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The best hackers are now billionaires [citation needed] This is a lie. Hell, even Torvalds is worth less than half a billion. Stallman is basically broke. Car
by angersock 11y ago
The best hackers are now billionaires
[citation needed]
This is a lie. Hell, even Torvalds is worth less than half a billion. Stallman is basically broke. Carmack is worth less than a hundred million.
Meanwhile, sociopaths and kids with Ivy connections seem to be the ones raking in the money you mention.
- nostrademons 11y agoDrew Houston and a couple early Googlers. I was talking personal acquaintances in the post, not the people generally lionized by the hacker community. There's this phenomena with a lot of hackers where once you make a lot of money, you're no longer cool, mainly because you've made a lot of money. Your day job also tends to shift to managing people, but I can assure you that many of the founders of the big unicorns today are wicked smart technically in addition to being savvy businesspeople.
- rndmind 11y agoIf you make millions by selling out against the hacker ethics or selling out your users, that would be pretty selfish and uncool.
- nostrademons 11y agoThere's a degree of Hacker Ethic in-between Stallman and Zuckerburg (who, BTW, is quite a skilled hacker even if he does take advantage of basically everyone he comes in contact with). Most people don't believe it's unethical to get paid for the fruits of your labor, nor to enter into deals with mutually-consenting adults. If you do, that's fine, but realize that's not going to stop other people from doing it, and if you live by that, somebody else will get paid for the fruits of your labor. The thread is about how to be financially successful as a Millenial: the best way to be financially successful, in any generation, is to work hard at things that other people value and insist that you're compensated appropriately for that.