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The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

chris-martin.org

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Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#171

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

mandevil wrote: post #110
avg_dev wrote: post #25

I didn't agree with everything, but I did with a lot; in particular this: > As Julie says when someone repeats that Amazon was started in a garage: Ain't no garages in the trailer park. Not sure who Julie is, but I think she's spot on.

The biggest thing is about "Amazon was started in a garage" is that Jeff Bezos had worked at hedge fund D.E. Shaw (founded in 1989) from 1990-1994 (that's where he met MacKenzie, she was an admin staff, he was a finance guy). So he had hedge fund money already before he founded Amazon.

And he comes from a well off family.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#172

Post by dkersten »

pmichaud wrote: post #165
ryandrake wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just learned this quote now and I love it. Very true. Much of tech mythology, where we are told "started from nothing" actually started from a place of at least some capital and privilege.

I think in conversations like these most people on the successful side underestimate how valuable the starting advantages were, and most people not on the successful side overestimate how valuable the starting advantages were. Meanwhile almost everyone misunderstands what the advantages really are. People will talk about the $300k loan Bezos started with and think "boy golly, with 300 THOUSAND dollars, I could do any…

It’s both.

Upbringing, background, mindset, social safety nets (eg knowing that if you fail, you’ll still be fine) — these things are huge and make a huge difference.

But 300k then is about 650k today, and just the time this would buy me alone would mean I’d be able to dedicate my full energy to a few projects that, while I don’t think could ever reach the scale of Amazon, would at least have the potential to make a reasonable return on that initial investment. The 300k is a huge boost that a lot of people don’t have access to.

But you’re absolutely right. If you’re not in the game at all, it’s very difficult to get in, and those other non-financial benefits are a big deal.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#173

Post by K0balt »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #162
K0balt wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a sort of perplexing subject for me. I grew up pretty poor. We had a well, but not running water. We flushed with a bucket, bathed out of a trash can-cum-water barrel. We subsistence hunted. We had vehicles that mostly ran, most of the time. Yet I can see that I was , in fact, born into privilege. Not a privilege of money, but a privilege of priority, skills, and acceptance of risk. My parents prioritized one…

Food and shelter security, famuky that was inclined to help more than hurt. That's your main privilege...

I had to build my own shelter security and ensure my own food security as of 16, but yes, i did have that advantage growing up, and as I saw it essential to have and possible to create myself, I did so.

Those things are achievable IF you are willing to give up luxuries that you may see as essential. (the kind of job you want, comfort, etc). But if you are willing to forgo those things for a few years , you can build a resource base so that you will never have to be worried about those things ever again in your life. You will always have a fallback.

The main thing you get from having a "place", even if you don't live there, but a place... is the ability to tolerate risk. Without risk tolerance, there are very few ways forward where you do not exist at the charity of someone or something you cannot control - a life where inherently you are forced to work for priorities that are not your own, and be placated by trappings of wealth that you do not really have.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#175

Post by pimlottc »

arnaudsm wrote: post #14

I partly disagree, software still sucks and it's a great time to build. The #1 OS is slow and crashes all the time. The #1 email client takes 10s to load on my mother's laptop. Most popular products are slow, buggy, filled with spam, & filled with dark patterns. Enshittification won. FAANGs are the new IBM. Let's build better stuff.

If you’re talking about open source and the advancement of technology, I agree.

If you’re talking about starting a business, the market has shown that it largely doesn’t care about those things.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#176

Post by steveBK123 »

Gud wrote: post #157
mandevil wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest thing is about "Amazon was started in a garage" is that Jeff Bezos had worked at hedge fund D.E. Shaw (founded in 1989) from 1990-1994 (that's where he met MacKenzie, she was an admin staff, he was a finance guy). So he had hedge fund money already before he founded Amazon.

Also his granddad was loaded.

Yeah an unsurprisingly large percent of self-styled.. self-made billionaires certainly came from close to or actual millionaire backgrounds.

I suppose it shouldn't be terribly surprising as being successful requires hard work & a good idea. But it REALLY REALLY HELPS to also have a risk appetite, capital, and connections.. which are what coming from even moderate wealth provides.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#177

Post by K0balt »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #163
K0balt wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a sort of perplexing subject for me. I grew up pretty poor. We had a well, but not running water. We flushed with a bucket, bathed out of a trash can-cum-water barrel. We subsistence hunted. We had vehicles that mostly ran, most of the time. Yet I can see that I was , in fact, born into privilege. Not a privilege of money, but a privilege of priority, skills, and acceptance of risk. My parents prioritized one…

That really deserves its own post. It's too interesting to be left as a comment. I have a lot of questions... who sells plots of land for that little money? Are there tax implications? Does anyone ever get on your case for upkeep? You really should write a blog post. It definitely would hit the front page. Edit who sells plots of land for that little money? Apparently: many people! I just did a web search. Little plo…

As far as upkeep, most of these lots are already in unimproved land, where everything around is also unimproved. Road access is usually at least there. So, no mandatory upkeep except looking at satellite photos once every couple of months. Some places have tax, I think an average would be maybe $50 a year, if any?

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#178

Post by llm_nerd »

jeffbee wrote: post #89
jglamine wrote: post #52

This essay is weird. The author lumps James Damore, rank-and-file software engineer, in with Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg. Damore hasn't updated his LinedIn since 2018 - he might not even work in tech anymore? It closes saying they need to stop reliving their glory days and be good fathers and not the town drunk. Those are serious accusations - being a bad father and a drunk. The author doesn't give any eviden…

Yeah that was weird. Has Damore ever contributed anything to the industry? Never heard of them in the open source world. The way I read their arc, they went directly from cosseted upbringing to finding out that they weren't anywhere near as gifted as they'd been told their entire life and shifting from trying to actually compete in the industry to being a paid podcast guest in the grievance-sphere.

>Has Damore ever contributed anything to the industry?

It seems you've contrived a strawman that unless you know what they've done specifically in open source, they don't matter. I assure you that almost no one agrees with you.

This and the other post of yours about Damore are super weird, and you seem incredibly bitter about the guy. Weird stuff.

Damore's appearance in this piece is bizarre. He was an SWE at Google that made speculations about diversity targets, not realizing, courtesy of being the spectrum, that it was a massive taboo. For this guy to lump him in with Andreeson and Zuckerberg in his bizarre ageism screed is absolutely bizarre, and makes it seem like it was some LLM generation or something.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#179

Post by [deleted] »

renewiltord wrote: post #62

When did this style of psychoanalysis become popular? Everyone now uses these terms and instead of coming off like an informed take it just sounds like "I'm just trying to insult other people". At some point, the online forum take of "all the successful guys are sad and I'm not as successful because I'm well-adjusted" has gotten boring. I get that people want to feel better about their lives but this is just embarras…

[deleted]

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#180

Post by bhaney »

K0balt wrote: post #153
moondistance wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you find/buy land? How do you vet purchases? Can you point to a few websites, etc.? Thanks!

Just check eBay. If you want it to turn out good, it’s best to go and see. If we’re talking about $1200 parcels, it costs more to vet than to buy. Just look it over and judge the best you can on the information you can gather, and accept the 30 percent risk that it won’t be what you expected in some way or another. Or, go there. Not worth paying a title agency or any of that crap. Be sure of any tax burden (easily re…

Do you have more advice for finding land to buy other than using ebay?

I've been looking for a while for a few acres of unimproved/secluded/wooded land within an hour or two drive away from me here in Kansas, mostly just for bushcrafting or tooling around. The only place I really know to check is Zillow, and while there are a few listings in my distance range, they're typically upwards of $10k/acre. I just checked ebay and saw parcels priced much closer to what I'd expect for unimproved land out in the middle of nowhere, but I couldn't find any in my middle of nowhere, just several states away.

I'm pretty sure there's tons of completely unused land all over the place here that people would be willing to get rid of for cheap, but I have no idea how to find those people. I've considered just going to every small town within an hour of me and posting a "will buy" ad on whatever bulletin boards I'm allowed to post stuff on, but for now I'm still holding out hope that there's a better way. Tips?

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