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Hanging up my spurs

lowercasecapital.com

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Re: Hanging up my spurs

#161

Post by ryandrake »

Wow, 42 years old, huh? Hard not to be a little jealous. Being pretty close to his age, it's maddening to think that with a different roll of the dice I might have been that person. Or I might have been unemployed and a heroin addict in Appalachia. Life seems so random and non-deterministic.

Good on him. I sometimes wonder why more people who are insanely rich don't just retire and spend the rest of their lives doing something else...or doing nothing. I think of the C-level execs in my own company--they each have so much that they and their families for generations could literally do nothing for the rest of their lives and still continue to get richer via interest. Why go on working?

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#162

Post by tdburn »

luhn wrote: post #35

I just started listening to the Startup podcast, which features Chris in the first episode. He seems to be a very intelligent and talented guy while still remaining grounded. I wish him well with his future endeavors. Also, ten minutes after reading the article, I just realized the pun in the name "Lowercase Capital."

Thanks for pointing that out! I don't know how I missed it

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#163

Post by sopooneo »

ryandrake wrote: post #161

Wow, 42 years old, huh? Hard not to be a little jealous. Being pretty close to his age, it's maddening to think that with a different roll of the dice I might have been that person. Or I might have been unemployed and a heroin addict in Appalachia. Life seems so random and non-deterministic. Good on him. I sometimes wonder why more people who are insanely rich don't just retire and spend the rest of their lives doing…

Or rather, why not go on reading? There is enough great work in even a humble public library to fill a lifetime.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#164

Post by given »

ryandrake wrote: post #161

Wow, 42 years old, huh? Hard not to be a little jealous. Being pretty close to his age, it's maddening to think that with a different roll of the dice I might have been that person. Or I might have been unemployed and a heroin addict in Appalachia. Life seems so random and non-deterministic. Good on him. I sometimes wonder why more people who are insanely rich don't just retire and spend the rest of their lives doing…

> Why go on working?

Because in the workplace they can abuse and mistreat people, play their power games etc.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#165

Post by vacri »

ryandrake wrote: post #161

Wow, 42 years old, huh? Hard not to be a little jealous. Being pretty close to his age, it's maddening to think that with a different roll of the dice I might have been that person. Or I might have been unemployed and a heroin addict in Appalachia. Life seems so random and non-deterministic. Good on him. I sometimes wonder why more people who are insanely rich don't just retire and spend the rest of their lives doing…

> Why go on working?

Money isn't everything.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#166

Post by snarf »

tommynicholas wrote: post #114
padobson wrote: post #63

tldr - compulsive gambler who won the Twitter lottery vows to quit playing the lottery and move on to making podcasts and buying political influence

Chris won the Twitter lottery.... and the Uber lottery.... and the Instagram lottery..... and a bunch of other lotteries. Had arguably the best run of seed investing in history.

Once you have a one big win under your belt, it becomes easier to hit other big wins because you have greater access to capital to diversify your bets as well as much better deal flow. He did have an incredible run, which I would attribute to equal parts hard work, skill, and luck.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#167

Post by angersock »

anoonmoose wrote: post #157
angersock wrote: post #56

> As a rich white guy, being an activist/loudmouth in the #resistance often means taking up political positions that are against my own apparent self-interest. These oppressive zealots in the White House... > You mean beyond fighting a despotic regime... > I assure you, that’s not going to happen. Nevertheless, I am spending a great deal of time meeting with all of the beautifully spontaneous and decentralized organi…

The three local things you mentioned are all gonna get worse as a result of that "despotic regime", so...yeah.

Probably.

Then again, how much progress did SF make on homelessness under Obama?

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#168

Post by snarf »

s73ver wrote: post #77
jakelarkin wrote: post #75

the 2010-2015 era of generous outcomes for early-stage startups is over. No more easy follow-on rounds or acquisitions. Being VC becomes a lot harder so all these non-institutional personality guys - Sacca, Tim Ferris, Ashton Kutcher, and Russ Hanneman types are going to move on.

Well, Russ Hanneman is already in the Three Comma club, so he doesn't need to that much.

If Forbes is accurate, then so is Sacca, although I imagine some non-trivial amount of that is in Uber, which is facing downward pressure on its private market valuation.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#169

Post by aceofspades19 »

chickenfries wrote: post #141
dmix wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[sploiler] For those who want a TLDR of this story, here it is from his Wikipedia: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Chris_Sacca > During law school, Sacca used his student loans to start a company which was unsuccessful and used what was left to start trading on the stock market. By leveraging trades for significant amounts (discovering a flaw in the software of online trading brokers)[15] he managed to turn 10–20 thousan…

What was the flaw? Also, isn't starting a company with your student loans illegal? > He says he managed to graduate without attending class. In order to obtain class notes, he threw an annual keg party where entry required classmates to dump their notes in a bin. I sure wouldn't want that guy as my lawyer.

Well there definitely is no criminal law against starting a company with student loans. It would be up to the actual contract he signed which might not say anything about how you spend the money as long as you you aren't lying about anything in the application(ie. amount of income you make, actually being registered for classes etc).

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#170

Post by theprop »

Fantastic!! I feel that one feels most alive when you're involved in some struggle. And if you've really achieved a high level of excellence in your field...may be the right time to trying something new! Michael Jordan tried baseball!

That said, I feel getting involved in political issues is mostly a losing situation because your power (even the power of the president as we've seen perhaps thankfully in the past 90 days is highly limited) to get something accomplished is so limited. Also, the solution to most problems is not new laws or new politics. I remember a professor at my college spent years getting the exam dates shifted three days earlier from a Tuesday to a Friday...that's the speed & work of politics, frustrating.

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