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Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion

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Re: Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion

#61
post #59

What cracked me up is if you watch the video advertising the home on the website ( http://1181hillcrest.com/video.html ) the guy's contact email address is a Gmail address. If you're offering a home at $85,000,000 (the original list price) and you even create a website for the property, at least spring the extra $12/year for your own domain name.

Except it's not just $12/year for the domain name but also all the hassle of having to administrate it or dealing with someone who administrates it for you. Gmail does have a big convenience bonus.

Re: Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion

#62
post #57
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine the biggest opportunity of "unexpected wealth" is that you have the benefit of knowing better. As in that you don't have to value the same things as society at large and can go on and do things that really matter. Seems like he's wasting that opportunity.

> As in that you don't have to value the same things as society at large He's not from a rich background, is not well-connected, is not a business person, is not stunningly young or good looking, is not being sponsored by a media conglomerate - he is just a nerdy nice guy. I'm having trouble seeing the conformity you ascribe to him. In fact, he started out by being different. > can go on and do things that really mat…

I don't really follow your reasoning, we probably have quite different outlooks on the subject.

No he doesn't come from a rich background. That's the point. A lot of people that end of rich come from a background where vanity is very important. They then have to spend a large part of their life trying to achieve that goal. That's why I don't care about "captains of industry". I don't expect any better, they've already "sold their soul".

I don't necessarily dislike people like that, because it can be very hard to opt-out of that life. The classic case is where you father works to much and neglects your mother, which self medicates a bit to much and in turn neglects you. So the only thing you know is trying to be your father to rationalize your sense of abandonment.

When people who doesn't have that background become rich and can do whatever they want, but instead opts-in to those values I think it's sad. Maybe he has personal problems of his own, or he just don't care anymore or whatever, I'm not going to be first in line to celebrate the guy. Because buying the most expensive house in the most vain place in the world is just not something I value.

Minecraft is still pretty cool though.

Re: Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion

#64
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is difficult to imagine what it would actually be like to have that kind of money, the Minecraft success is such a ridiculous outlier. He pretty much went from being an average swede with little savings to having more money than everyone. At this point, he can give away millions of dollars every month and still end up having more money than he started with. In theory I agree with you in your sentiment, but…

I'd be careful if I were him. His income is gone as far as I know. Unless he does some smart investing with the current cash reserve he could be broke in ~10 years. Just an interesting observation; Minecraft was sold for 2.5B $, let's assume Notch got 1.5B $ out of it. Buying that house alone cost him 5% of his entire wealth.

> he could be broke in ~10 years

He could be broke in 10 minutes, if he turned all his money into $100 bills and burned them, or invested it all in some company that immediately went bankrupt.

But obviously he wouldn't do those things, because they would be stupid. And if he doesn't do stupid things, how is he going to be broke even in 10 years? If his current net wealth is $1B then he'd need to spend $100M every year even assuming zero investment gains. Again, it's not like spending $100M in a year is difficult if you are actively trying to go from being rich to being poor, but it's not the sort of thing that happens by accident.

Re: Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion

#66

I freaking love everything about the story of Notch and Minecraft, including this. I want to live in a world where a geek can sit in his bedroom and create some cool shit, that enables him buy a $70 million mansion in Beverly Hills.

Don't correlate creating games with money. He was really lucky; there were other very similar games on the scene at that time, his just happened to stick. The observation should really be: creating anything interesting gives you potential to be wealthy.

Yeah, how is the guy who made Infiniminer doing?

Re: Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion

#67
post #35

There are certain aspects about Notch's rise to fame and fortune that make his story more inspiring to me than practically any other celebrity. He got wealthy doing what he loved, he never bullied anyone or got into any kind of real drama, he didn't need to build an oppressive empire, his product was something that enabled and inspired people in itself, and when it wasn't fun anymore he just quit and is (from the loo…

It seems your definition of "it is possible" seems to be "he got immensely rich". Being rich is a comparison: you are only rich compared to poorer people. So, by definition, only very few people can "make it": you only value the mansion that he bought if nobody else has it. Or, seen from another perspective: 99.9% of human beings are incredibly rich (compared to 99% of the middle ages inhabitants), but who cares? We all feel poor.

So, if we all "make it" and buy 70$ million dollars homes with bay view (an impossibility in itself), we will nevertheless all be poor.

Sorry to be negative, but we can not make it.

Re: Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion

#68
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't correlate creating games with money. He was really lucky; there were other very similar games on the scene at that time, his just happened to stick. The observation should really be: creating anything interesting gives you potential to be wealthy.

Yeah, how is the guy who made Infiniminer doing?

[deleted]

Re: Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion

#69
post #61
post #59

What cracked me up is if you watch the video advertising the home on the website ( http://1181hillcrest.com/video.html ) the guy's contact email address is a Gmail address. If you're offering a home at $85,000,000 (the original list price) and you even create a website for the property, at least spring the extra $12/year for your own domain name.

Except it's not just $12/year for the domain name but also all the hassle of having to administrate it or dealing with someone who administrates it for you. Gmail does have a big convenience bonus.

Except Google does offer gmail for work that lets you add a custom domain name.

Re: Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion

#70
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the top 0.1% are always doing really well, by definition, no?

No. If all were equal the top 0.1% would be doing exactly as well as everyone else.

What would make them the top 0.1% then? "If all were equal" - but it's not.
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