291–300 of 748 posts
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Warren Buffet? Maybe Bill Gates? Queen Elizabeth II?
Gates seems to be caught up in Epstein stuff. Maybe. So I’m not sure where he stands. He does know when to shut his pie hole though.
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Being extraordinarily connected did not help Madoff much: he was sentenced to 150 years in prison and died there last year.
Being extraordinarily connected did help Epstein though: he only spent one month in jail.
Once Epstein and his crimes were splashed all over the news he was looking at a much worse outcome.
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I think this is a bit far fetched. He was the scion of famous law professors. He grew up around the law. To think he didn’t understand what the general public does about the law takes a special kind of … assumption that directly contradicts the obvious facts. He very likely knows more about the law than anyone on here. How could he not?
> He very likely knows more about the law than anyone on here. How could he not? There are actual lawyers on HN. I don't think proximity to lawyers makes one as knowledgeable as an actual one.
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Do we have some examples of people who have amassed great real or perceived fortunes (and power) that have not become drunk on it? Musk on stage with Chapelle last night, Elizabeth Holmes, or SBF’s whole schtick, who are the ones who have kept their feet on the ground? What are the attributes of these others who don’t lose themselves in fawning attention and (sometimes short-lived) mountains of capital?
There are so many people who have obtained fortunes and not become drunk on that. The person who built a liquor store and grew into 20 stores across the city. People who started consulting companies. That immigrant family who scraped and scraped for decades while living above their restaurant. The list is endless, especially compared to the much shorter list of crypto criminals who are drunk on their illusory power a…
Both my perception and my experience from knowing several extremely wealthy 'self-made' people is that the vast majority are fairly quiet, prudent, bright and hard-working people who've managed to make (mostly) good long-term decisions and continue doing so consistently over time. I suspect the "crazy, playboy billionaire" stereotype is based more on high-visibility outliers rather than the majority. Outlandish, eccentric and/or entitled behavior makes for good stories and click fodder while typical long-term value-building behaviors are pretty boring.
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>Seeing how thoroughly he convinced people that he had political influence We’ve gotten tot he point where we’ve gone way too far off the deep end when it comes to this narrative around political influence. the collective imagination seems to have risen to comic book level proportions. All people saw was SBF gave a bunch of money and thought, “he must have a ton of influence”. Meanwhile, in my state, he gave $11 mill…
His donations to Democrats accounted for 0.025% of all the money Democrats spent on the midterm election last month. Anyone who genuinely believed that can buy you a get out of jail free card for billions of dollars in fraud should seriously re-evaluate how they think the world works.
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RFC-1149 is the only safe way to commit fraud. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149
Unless some stool pigeon testifies against you.
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If you give them $5800 they will start calling you to ask for more money. If it's a Congressman they will usually call you themselves. If it's a Senator they might call you personally, or they might have their campaign manager call. But from there it's pretty easy to get a meeting if you want one. You don't even have to give $5800 in most cases. $1k is plenty to get the attention of junior congressmen and even some l…
Just seconding everything you are saying. We dabbled in political contributions at my workplace for a project and it was easy to get a meeting with just about anyone (except our Senators who we didn't need to try) as long as we were flexible with scheduling.
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He ignores the lawyers.
The strategy of ignoring advice from attorneys has "worked" for Trump and Musk. Welcome to the age of solipsistic anti-expertise, where cult ivating your personal brand matters above all else. It seems like an inevitable condition of deep set post-reality. The interesting question is what develops next.
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Do we have some examples of people who have amassed great real or perceived fortunes (and power) that have not become drunk on it? Musk on stage with Chapelle last night, Elizabeth Holmes, or SBF’s whole schtick, who are the ones who have kept their feet on the ground? What are the attributes of these others who don’t lose themselves in fawning attention and (sometimes short-lived) mountains of capital?
Some possibilities are Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates ex-wives (though, maybe they don’t count as amasssing their fortunes), um…
By saying yes, she was, in effect, Amazon's first investor, and worked there in the early days. The value of positive support from family cannot be underestimated (see also Jeff Bezos' parents' early investment in the company).
How anyone could look at this man's behavior over the last few weeks and not think he was on a fast track to a federal penitentiary is beyond me. A word to the unwise: If you have done something, anything, that you have a credible reason to believe the United States government thinks is illegal, shut up . Do not do any of the following: * Go on a podcast and talk about it * Go on a Twitter livestream and talk about i…
I don't pity SBF, but this advice is important for innocent citizens. It's unfortunate that anything you say to law enforcement can be used against you - but none of it can be used for you. A police officer can testify against you, but if they try to support you it will be dismissed as "hearsay".