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How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

callmenish.com

81–90 of 265 posts

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#81

Legit question: is [1] an instance of this kind of scheme? The guy came out of nowhere boasting how he left his $500K job at amazon and whatnot (first red flag for me) and I've seen his content popup pretty often. 1: https://gumroad.com/l/aws-good-parts

I would not think about what this post is saying in literal terms.

I'm pretty sure Daniel has good intentions, though he has most definitely benefitted from this type of 'scheme' given that a lot of his brand revolves around the lifestyle he has managed to create for himself due to the success of his info products.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#82

I think one of the biggest issues is that tech people are "know it alls". They make lots of money, they must be smart right? So when a friend disagrees the person doesn't consider it. And unlike their Engineering counterparts they won't search for proof. If you need to see real world examples, look at who buys brand name. It's telling.

I think we all remember which group of people green-lit Soylent.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think OTM options are underpriced you're in for a rude awakening. Sure, you can make lots of money with OTMOs, but don't expect to do this regularly.

To be fair he didn't they are. He said they were, which might have been the case in March after the corona crash.

After the March crash, volatility was really high. So I doubt even far OTM options were that cheaper back then.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say 95% of digital nomads are just online marketers who market their own lifestyle so that they can sell a course on how to imitate them. And obviously, their customers will imitate them and sell a course on how to imitate them. And so the cycle continues.

> I'd say 95% of digital nomads are just online marketers It’s strange ‘cuz I’ve been working in digital nomad hotspots for years and have met very very few people like that. Lots of translators, programmers, and then a complete mishmash of other people, but very few people selling courses, and the ones who _were_ selling courses generally nothing to do with being a digital nomad

Same here.

I’ve been nomading for ten years. I haven’t met a single person who was not legit doing something of value. The closest I came to one was an online poker player in Chiang Mai back in 2010.

Maybe we just hang out in the “right” circles?

It’s probably just like in real life. I have never met anyone offering me a generic (non nomad) Ponzi scheme. But I sure had several legit investment opportunities thru my circles.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#85

I think one of the biggest issues is that tech people are "know it alls". They make lots of money, they must be smart right? So when a friend disagrees the person doesn't consider it. And unlike their Engineering counterparts they won't search for proof. If you need to see real world examples, look at who buys brand name. It's telling.

Tech people are pretty smart, on average. It's a somewhat demanding professional career. There's a hell of a lot of difference between "smart" and "infallible".

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#86

Legit question: is [1] an instance of this kind of scheme? The guy came out of nowhere boasting how he left his $500K job at amazon and whatnot (first red flag for me) and I've seen his content popup pretty often. 1: https://gumroad.com/l/aws-good-parts

He was on a podcast recently, I think indie hackers, explaining his path in great detail.

IMO he’s legit, not a scheme

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#87
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about merely building a business? More people need to be told this. The combination of work ethic, of risk tolerance, and of perseverance against ridiculous odds that is required to build a Tesla, or an Apple, or a Whatever, is extraordinarily rare

You forgot two factors: capital (which excludes the vast majority of people om earth), and an enormous amount of luck.

It's pretty easy for a technology business to get capital these days.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#88
post #6

This article is fantastic. I think "get rich quick" schemes are so much worse when it comes to my generation and beyond (millennials/gen-z). People have been endlessly screwed over: graduated college during the 2008 economic bust, lived with parents until their 30s, fired/laid off during the 2020 pandemic -- so I fundamentally understand the mirage of Instagram fame and endless sacks of money for doing basically noth…

/r/wallstreetbets exists for a different reason, but it got exacerbated by everything you mentioned above. WSB members have come to realize that so-called "financial professionals" by and large have no scrying crystal into the market. WSB got there because of the democratization of knowledge that the Internet has caused. And before you cite some unicorn like Renaissance, that's generating 40% YOY for 20+ years, keep…

This is based on a common misunderstanding of what “Wall Street” does.

The Hollywood-inspired folk concept of Wall Street is that they trade stocks. That’s what everybody in those big buildings in Manhattan does all day. They yell buy/sell orders into red phones and drink Scotch.

Except they don’t. Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs make money by providing services such as mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, market making, etc. That is, they make money by selling shovels in a gold rush, not by speculating on where gold will be found. Other firms are in the business of buying and selling illiquid assets such as private companies and commercial real estate (with illiquid assets, there is far lower price efficiency, and thus it is possible to generate excess returns). Still others are in the business of managing people’s money for them—an industry which is mostly about managing volatility, not about generating excess returns (a pension fund usually cannot afford to have its portfolio go down by 50%, even if it’s temporary, so they’re not going to put it all in the S&P 500).

Proprietary trading (where firms use their own money to buy and sell public securities) has been in decline for decades at the big banks, precisely because they don’t have a scrying crystal, and they know it. Public stock trading on Wall Street is mostly the domain of companies in niches like high-frequency trading (such as Jane Street). HFT firms gain an edge through arbitraging different prices faster than anyone else (for example, sell Exxon in New York a few microseconds after oil futures drop in Chicago). In other words, the only people on Wall Street who do what Hollywood-Wall-Street does are the few who do have a scrying crystal.

WSB is not “exposing” anything except the fact that most people (understandably) have no idea what the financial industry does.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#89
I would argue that the ponzi scheme is much broader than what is described here.

1) Try to start an online business. It doesn't really matter what you're doing or if it succeeds as long as it's marketable to people aspiring to create an online business

2) Make a big fuss about the launch on all social platforms (Twitter, HN, PH, IH, your blog, etc) and hope someone with a big audience signal boosts you or you get lucky

3a) If you start making money, awesome! Constantly post revenue numbers, things about Building in Public (TM) and "you can do it too!". Your audience (And therefore revenue) will compound exponentially

3b) If you 'fail', make a blog post retrospective called "Lessons Learned" and blast that out everywhere as well

4) Repeat steps 1-3 until you hit 3a. Throw in a few "6 Months of Building in Public" type posts if you're really having trouble

In reality, I strongly believe that very few people end up making it through this type of process and success mostly comes down to luck or connections (Anyone who already has an audience can easily pull you up).

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#90
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you'll quickly realize people are literally gambling with their life savings Gambling, yes. But the stock market is not a ponzi scheme.

> But the stock market is not a ponzi scheme. That depends on who you ask. https://www.hughescapital.com/the-stock-market-is-a-ponzi-sc...

From that link:

> In 2010, its stock price was $20 and by 2017 had risen to $380 a share, yet Tesla reported a loss of $4.3 billion. How is this possible? The only way to explain this bizarre scenario is to recognize that the market is not efficient

I will pass on buying/reading that book based on this excerpt alone.

I am far away from a tesla fan (I actively encourage my friends/family to not buy teslas, or invest in tesla, etc), but saying "the only way to explain this" is pretty unbelievable.

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