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The Hustler's MBA

tynan.com

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Re: The Hustler's MBA

#41

Post by hhabgood »

ssharp wrote: post #39

College is proven way to improve productivity and lifetime earnings. And it's scaled fairly well. And unlike poker, it's not zero-sum. "In fact, apart from very specific cases, I think that school is a bad thing, not worth doing even if it was free." Very wrong. You're not going to become a doctor, lawyer, nurse, accountant, etc. by playing poker and traveling. You're not going to get recruited by an employer because…

I believe he notes that if you are going to school to become a professional (i.e. doctor) then it doesn't necessarily apply.

To your point, you also aren't going to become a zookeeper or programmer by playing poker or travelling, but you also won't necessarily become one by going to college. You WILL become one if you make the effort to do so, it doesn't matter whether it's in college or elsewhere.

Re: The Hustler's MBA

#42

Post by OldSchool »

13rules wrote: post #28
potatolicious wrote: post #4

He lost me at the part where the secret to life is becoming a professional poker player. Because in a highly competitive game of chance you're pretty much guaranteed to come out on top to the tune of $50-60 an hour... Does this post strike anyone as completely f'ing delusional? Perhaps applicable to the author, one of the greatest card sharks alive today, but seems silly to the vast majority.

Completely agree. Number ONE is learn to play poker? Seriously? With all of the things that you could learn that could make you money, the first one is not poker. Not even close. I love poker. I'm fairly good at it. I've even had a couple of nice 5-figure tourney payouts. But bank on my poker abilities to provide for me? For my family? Lunacy. So play poker for two years and then (#9) start a business? No. Start a bu…

You're dead-on in terms of the value of recurring monthly income, hopefully -passive- monthly income!

In today's zero-interest-rate environment it is very difficult to generate risk-free income from capital alone.

Instinctively it would seem that "a million dollars" is cooler than "$10K/mo with little or no effort/time commitment" but if it lasts, long-term the latter is actually more valuable.

Re: The Hustler's MBA

#43

Post by tlrobinson »

He "left with zero additional skills after three semesters" in college, and is now advising people to make money playing poker? I'm having a hard time taking this seriously.

Re: The Hustler's MBA

#44

Post by CodeMage »

potatolicious wrote: post #4

He lost me at the part where the secret to life is becoming a professional poker player. Because in a highly competitive game of chance you're pretty much guaranteed to come out on top to the tune of $50-60 an hour... Does this post strike anyone as completely f'ing delusional? Perhaps applicable to the author, one of the greatest card sharks alive today, but seems silly to the vast majority.

Let's break it down:

1. The author proposes to replace college by "a modern curriculum that, on average, will produce people better prepared for real life than college".

2. This curriculum "can be funded initially with $5000 for poker".

3. This is because after the first dedicated year of learning poker, "you'll be able to make between $45-60 per hour for the rest of your life".

4. If you follow this plan, your "chance of being self-sufficient and prepared for 'real life' is about 90%".

Let's boil this down even further: the author posits approximately 90% success rate -- for everyone -- for a scheme funded by generating an income of $45-60 per hour from a zero-sum game.

"Completely f'ing delusional" seems accurate to me.

Re: The Hustler's MBA

#45

Post by vsloo »

Sometimes a person needs to go to college in order to understand why it might not be relevant for them. By simply touting that college is useless as a fact seems too far-fetched for me. No one is born with an ability to assess going to college as it is today. It's all social conditioning. To that end, college is useful. If it can teach you something about yourself then the 2 or 3 semesters were not wasted time or money.

Re: The Hustler's MBA

#46

Post by victorhn »

paborden wrote: post #30
potatolicious wrote: post #4

He lost me at the part where the secret to life is becoming a professional poker player. Because in a highly competitive game of chance you're pretty much guaranteed to come out on top to the tune of $50-60 an hour... Does this post strike anyone as completely f'ing delusional? Perhaps applicable to the author, one of the greatest card sharks alive today, but seems silly to the vast majority.

I thought the poker thing was strange ... but he didn't fully lose me until the SECOND time he suggested becoming a pickup artist. Ugh.

Can you elaborate more about why do you think becoming a pickup artist is a bad thing?

Re: The Hustler's MBA

#47

Post by anuraj »

It depends. Depending on the field of study, university may be a pass time or where you cut yourself out for greater challenges. If you are into a deeply technical subject, college is pretty much the only option. If you want to get by studying humanities and few easy courses, you can as well help yourself without spending all that money for college.

Re: The Hustler's MBA

#49

Post by runjake »

peacemaker wrote: post #37
13rules wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Number ONE is learn to play poker? Seriously? With all of the things that you could learn that could make you money, the first one is not poker. Not even close. I love poker. I'm fairly good at it. I've even had a couple of nice 5-figure tourney payouts. But bank on my poker abilities to provide for me? For my family? Lunacy. So play poker for two years and then (#9) start a business? No. Start a bu…

You make the point that playing poker is a crazy idea to rely upon and then go and say all you need to do is "create a product/service that creates recurring monthly income" How is that any easier or reliable?

For what it's worth, that's what this site is, well, used to be about. I can't answer to "easier" but if you stick with it, it's a pretty reliable outcome.

13rules' comment got me rather nostalgic about the kind of content and comments we used to see around here. And before anyone nitpicks, this account is only ~3 years old, but I had another for two years prior.

Anyway, I welcome comments like 13rules'.

Re: The Hustler's MBA

#50

Post by msellout »

CodeMage wrote: post #44
potatolicious wrote: post #4

He lost me at the part where the secret to life is becoming a professional poker player. Because in a highly competitive game of chance you're pretty much guaranteed to come out on top to the tune of $50-60 an hour... Does this post strike anyone as completely f'ing delusional? Perhaps applicable to the author, one of the greatest card sharks alive today, but seems silly to the vast majority.

Let's break it down: 1. The author proposes to replace college by "a modern curriculum that, on average, will produce people better prepared for real life than college". 2. This curriculum "can be funded initially with $5000 for poker". 3. This is because after the first dedicated year of learning poker, "you'll be able to make between $45-60 per hour for the rest of your life". 4. If you follow this plan, your "chan…

It's actually worse than zero-sum for the players, because the house takes a cut. Usually the house takes about $200 off the table every hour (plus tips to the dealer), so the rake matters less for higher stakes games.

However, it's not necessarily true that half of all current players are losing. Because bad players will quit, it is possible that a majority of current players are taking money from a rotating minority group of losing players. I don't think that's true, but it's possible.

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