    At some point, a good VC would have a second winner. And if that is the VC model, then are the VCs smarter than everybody else?
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      VC is just gambling with some status and ecosystem participation. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/charlie-munger-acquired-podcast-vc-venture-capital-berkshire-warren-buffett-2023-10 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/charlie-mung...
    - chii 1y ago
      > At some point, a good VC would have a second winner. but you don't make the same type of deduction for lottery winners - surely a good lottery number picker should get a second win sooner or later!
      - EFreethought 1y ago
        Lottery winners do not tell the world they are smarter than the rest of us, or go on podcasts, write op-eds or start websites telling the rest of us how the world should be run.
        cyanydeez 1y ago
        Or buy american democracy
    - marcus_holmes 1y ago
      This is one of my arguments that startups are mostly about luck - because smart people who are highly incentivised to pick wimmers, with all the data they need to pick winners, all the people and compute they need to pick winners, can't pick winners.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
lenerdenator 1y ago
> It is hard not to love the degeneracy of Son Masayoshi as a gambler. The trick is to not take it seriously. Therein lies the problem. People do take it seriously, particularly on the idea that he's now due, and keep feeding him money to make these bets with, instead of tossing him out of the boardroom, like he should have been with his bet on WeWork.