The best trolls are the ones where you legitimately can’t tell if they truly believe the shit they say. This one is more “cartoon villain”. It’s a characature—what many people believe an evil, mustache-twirling rich person might say. Pretty transparent, but good effort.
YC alum so pretty sure this is not a fake HN ID :)
i wish people didn't see this stuff as Bond villainy though. this is clearly a failure on my part in terms of communication... thinking on how to remain authentic but reduce that effect.
I think your message is 'for whom it's for.' Based on how the average person is programmed to think/act in society, what you've said is unlikely to be well-received by most, IMHO.
I'm not yet in your (stated) position, and trying to discuss such matters typically raises hackles & hisses. I think this has mostly to do w/people deciding that they'll never be in any position to live the sort of life you've mentioned. Could go one about this for a while, but won't.
Again, salute to you if you are actually living the life.
Totally encourage working on your message. You are likely not going to see much support or agreement by boasting about enjoying the benefits provided by society while dodging paying for it through taxes.
well i don't agree that i am "enjoying the benefits provided by society while dodging paying for it through taxes." i think people who create wealth pay for society already.
i am thinking of working on my message, but i'm not going to change my convictions just because people don't like it.
You pay for society through taxes, which you are deliberately avoiding. Many public services and infrastructure which you and your company take advantage of are paid-for by taxes.
very positive. he is building value for society by:
- bringing cheaper great products to vast numbers of people
- building AWS infrastructure that enables other people to build products cheaper and faster
- creating huge number of jobs (that you might not like but lots of people in the world would like to have)
- funding things he cares about
one of the most useful and beneficial people in the world.
When philanthropy funds the public good, society abdicates responsibility of defining “public good”, and leaves that to a handful of philanthropists. Hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees generated this wealth and billions of customers enabled it, yet one person gets to decide which services or causes are worthy of funding. This is called plutarchy.
it has its challenges, but also lots of upsides. have to train self to be very good with habits, investing in relationships and the like. i've been doing it for the last 2 years and at first it was kind of depressing but now have never been happier.
e.g. last 2 weeks spent in silicon valley having 40+ meetings a week w really smart people i learned a lot from. got fed up w meetings, so now working from beach in tulum for a week by myself. next week working fdrom rome/florence with a really cool girl. then doing a certain plant ceremony in a certain undisclosed country. etc.