Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Lose Money

getrevue.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 300 posts

Re: How to Lose Money

#231

Post by nlh »

DC1350 wrote: post #169

> Do things because you have genuine interest in them... Don’t start out with a singular goal of making money. I really hate advice like this. Have you ever seen a business before? Have you ever met a person? Pretty much no interests are monetizable and almost all companies are doing really boring work. I don’t believe anyone in the world is truly passionate about things like payroll software. If I followed my intere…

> I don’t believe anyone in the world is truly passionate about things like payroll software.

I actually think that’s probably not a good assumption. I know you’re being pejorative, but imagine a scenario where someone has been working for years as a payroll administrator or someone who’s been a consultant working on implementing payroll systems for decades. People learn the market and get sick of the status quo and have tons of new ideas. I could easily see someone get excited about a way to make their job easier, more fun, more efficient, etc. and go and launch a new payroll software startup that just improves everything.

My point is: good entrepreneurs are passionate about solving problems. Sometimes those problems might “seem” boring but don’t assume they are.

Re: How to Lose Money

#232

Post by simonbarker87 »

Xevi wrote: post #182
simonbarker87 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP: Probably a monthly membership program, $25 per student per month would be $10k gross. Ionic Academy is a good example I can think of, I was a member for just under a year, super helpful and regular content and probably doesn’t need huge amounts of members to be viable

I guess that's true. I didn't really consider monthly fees for a course from one person. But then I would say that he/she probably didn't have 400 students in total, but instead 400 subscribed students at all times. Unless each student stayed subscribed for several years, which I find unlikely unless he/she releases new high quality content every week.

Yeah, Simon Grimm from Ionic Academy releases a big course about every 6-8 weeks I think and two or three minis in between

Re: How to Lose Money

#233

Post by DC1350 »

nlh wrote: post #231
DC1350 wrote: post #169

> Do things because you have genuine interest in them... Don’t start out with a singular goal of making money. I really hate advice like this. Have you ever seen a business before? Have you ever met a person? Pretty much no interests are monetizable and almost all companies are doing really boring work. I don’t believe anyone in the world is truly passionate about things like payroll software. If I followed my intere…

> I don’t believe anyone in the world is truly passionate about things like payroll software. I actually think that’s probably not a good assumption. I know you’re being pejorative, but imagine a scenario where someone has been working for years as a payroll administrator or someone who’s been a consultant working on implementing payroll systems for decades. People learn the market and get sick of the status quo and…

I’m sorry but I still don’t agree

> imagine a scenario where someone has been working for years as a payroll administrator or someone who’s been a consultant working on implementing payroll systems for decades

These people hate their jobs and only do it for money. No reasonable person would ever do this for fun. Creating new payroll software is just a means to an end that you have to slog through to deal with the interesting problem of running a company, engineering, or making money. The idea that an entrepreneur should love payroll software is ridiculous

Re: How to Lose Money

#234

Post by Pyramus »

TuringNYC wrote: post #172
Pyramus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to add that even with a spread you can bankrupt yourself if you are assigned to one side of the leg on expiration day after hours, stock moves against you, you aren't notified in time and therefore can't exercise the other leg. It's rare but not that rare.

Can the losses exceed the total account equity, with recourse?

Theoretically yes, see e.g. the calculations here youtube.com/watch?v=no_q6sJXjm8

I do not know how this is handled in practice and who is ultimately liable to exercise the other leg.

Re: How to Lose Money

#235

Post by imtringued »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #31

This is good advice. I wrote a bunch of novels, got a degree - a Ph.D. in philosophy to make sure I'll never make any money and people who have money wouldn't want to give it to me -, and did some Internet advertising. Not very surprisingly, I'm fairly poor. However, I've still managed to save a little bit of money so maybe I should start trading now.

GME was just done for laughs. A hedgefund lost 53% of its investment in the process. That's the reward you got when you bought GME.

If you want to earn money then you should never trade, and always invest. That means putting in your money with the expectation that a specific company or a specific portion of the market is growing. Think of stocks like Apple and Amazon or ETFs that mirror the S&P 500 index.

Bitcoin has established itself and has staying power so don't be shy to put some (not all money) in there.

Also, never trust random internet people (including me) when it comes to investment advice.

Re: How to Lose Money

#236

Post by foxrider »

Pyramus wrote: post #15
zuhayeer wrote: post #9

School is such a guaranteed one now during Covid – you don't even get social serendipity. You're literally sitting there on Zoom burning through cash. What common folk don't realize is that college is just a luxury consumption good of the rich.

Thats a very US American (anglosaxon?) viewpoint to take. Education is paid for by society in most Western parts of the world.

I'm not from the US and I got "free" education where I live, and I still feel like I've lost money. If I've started working 4 years earlier I would've gotten more experience and more money, and surely wouldn't be as miserable in the meantime as I've been in the Uni. I don't feel like I've learned anything substantial that couldn't be covered by a short online course, but I sure spent much more than working hours stressing out and torturing myself with absolute garbage topics.

Re: How to Lose Money

#237

Post by smnrchrds »

Xevi wrote: post #175
ronyfadel wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country has pre-school teachers making more than software engineers? (I'm curious!)

In this case it was Sweden. Now, you could argue that the max salary for a developer is higher, but only if you get into a good company. Most devs get stuck at around $4k to $5.5k per month from what I know.

Is that before of after taxes?

Re: How to Lose Money

#238

Post by eloff »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #85
nanis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It might also be true that neither the buyer not the seller, in any transaction, are happy about it as such. "Happy" here is used in a very specific sense: If two parties engage in a transaction without coercion, it must be because they are both made better off by the transaction or they would both be less happy without the transaction. This is where "gains from trade" come from. The ability to make this statement…

"If two parties engage in a transaction without coercion, it must be because they are both made better off by the transaction or they would both be less happy without the transaction." That's is about as accurate as physics homework you do in school, two objects collide without friction and air resistance, no energy is lost to sound, heat or deformation of the objects, calculate their resulting velocity. As soon as y…

we're talking about options trading, not cars or drugs.

The theory is a remarkably good approximation to reality in this case. If you feel otherwise, you did not establish your point.

Re: How to Lose Money

#239

Post by Xevi »

smnrchrds wrote: post #237
Xevi wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case it was Sweden. Now, you could argue that the max salary for a developer is higher, but only if you get into a good company. Most devs get stuck at around $4k to $5.5k per month from what I know.

Is that before of after taxes?

Before taxes.

Where I live I pay roughly 34% tax on my income.

Re: How to Lose Money

#240

Post by jeffe »

gdubs wrote: post #228

It’s a shame that education has become so transactional. I was lucky enough to have a scholarship, but if I’m fortunate enough to pay full-ride for my kids when they’re old enough, and they’re at a place where they seem ready to get the most out of it, I’d spend that money in a heartbeat. Not because I think we’d see a dollar value return on the investment, something coldly transactional. But because I was lucky enou…

eh, the 'truly rounded education' can generally be attained through the internet, and I've found those who aren't interested in them in the first place tend not to gain much from the classes anyways. Friendships are the main unique upside, but unless you go to an elite college the students who are genuinely driven in their field are hard to find. That's not to say your friends need to be "leaders" and whatnot, but it definitely differs from the narrative colleges put around their students and the price tag being worth it.
Post reply on HN