Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is not a story, this is a legitimate question.
Legitimate? That's debatable.
It would be debatable if they weren't ready to put someone in this exact position.
Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
121–130 of 174 posts
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
$50K is a lot of money! Can any household still be considered poor with $49K a year?
Not that much. $50K after tax is what, $40K? Just a tad over? Rent? Food? That's all assuming you're young and single. Have kids? Good friggin' luck. You can't even afford a mortgage on $50K a year. I've got a $100K job offer pending my graduation, and even with that I still have to be aware of my budget to even save something.
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Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
#123100 billion goes to speeding up immortality and cryonics research a lot. i don't want to die, and i'd rather you didn't die either. 10 million (or whatever) pays for aubrey de grey, and anyone he recommends, to be my advisors for using the 100 billion effectively.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
#124Find the 299 most influential people in the world and pay them 10m a year for twenty years to do my bidding. Hold on the last 2 billion for reserves in case they turn on me.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
#125Cure cancer Cure HIV Eliminate hunger Eliminate thirst Take over Equatorial Guinea
The only one of these you could afford for $700b is Equatorial Guinea... :P
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
#126I'd buy a sovereign country and break it up into city-states, and allow them to compete with each other as an experiment to see which policies and forms of government are the most effective. It would be kind of like Pokemon for social science geeks. You could have libertaritopia, commietopia, fascistopia, etc, and you'd get to see what happens. For motivational purposes, after 50 years I would have barbarian hordes b…
Spoiler Alert: Fascism wins unless they are lead by a retard.
Spoiler Alert: If you wait long enough, all fascist countries are eventually run by retards.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
#127Find the 299 most influential people in the world and pay them 10m a year for twenty years to do my bidding. Hold on the last 2 billion for reserves in case they turn on me.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned buying Microsoft or Apple and "open source"-ing them. That would be $300b if you buy them at market cap value.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
#128Use it to somehow dismantle all organized religion, probably. Likely the quickest way to save the world.
$700b is almost certainly insufficient to do this; the Catholic church has around 4 times this amount by itself (most of it is illiquid, though--a large fraction is in real estate).
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
#129i'd probably take one or two billion and buy myself a giant island to live on and forever take care of my personal needs. and fly into space a few times, too. after that, i'd take the half of the remaining and invest it in technology and fields that i'd like to see improved (i.e. space travel, science, alternative energy, etc etc) i'd take the other half and invest/give it to more charitable devices (poverty relief &…
I'd take two billion too, set up the rest of the money as a trust to fund four specific areas:
1. get people in the developing world clean water, access to enough food, and healthcare
2. give people money to get themselves out of debt (with accountability)
3. lobby the US government for various tax (simplicity is needed), healthcare, and humanitarian laws
4. funding for major energy research results
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?
#130700B dollars... Well given the odds of me obtaining that amount of money is just shy of being pure fantasy, I figure the only real answer to this would be in the realm of fantasy too. So, 700B - here's my shopping list. Create Jurassic Park Army of Super Oompa Loompas - perhaps with bionic implants Moon based Laser "Defense" system Universal Optional Breast Enhancement Surgery Giant Robot of Doom Another Giant Robot…
Can I administer the breast enhancement program?