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The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

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Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#101

Post by jacquesm »

kaesar14 wrote: post #69
mixmastamyk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He only worked there a couple of years, and before MS got big. Did he really deserve the same cut as the other two (who worked for 30+) did? Maybe/not, but the question is valid.

Yeah I feel like this is an underrated point. Does being there at the early years of a company justify a cut of an unfathomable fortune that took the other partners many, many more years to fully form? It’s not so cut and dry, especially when we’re talking about the kind of fortune being fought over.

For an extension of that thought: does being there in the early days of a company justify a disproportionate cut compared to the people who then work for the company for the next thirty years?

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#102

Post by sytelus »

dano wrote: post #49
dwighttk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

As we know the Rockefeller Foundation, three generations from now Allen may be similarly known. Paraphrasing Horace Mann, Allen certainly created more than a few small victories for mankind.

Certainly we are thankful to him for cutting so many checks. However “funded” is better description than “created”. Creating something requires far more effort, time investment and expertise than giving someone sum of money.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#103

Post by cfusting »

ggambetta wrote: post #12

> Paul was driven by an incredible curiosity his whole life. Even when we were just kids, he seemed to be interested in just about everything. I can identify with this. I've founded a gamedev company, taught Computer Graphics, and worked at Google and Improbable as a SWE; but in the middle of all this I wrote a novel, I recently quit my job to become an actor/filmmaker ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10232800 ), and I…

When I was in my early twenties I had some amazing experiences that prompted me to ask the question, "if I died today, would I be ok with it?". I'm thirty five now and no matter how hard a day has been I have always been able to answer "yes".

Often the journey is hard, really hard, but if you are moving in a direction you are excited about and being true to yourself it's ok.

There is no success, there is no winning, there is only your own comfort when the lights turn off forever.

That's not to say you can't have financial success and career satisfaction. It's just to say that those things won't give you the freedom to die.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#104

Post by erikpukinskis »

kaesar14 wrote: post #69
mixmastamyk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He only worked there a couple of years, and before MS got big. Did he really deserve the same cut as the other two (who worked for 30+) did? Maybe/not, but the question is valid.

Yeah I feel like this is an underrated point. Does being there at the early years of a company justify a cut of an unfathomable fortune that took the other partners many, many more years to fully form? It’s not so cut and dry, especially when we’re talking about the kind of fortune being fought over.

If the other partners want more value in exchange for continuing to work for the company, they should negotiate for more shares in a dilution event.

If they expected 30 years of service in the first place, then they should've put a 30 year vesting term on the shares from the start.

There's no right answer, it really depends on what people want and negotiate for. I may expect to put in 5 years and then retire with whatever value we end up with. That's totally reasonable. Just because my partner decides at that point to keep working doesn't mean our deal is suddenly no longer valid.

That's why I say, if you want to change the deal halfway through you need to get the board to issue more shares.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#105

Post by erikpukinskis »

WoodenChair wrote: post #67
joezydeco wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not falling for this post-retirement New Bill Gates either. He screwed countless people and entire companies. You don’t get to repair that karma with some donated vaccinations and mushy blog articles.

> You don’t get to repair that karma with some donated vaccinations and mushy blog articles. I'm sorry, but why don't you? He's literally saving millions of lives through his foundation, and through getting other billionaires to give to charity through the giving pledge. He was the richest man in the world. He could have done anything he wanted to with his life, and he chose to do good things. He deserves some praise…

Because good deeds don't undo bad deeds. Morality isn't a math equation.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#106

Post by traskjd »

magpi3 wrote: post #94
WoodenChair wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don’t get to repair that karma with some donated vaccinations and mushy blog articles. I'm sorry, but why don't you? He's literally saving millions of lives through his foundation, and through getting other billionaires to give to charity through the giving pledge. He was the richest man in the world. He could have done anything he wanted to with his life, and he chose to do good things. He deserves some praise…

I agree he and the Gates Foundation do wonderful things, but I will Never be entirely comfortable with one person sitting on that much money. He is worth in the range of 100 billion dollars. 100 billion dollars. He has promised to give half of it away but as far as I can tell is no closer to doing that since he first made the pledge. I really wonder sometimes if that pledge was just PR for the absurdly wealthy. No ne…

Bill has been giving away billions. He's just also been earning like crazy too.

I forget where I read it, but when Jeff overtook Bill, there were various articles highlighting that Bill would still have been a lot richer if you accounted for how much he'd now put through the foundation.

So just because his market net worth hasn't gone down (in fact it's gone up a bit), it's not from him not yet giving money away.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#107

Post by rixed »

mevile wrote: post #89
nostromo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when Allen was a patent troll? https://www.wired.com/2010/08/paul-allen-patent-lawsuit/ Someone who became one of the world’s richest men for only a few years of work deciding to shake down a huge chunk of the web in a cash grab really isn’t a good look.

> Someone who became one of the world’s richest men for only a few years of work The shorter time it took to make his wealth the better it looks because less time means better efficiency. It's not like you're entitled to wealth because of how long you've worked. This is an idea that has lead few to financial success I imagine. Privileges and salary based on time keeping a seat warm somewhere is a union/government thi…

To understand parent's comment you have to remember that not everyone believe that wealth correlates with work, or that lottery winners are immensely efficient. Some believe instead that wealth frequently comes from nothing but luck. In this model, quick gain certainly suggest more luck.

Which model is more accurate? I guess the huge majority of the inhabitants trapped in this planet do not need to think too long about it.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#108

Post by dang »

gadders wrote: post #35
ggambetta wrote: post #12

> Paul was driven by an incredible curiosity his whole life. Even when we were just kids, he seemed to be interested in just about everything. I can identify with this. I've founded a gamedev company, taught Computer Graphics, and worked at Google and Improbable as a SWE; but in the middle of all this I wrote a novel, I recently quit my job to become an actor/filmmaker ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10232800 ), and I…

#Humblebrag

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#109

Post by chrisco255 »

wpietri wrote: post #76
kaesar14 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially given that prior to Android, Google was pretty much just a web company whereas Microsoft had dominated the OS market pretty much the length of the entire personal computer industry. It WAS a natural thing for MS to win.

I think that's a very suspect use of "natural". Of course, many uses of "natural" are suspect, in that people smuggle all sorts of their personal prejudices into it. E.g., the way a number the Civil War declarations of secession mentioned how it was natural that whites should rule over blacks. Or the way today that religious conservatives think that the natural order is the dominance of men over women, and that gay p…

Or the way that modern progressives tend to skew everything towards race and class when a conversation is not even remotely about that, it seems like a natural thing for them.

It might be natural for the NY Yankees to win a world series. Some people complain about it when it happens. Some people don't like the Yankees. But they are pretty good at baseball. When Microsoft lost the mobile market, it was an unfortunate thing for them.

Bill Gates doing his postmortem relent on losing that market is not a big deal. It's just what you do when you take a loss.

You ever lost at anything you've strived for? It's hard not to think about "what if"? That's very human.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#110

Post by ethbro »

Reedx wrote: post #84
ggambetta wrote: post #12

> Paul was driven by an incredible curiosity his whole life. Even when we were just kids, he seemed to be interested in just about everything. I can identify with this. I've founded a gamedev company, taught Computer Graphics, and worked at Google and Improbable as a SWE; but in the middle of all this I wrote a novel, I recently quit my job to become an actor/filmmaker ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10232800 ), and I…

I'm this way as well and for the longest time was worried I was handicapping myself. Until I read "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big"[1] which makes the strongest argument I've seen for having a "talent stack" and combining skills that aren't typically combined. Each skill increases your odds and essentially this boils down to Good + Good > Excellent. You can leverage a combination of average skills…

There are three ways to outcompete your peers with skills:

(1) Be best

(2) Be first

(3) Be the only person in a unique niche (a useful unique niche)

(2) & (3) are far easier than (1).

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