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We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

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Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#211

Post by Toutouxc »

Kirby64 wrote: post #184
Toutouxc wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the original LAN house was not very big: 1400 sqft. This made for a pretty awesome bachelor pad, but would have been a bit cramped for raising a family. That’s 130 m^2. A fucking bachelor pad.

1400sqft is relatively small in the US for a house. Typical 3 bedroom house size is going to be a lot closer to 2000 sqft. The only way you would see new construction at 1400sqft is if it’s a condo or something.

Are people that much larger in the US? I’d happily raise three European-sized kids in the 130 sqm bachelor pad.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#212

Post by afavour »

throwayay4929 wrote: post #148
afavour wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it hate? Or is it just shock? Tech does have a crazy variance in salary for people who are doing, broadly at least, the same jobs. I don’t see any hate here. Just surprise.

The jobs are massively not the same. It's like saying the IT guy that's in charge of reimaging PCs at your municipal office is broadly doing the same job as the couple that built this lan house. There are relatively large pockets of engineers making great money while coasting at a big company, but more often the engineers are actually doing a more complex job.

There is plenty of crossover. e.g. look at the salaries of an engineer at Netflix vs one at ABC/Disney that works on their streaming platform.

Netflix is operating at a higher technical level, no doubt. But the salaries can be something like 5x higher. Maybe all industries are like that but I’m not sure they are.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#213

Post by fuzzfactor »

imjonse wrote: post #126
kenty wrote: post #60

[flagged]

From the Q&A: "Why did you move to Austin? [...] needed a bigger house, but we really could not afford to buy (much less build) anything bigger in Palo Alto." So there are a few more levels of richness above

Many more.

They may be due for a big inheritance but depending on age it probably hasn't happened yet. This looks more like an indulgence that was paid for from the work the couple has done by focusing their earnings over a fairly long period of time.

If they were ultra-privileged they would have been destined to arrive at the same place since birth without having to make any effort of their own at all.

And they would have other homes in places like Telluride, Paris, Milan, and Montreaux that are over-the-top in a purely domestic way without any need for digital extravagance, since they've got that right here in Austin whenever they want. Even if it was only a month or two out of the year ;)

That's something so many people envy or truly dislike even worse, but I admire this effort.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#214

Post by kentonv »

vachina wrote: post #136
m4tthumphrey wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. It's hard work and good luck/timing, not privilege.

The dad is an architect. So probably rich enough to afford (good) education and putting Kenton in the right place at the right time.

My dad was able to pay for me to attend the University of Minnesota.

More importantly though was that my parents fed my childhood fascination with computers, making sure I had the opportunity to learn to code early (a volunteer at my school taught me BASIC at age 8; my parents bought me a PC so I could continue experimenting) and then they gave me a lot of free time to spend building things and learning. After I graduated my mom let me spend a couple more years in her basement just working on open source software projects. These are certainly privileges that wouldn't be possible if my dad didn't have comfortable income.

I got into Google by applying on the web site and showing them my projects.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#216

Post by oooyay »

kenty wrote: post #60

[flagged]

This is old tech money as I call it. People from the early 2000s and 2010s who owned a home in the Bay area back then through the pandemic. Most of these folks share a characteristic of not knowing how wealthy they are comparatively to new tech entrants or even those than entered in the 2010s.

Not to say anything negative of that, I think it's just a byproduct of the free wheeling and fast paced times back then, but if you're not prepared for it then it can rub you the wrong way sometimes.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#217

Post by jonheller »

Sad to see so much anger expressed at this couple's financial success and how they decided to use that and then do what I thought was a interesting, fun, and in no way "rub in your face" or arrogant writeup about it. The author even recognized his luck with his financial situation in terms of things like the housing market in California.

I'm not sure what the angry people in this thread want. That they should have donated to charity? That they should not have shared the project? That they should have turned down raises or sold their house below value just because?

There are good arguments that the wealth distribution in our country has some serious issues but I don't think attacking this author is the right way to address that.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#218

Post by mercanlIl »

kentonv wrote: post #183

Oh hello! This is my house! Thanks for posting! Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42156977 Unfortunately this new thread was posted while I was asleep, and so I haven't been online to answer questions as the thread developed. Whereas in the previous thread I participated from the start. Pro tip to anyone whose stuff gets posted on HN: It is a completely different place when the author is…

Thank you for posting the other thread, it's much more interesting to read through.

Your house is inspiring!

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#219

Post by tristor »

kentonv wrote: post #183

Oh hello! This is my house! Thanks for posting! Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42156977 Unfortunately this new thread was posted while I was asleep, and so I haven't been online to answer questions as the thread developed. Whereas in the previous thread I participated from the start. Pro tip to anyone whose stuff gets posted on HN: It is a completely different place when the author is…

Every time I see this posted, I am tempted to do something similar but then I remember all the friends I used to have for LAN parties have moved different places across the country, so it'd get used at most once a year (we still have a yearly New Years LAN party). I think this is an awesome project though and I give you props not only for doing it, but maintaining relationships to make it useful.

Re: We built our house for LAN parties (2024)

#220

Post by goosejuice »

throwayay4929 wrote: post #148
afavour wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it hate? Or is it just shock? Tech does have a crazy variance in salary for people who are doing, broadly at least, the same jobs. I don’t see any hate here. Just surprise.

The jobs are massively not the same. It's like saying the IT guy that's in charge of reimaging PCs at your municipal office is broadly doing the same job as the couple that built this lan house. There are relatively large pockets of engineers making great money while coasting at a big company, but more often the engineers are actually doing a more complex job.

> There are relatively large pockets of engineers making great money while coasting at a big company, but more often the engineers are actually doing a more complex job.

I'd love to see some data on this though I don't know how you'd measure it. I suspect a high percentage of west coast FAANG level jobs are low impact but also low complexity. I do figure people work more hours though. With scale comes new problems but also a lot of infrastructure and support around it.

It's pretty silly to use IT guy when there's loads of software devs working on complex stuff for critical infrastructure making less than 200k.

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