A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#391

Post by digitaltrees » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 6:14 AM UTC

afcapel wrote: post #329

kuzimoto wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were those people living? Are they single people in their mid 20s with no significant other or kids? Are they making enough to put some towards retirement? I guess if you're willing to sacrifice some things it could work. You're definitely not raising a family of 3-4 in a nicer neighborhood with that amount.

The median annual household income worldwide is about 10k/year. 20k/year puts you in the 91st percentile globally for person income. So it's perfectly possible to live with that money, most people in the world do.

Cost of goods and services is proportional in most places. Human happiness is often based on perceived social standing rather than objective wealth.

That is assuming your status is above subsistence level in your society.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#392

Post by im3w1l » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 6:17 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #164

seem_2211 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price, value and practical utility are not really correlated. A Rolex and a Timex will both tell you the time. An iPhone and a $129 Android will do mostly similar things. A Toyota Camry and a Porsche will both get you to work. But practical utility and value aren't necessarily the most important thing. Apple intuitively understood this, at a time when other computer companies didn't. Lots of people look at a Macbook…

I feel the argument but I think I would need different examples to better understand. There are reasons for owning a watch other than "tell the time," which could include "tell the time accurately without ever needing to change batteries," or "tell the time and date," or "tell the time while scuba diving." Rolex may be overkill but different watches serve different roles, and it's not just brand name alone that makes…

Actual scuba divers use a dive computer. Watches are for pose(u)rs.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#393

Post by digitaltrees » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 6:17 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #289

ylesaout wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While he made a successful comeback (however far from his first success), saying he toiled in misery for years is a little bit exagerated. Indeed, he was still the owner of a house (and probably of other goods). And this house was big enough to have a value probably equal to a today million dollars. That's not what I call to be toiled in misery.

Being rich doesn't make you automatically happy, you can hear many stories about billionaires who have and have achieved everything they could possibly want being miserable – wanting things and then getting them isn't the source of happiness, being faced with this reality firsthand by running out of things to want and still feeling dissatisfied with life can be (imagined at least) really miserable and hopeless.

The line is subsistence, not being a billionaire. If you don’t have food, shelter and health care you are often very very in happy. If you have those, each additional dollar contributes a much smaller degree of happiness. The research suggest the line for diminishing returns in the US is $80k in most cities.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#394

Post by digitaltrees » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 6:20 AM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #368

EGreg wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably similar to what Mark Zuckerberg called people who trusted him with their data :) https://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zu... ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard ZUCK: just ask ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns FRIEND: what!? how'd you manage that one? ZUCK: people just submitted it ZUCK: i don't know why ZUCK: they "trust me" ZUCK: dumb fucks

I doubt almost anyone on HN is squeaky clean with what they said and wrote as a teenager.

His behavior since then shows very similar contempt for users, privacy, or the rule of law.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#395

Post by digitaltrees » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 6:21 AM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #368

EGreg wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably similar to what Mark Zuckerberg called people who trusted him with their data :) https://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zu... ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard ZUCK: just ask ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns FRIEND: what!? how'd you manage that one? ZUCK: people just submitted it ZUCK: i don't know why ZUCK: they "trust me" ZUCK: dumb fucks

I doubt almost anyone on HN is squeaky clean with what they said and wrote as a teenager.

He wasn’t a teenager.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#396

Post by playpause » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 6:25 AM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #191

jdietrich wrote: post #125

Michael O'Leary being incredibly rude is a key part of Ryanair's branding. If you're paying £19 for a two hour flight, you'll always have the sneaking suspicion that the airline is skimping on maintenance. O'Leary makes it absolutely clear that they save money by treating their passengers like cattle. He carefully cultivates the image of a man who utterly despises his own customers, but is far too miserly to allow an…

More straightforwardly, the reputation for being massive cheapskates gets its target market of people who don't care about airlines at all and just want a good deal knowing who they are and going straight to Ryanair.com to buy tickets when they need to fly. Which means that (i) they'll lookup the price and be upsold a package on Ryanair.com rather than finding the price and a different hotel deal on some other price…

I agree it’s all marketing for people who feel they can barely afford to fly (but need to fly anyway), and who don’t use/trust comparison sites (middlemen).

I wonder if the aggressive upselling during the booking flow is part of this marketing too. If you really want the cheapest possible flight you will carefully decline all upsells and double-check the final bill for surcharges. This makes you feel you’ve shrewdly whittled the price down as far as possible.

Another way of looking at it is it just wears the customer down. If the booking flow were too smooth and didn’t include many points where the customer is forced to decline added luxuries, then you might be more likely to pause before confirming the transaction, and maybe open EasyJet’s site for a quick price comparison.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#397

Post by downandout » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 6:26 AM UTC

sprafa wrote: post #252

downandout wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He carefully cultivates the image of a man who utterly despises his own customers, but is far too miserly to allow an aircraft to crash. That image will keep them going right up until they have a fatal crash, at which point the press, the government, and victims’ attorneys will use every word he has ever said about being cheap to crucify him and the company. Given their volume of flights, a fatal crash is statistical…

Why would Ryanair ever have a crash? Their airplanes are usually quite new. The EU hasn’t had an accidental plane crash in ages. Have you ever flown Ryanair?

Why would Ryanair ever have a crash?

Because they hurl large, heavy, metal objects with people on them into the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, thousands of times per day. Historically, that activity has resulted in some small percentage of those flights not coming down safely. The math says that it is quite likely to happen over the course of enough flights.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#398

Post by goodcanadian » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

knicholes wrote: post #266

goodcanadian wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having trouble deciding whether or not you are being serious. Yes, technically, the word "incredible" originally meant "not credible." However, in common usage, it simply means, "very good."

Says who? Merriam-webster's first definition is "too extraordinary and improbable to be believed". Cambridge: "impossible or very difficult to believe:" Dictionary.com: "so extraordinary as to seem impossible: incredible speed. not credible; hard to believe; unbelievable: The plot of the book is incredible." Or is dictionary.com too incredible? And, I know I'm risking hardcore my karma here, but I see "good" used as…

Perhaps, I should have specified that it has come to mean good in this context. It probably started out as a short hand for something like "incredibly good" (as in, "it's hard to believe it's so good").

As long as we're quoting dictionary definitions (also from dictionary.com). We're using definition 2, here:

incredible adjective

1. beyond belief or understanding; unbelievable

2. informal marvellous; amazing

Good is definitely a judgment, but there is no reason to suppose it is a moral one. If I say a sandwich is good, it means that I like the taste not that I think it is righteous in the eyes of God. Ironically, perhaps, if I thought the sandwich was especially delicious, I might say that it is righteous. The vast majority of native English speakers would immediately understand my intended meaning rather than the literal one.

I find it somewhat incredible that I have to explain this.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#399

Post by 7952 » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 6:57 AM UTC

sprafa wrote: post #244

7952 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those airports are actually in London.

Lol wtf? Only one airport is “in” london and that’s London City. Which is an expensive thing mostly made for bankers to go to Frankfurt etc. I assure you all those airports serve London. I live here

Yeah, I know it's just semantics.

I have wasted too much of my time in delayed trains trying to get into London to believe that.

And based on travel times you could add some other airports to that list of London Airports. Southampton Airport is faster to get to than Stansted or Luton for a lot of Londoners. And with HS2 BHX could probably change its name too.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#400

Post by skrebbel » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 7:09 AM UTC

I've always been amazed at how important it appears to be to lie about selling crap. I find that invariably, businesses who compete on price make it iff they say it's good stuff, even if everybody knows it isn't.

Eg Holland has a number of cheap shoe chains. Schoenenreus and Scapino both breathe an air of cheapness, and one went bust and the other is struggling bad. Their direct competitor Van Haren sells exactly equally crappy shoes, and everybody knows it, but they are thriving, simply because the store feels like a proper high quality shoe store.

Or take ALDI, which competes on price and nothing else. In every country I visited has the words "the ALDI principle: low prices, high quality" printed on every storefront and on every page of their paper promo flyers. Granted, little of what they sell is "total crap", but little is of truly high quality either. Their bread goes stale faster and their coffee is bitter. This surprises nobody.

It appears to me that this weird dichotomy is the only way to successfully compete on price. Make it perfectly obvious that you're cheap and of mediocre quality at best, while loudly shouting that the quality is high. Nobody believes you, but nobody wants to buy from you if you're honest about what you're selling.

I find this surprising because blatant lies don't generally work that well in the long term, so why do they here? I generally hate dishonest messaging. Why don't I mind here? I buy ALDI and Van Haren all the time.