Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
31–40 of 86 posts
Re: Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
#32US-centric views of love have evolved more towards ‘if it feels right, do it’ It feels odd to tell anyone ‘no’ because people think you are judging them, so most just stay quiet. In a different culture, Tony may have survived if people felt comfortable questioning dangerous behavior.
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Re: Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
#33The sticky notes of meaningless delusions/motivational words younger grade schoolers may be urged to think and write about how they feel of them seem oddly reminiscent of pictures surrounding Kanye West in recent years. For quite some time, and still, I believe he's going to end up at the center of the next cult shootout we see in the US.
I was lucky to have met Tony twice, having a decent discussion one time. What happened is really unfortunate, and I feel as if we're going to see very similar situations unfold with many of those who are new money making a fortune from tech. I imagine it's got to be unfathomably hard to stay grounded and find meaning after acquiring so much money. All the syncophants in the world will come after you, and as it's been seen with Musk, many others will attempt to bet against any future endeavors of yours just to make a quick buck.
Re: Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
#34Is there a non-paywall version anywhere?
Re: Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
#35Within minutes of his death breaking the news, someone in the comment posted on HN about this enablement. I had skepticism but it also felt way too specific and out of nowhere for me to think they were lying. It was heartbreaking to eventually realize it was indeed the truth.
Do you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=exzappos?
Re: Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
#36US-centric views of love have evolved more towards ‘if it feels right, do it’ It feels odd to tell anyone ‘no’ because people think you are judging them, so most just stay quiet. In a different culture, Tony may have survived if people felt comfortable questioning dangerous behavior.
It's not contributing much to the discussion to just say " This. " but man I really just want to say, indeed as someone who isn't originally from an American culture but now resides in America: the observation you make is profound and so important, and I hope everyone considers this and thinks about this. Because I know exactly what you're talking about and I'm struggling with this so much, about being supportive of…
I don't think this is true. In the circles I run in (which are as nearly as "woke" as you can be), your family and closest friends have carte blanche to tell you you're full of shit.
I know I rely on my family and friends to do so. Conversely, I know I'm able to do so with them and they love me just the same.
I mean, it's a trope at this point in American media where your loved one can slap your face hard to give you a reality check. I've never personally had that happen but to say the culture is a culture of enablers doesn't seem well supported.
Re: Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
#37This is a tragedy and I sympathize with everyone involved. Also, a lesson to not surround yourself with sycophants and drugs. It's easy to blame the sycophants, but Mr. Hsieh would have replaced anyone who tried to help. Imagine you're around and care about him. Is it better to stick around and try to help, as they attempted with the wellness center and doctor, or just leave him to the wolves?
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Re: Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
#38Whip-its? This guy had $840M and his drug of choice was whip-its? That is strangely amusing...
Re: Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
#39One simple and obvious lesson to point out here is that you better make peace with yourself before coming into possession of any large sum.
Money can destroy you just as easily as it can empower you. Look at what happens to a significant percentage of lottery winners.
It's an amplifier, and it can amplify your problems and self-destructive tendencies along with your desire to do good.
Re: Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky lifestyle
#40I worked for one of the startups Tony funded in Vegas and was around for most of the Downtown Project stuff, and was also one of the most vocal critics of what happened there. This story covers just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm really sorry he died, even though I was horrified by the externalities of what he did in my town and, frankly, didn't much like the cat personally. But this idea that all of this started when he went to Park City is just not true. The culture of heavy boozing and drugs was very much always a big factor in the Vegas downtown tech scene. I don't think that statement would be considered controversial by anyone who was around for the real surge of it, from about 2010 - 2014 or so. And look, I'm not a Puritan or an abstainer, but it's hard to take people seriously when most of the meetings seem to be done whole day drinking at the casino or by the pool in the Ogden condo.
Whatever. It's all over with now. I didn't even know Tony had left town - he'd stopped really making the scene outside his trailer park long before that. I wish he'd had people who could help him, but he spent a long time being told that he was an instinctual visionary whose every act was an act of genius. That isn't very good for honest self-evaluation.
I wish everything had happened differently, but it didn't. It's a shame.