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In what universe is having a $400,000 bank account not winning the lottery? Holy hell, dude.
by plg 13y ago
In what universe is having a $400,000 bank account not winning the lottery? Holy hell, dude.
- wnevets 13y agoSan Francisco
- plg 13y agoWe are so insulated from our community. I guarantee you that for the vast, vast majority of San Franciscans, suddenly having $400,000 would be a truly life-changing event.
- auctiontheory 13y agoIn the sense that they would have the down payment on a condo in the Mission, yes. But that's not what "winning the lottery" implies.
- notahacker 13y agoPut another way, $400,000 - over 100x the per capita GDP of Ukraine - is a pretty massive windfall for a guy who grew up in a village outside Kiev. Sure, he chose to stay in the Bay Area and double down on his earnings, but it's not like he didn't have other realistic options that involved never working another day in his life.
- auctiontheory 13y agoYou're suggesting he should have taken his $400,000 and gone back to living in a village in Ukraine?
- notahacker 13y agoI'm observing that he could, and been accepted as successful for doing so, if he'd wanted to.
- kamaal 13y agoThe key word in your comment is 'suddenly'. I'm sure it was nothing like waking up one morning and finding $400000 in a bag outside his front door.
- leothekim 13y agoI see at least two universes: 1. The sort of universe where winning the lottery actually means winning multiple millions of dollars. 2. The sort of universe where having $400,000 is something to be proud of having earned.
- baddox 13y agoI imagine the average lottery winning is far less than $400,000.
- nollidge 13y agoDunno about average, but certainly the median.
- baddox 13y agoAccording to my fast and very plausibly flawed analysis of Powerball odds, I think the average winning should be about $300, using the gracious assumption that all Powerball jackpots are $600,000,000 (the largest Powerball jackpot ever was $590,000,000). http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_prizes.asp http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_prizes.asp
- epmatsw 13y agoWell, considering the minimum jackpot for Powerball is $20 million and the average jackpot is $141 million, the answer is this universe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerball#2009_changes_include_Florida_becoming_host_to_drawings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerball#2009_changes_include_...
- adamdavis 13y agoIs Powerball the only game that qualifies as winning the Lottery?
- epmatsw 13y agoI think Powerball and MegaMillions are the two people usually think of when they think "the lottery", at least in the states that I've lived in.
- adamdavis 13y agoWord. I was looking at the numbers for MegaMillions - seems like one of the payouts is 1 million dollars - which I think can easily turn into 400k if you took a lump sum. There are also a few payouts that are smaller sums. This is a sort of silly question, but does one only 'win' the lottery if they get the jackpot?
- mgkimsal 13y agoYou can usually win something by matching a subset of the numbers. Matching all 7, for example, is the 'jackpot', but matching, say, 5, might net you $10k. Matching 4 might net $100. Usually matching < half the numbers in a lottery drawing gets you nothing, from what I recall. We've got a bunch in North Carolina - the 'cash5' game has you pick 5 numbers. If you match any 2, you get $1 - I think that's the ticket price. The winnings for matching 3, 4 or 5 are dependent on how many tickets are sold and how many other matches there are. http://www.nc-educationlottery.org/faq_cash5.aspx http://www.nc-educationlottery.org/faq_cash5.aspx That approach may be more common for lotteries - I'm no expert :)
- aryastark 13y ago$400k would let me quit my job and run a startup. So... yeah, that would be pretty life-changing.
- throwaway092834 13y agoIt's not an exceptional level of wealth for this region. Not even top 10%.
- nolok 13y agoExcept the subject wasn't "the wealth of this region" but a poor immigrant living on food stamps.
- throwaway092834 13y agoThe subject I'm responding to is "winning the lotto." That's why it's a poor comparison.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- interstitial 13y agoWe should just be happy HN has moved beyond Flappy Bird. Now we're back to watching The Social Network movie again, and talking about how pathetic $400K is over $18 lattes.
- stcredzero 13y agoIn what universe is having a $400,000 bank account not winning the lottery? Silicon Valley. Remember the guy talked about at the beginning of "The Social Network" who commits suicide because he exited with "only" 3 million?
- benched 13y ago$400k is performing well at a BigCo for about a decade. I banked $100k in 4 years at MSFT, and I was not frugal. Surviving, let alone excelling in a large software company for 10 years is a demanding, sustained effort. In what way is it like the lottery?
- plg 13y agoreally? I'm obviously at the wrong BigCo
- nilkn 13y agoI saved $40k my first year out of college making quite a bit less than fresh grads get at big companies. I was sort of frugal--I ate out a lot and lived in a really nice apartment, but I did share it with a roommate, I didn't have any expensive hobbies besides the occasional video game, and I did own a paid off car and had no other debts of any kind. Anyway, with no income increases and no investment appreciation of any kind (i.e., just putting 100% of the money under your bed, or in a checking account), that would be $400k in 10 years.
- benched 13y agoSuper-importantly, incentive pay increases extra-linearly, at least in the MSFT reward game. So, e.g. in your 7th year you might be getting drastically more in bonus pay than in your 2nd year. Much more than you might expect just from raises. I assume that other large companies have somewhat comparable games, but I don't know first hand.