Right there with you. The company that I was a small part of was sold to Microsoft in 1999, just before the .com bust and our options didn't transfer until after the stock had plummeted. Stayed there for the next 14 years, seeing little growth (but great roles, challenges and competitive salary)...just as I left, Satya was named CEO and share value started its rise. Sadly, I sold much of my stock to move east. Can't change it, would probably do it again...don't do the math!
That's the kind of wild thing about Microsoft. It was flat and totally boring for 15 years. And then straight up. But when you're starting to go straight up after 15 years of nothing, the beginning of that curve looks amazing..
Ooh wait this took me forever to figure out, but you bought 5 bitcoin worth of mushrooms in 2012?
I wonder how that would work, if you, like, got arrested for that today. On one hand, you bought 20 grams of mushrooms. On the other hand, you bought half a million dollars of mushrooms. Are you just a regular person doing drugs? Or are you a kingpin buying tons of drugs?
During the dot com boom I was briefly worth $5 million on paper from selling my company in an all stock deal. When I finally cashed out in 2002 it was like $30k.
I think my question is, which would "solve" this (not as real proposals, but just as a thought experiment): If the numbers were more normal, or if they weren't as constantly visible? And it feels to me like the latter is actually the bigger problem?
I think we need to become better than all of this.
It's easy to get sucked into the headlines that drive traffic - guy from OpenAI getting $100M/yr. Elon worth bazzilions. 25 year old kid starts company, then worth over a $1B.
Those things get traffic, so news sites keep pushing them out. Then all kinds of geniuses repeat them on LinkedIn.
Maybe it's time we control ourselves, stop feeding this monster, stop clicking on this nonsense, and focus on doing things that make us happy?
I've always found "do things that make you happy" to be a complicated question though. Like, if you're immersed in it, success is what makes you happy. Happiness is in some sense contextual. And to stop feeding the monster, you have to walk away from it, when chasing is what makes you happy. I've always thought "do what makes you happy" is really a leap of faith; and it's really about doing what you *think* will make you happy, and trust that once you surround yourself in that new context, it really will. But to do that, I think you have to let go first.
Eh, I think I'm more sympathetic to those things. They are trillion dollar machines that have been optimized to tempt you to do those things. In a fight that tilted against people, I think it takes a lot more than basic self control to resist it.
I feel this in my bones. Of course, I remember that I incepted this thought (or at least part of it) so there is that. I think this is a good additive read to reflect the other side of this story - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/class-money-finances/682301/ - having grown up poor I really struggle with this entire topic. I really hope you still feel joy about the Lego because you should!
The day I turned off Instagram and Facebook was when I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. One day I’ll manage to do that with LinkedIn…
“The recent grad is troubled by how much the designer who got the job they want makes; the designer is troubled by how much the engineer makes; the engineer by the researcher; the researcher by the founder that got acquired; the acquired founder by founder who acquired them; the founder by the billionaire; the billionaire by Jeff Bezos; Jeff Bezos by Elon Musk; and Elon Musk by the recent grad.”
^ one of my most favorite lines from this article. Thank you for giving me a solid chuckle!
Oh funny, somehow, I've always found Linkedin to have sort of the opposite effect? On Twitter, very famous people all hang out. On Instagram (or Tiktok), everyone just having a great time. And on Linkedin, people are....trying very hard? But not the really successful people, but like, the middle management of success? It borders on depressing, which almost makes it an antidote to the effect you get from other social media sites.
Like on Insta you see your mates living it up in Dubai with fancy cars and Dior bags. You know the car's hired and the bag's probably cost them a month's salary, but whatever, good for them.
Then you open LinkedIn and some kid who's barely old enough to drink has dropped out of Stanford and just sold their company for 700m.
Makes you want to crawl under a rock, doesn't it?
Mind you, the memes on LinkedIn are absolutely brilliant these days, so at least there's that.
As a gift you’ll get an exclusive guide on how to breathe through your prostate during a waxing moon in retrograde Mars while Saturn is just in the 36th house of Aquarius.
You’ll also get lifetime access to my groundbreaking course called Leader Hormones. And for the truly chosen ones we’re giving away a trip to a two week silent Vipassana retreat in Bali
I couldn’t help it. I did the math. If I’d invested $100 in bitcoin on the date of my earliest email that mentions the currency, I would have $2.3MM today.
Thanks, but also, I'm not sure asking, "so when did I get my first email about someone wanting to sell me (now very cheap) bitcoins is at all a good question to ask...
I mean, probably not? Not because any forecast is necessarily bad, but because it feels like there are so many layers of weird effects that any kind of prediction gets really hard. Which is about the only real forecast I have: that it's gonna be pretty weird.
"the inner anxieties of the bourgeoisie is not a morally pressing question"
IDK, feels like "how do we make billionaires more convinced that growing their wealth is inherently immoral" is like...maybe the most morally pressing question of our time! I was a long established effective altruism hater even before they all became convinced that AI was the answer to all of human suffering but whew baby at least a few of them tried to alleviate poverty for a little while. Who's trying now?
Money only flows up, and inequality keeps rising... but apparently if we can just get over that big invisible wall, everything will solve itself and we will find ourselves in a perfect utopia. And until then, I guess the poor will just have to keep suffering while their blood feeds the beast.
Soylent Green is people.
Or to put it another way: by being more self-centered, we expect to create a world which is somehow more altruistic?
How many billions do you need to run a soup kitchen? None. You just need a soul.
Yeah, i would've said that I'm not sure there's much to be done to convince rich people that their wealth is immoral, though the whole EA thing seemed to actually do a pretty good job of that part. Which is kind of weird? But maybe there's something to it's culty nature, where, rather than being like, here are various reasons why you should believe a thing, the main thing about EA is that it seemed to frame the whole thing as this secret math problem that only smart people can figure out. So it's more about making the whole thing an exclusive club than what the club is actually about.
Right there with you. The company that I was a small part of was sold to Microsoft in 1999, just before the .com bust and our options didn't transfer until after the stock had plummeted. Stayed there for the next 14 years, seeing little growth (but great roles, challenges and competitive salary)...just as I left, Satya was named CEO and share value started its rise. Sadly, I sold much of my stock to move east. Can't change it, would probably do it again...don't do the math!
That's the kind of wild thing about Microsoft. It was flat and totally boring for 15 years. And then straight up. But when you're starting to go straight up after 15 years of nothing, the beginning of that curve looks amazing..
in 2012 I bought approximately $650k (at today’s prices) worth of mushrooms for a friend
you’d be amazed how little mushrooms that was at the time
Ooh wait this took me forever to figure out, but you bought 5 bitcoin worth of mushrooms in 2012?
I wonder how that would work, if you, like, got arrested for that today. On one hand, you bought 20 grams of mushrooms. On the other hand, you bought half a million dollars of mushrooms. Are you just a regular person doing drugs? Or are you a kingpin buying tons of drugs?
During the dot com boom I was briefly worth $5 million on paper from selling my company in an all stock deal. When I finally cashed out in 2002 it was like $30k.
I guess that's the other side of this AI thing though: there are going to be so many stories like this, except their 30k was $500 million at one point
This was a fascinating read, but it made me sad for the future.
"Enough" will never be enough for some and for many in the near future.
Kids today want to become influencers - most won't.
Everyone dreams of a multi-million payday - most will never get it.
These numbers are beyond staggering and are pushing the ceiling so high, we'll eventually all feel very, very small.
I think my question is, which would "solve" this (not as real proposals, but just as a thought experiment): If the numbers were more normal, or if they weren't as constantly visible? And it feels to me like the latter is actually the bigger problem?
Scintillating! Love the breakdown of Ballmer’s billions
I think we need to become better than all of this.
It's easy to get sucked into the headlines that drive traffic - guy from OpenAI getting $100M/yr. Elon worth bazzilions. 25 year old kid starts company, then worth over a $1B.
Those things get traffic, so news sites keep pushing them out. Then all kinds of geniuses repeat them on LinkedIn.
Maybe it's time we control ourselves, stop feeding this monster, stop clicking on this nonsense, and focus on doing things that make us happy?
I've always found "do things that make you happy" to be a complicated question though. Like, if you're immersed in it, success is what makes you happy. Happiness is in some sense contextual. And to stop feeding the monster, you have to walk away from it, when chasing is what makes you happy. I've always thought "do what makes you happy" is really a leap of faith; and it's really about doing what you *think* will make you happy, and trust that once you surround yourself in that new context, it really will. But to do that, I think you have to let go first.
(The conclusion of this older post was me trying to figure that out: https://benn.substack.com/i/146084626/is-that-all-there-is-to-a-firing)
I remember that post. My point is somewhat more basic. It's not even career choices, or surrounding yourself with the right people.
It's not clicking on click bait.
It's not doom scrolling for hours and falling into crazy rabbit holes.
It's going to bed without spending an hour on TikTok before you actually go to sleep.
Just basic self control.
Eh, I think I'm more sympathetic to those things. They are trillion dollar machines that have been optimized to tempt you to do those things. In a fight that tilted against people, I think it takes a lot more than basic self control to resist it.
I feel this in my bones. Of course, I remember that I incepted this thought (or at least part of it) so there is that. I think this is a good additive read to reflect the other side of this story - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/class-money-finances/682301/ - having grown up poor I really struggle with this entire topic. I really hope you still feel joy about the Lego because you should!
Half this blog is probably incepted ideas that I've stolen and think that are my own. So I appreciate it.
And yup, I actually got this thing not that long ago, and it was dope: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/compact-crawler-crane-42097
"Oh, it's a mystery to me
We have a greed, with which we have agreed
And you think you have to want more than you need
Until you have it all you won't be free"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm8oxC24QZc&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5tD
both a banger, and a rare eddie vedder song where i can understand what he's saying.
The day I turned off Instagram and Facebook was when I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. One day I’ll manage to do that with LinkedIn…
“The recent grad is troubled by how much the designer who got the job they want makes; the designer is troubled by how much the engineer makes; the engineer by the researcher; the researcher by the founder that got acquired; the acquired founder by founder who acquired them; the founder by the billionaire; the billionaire by Jeff Bezos; Jeff Bezos by Elon Musk; and Elon Musk by the recent grad.”
^ one of my most favorite lines from this article. Thank you for giving me a solid chuckle!
Oh funny, somehow, I've always found Linkedin to have sort of the opposite effect? On Twitter, very famous people all hang out. On Instagram (or Tiktok), everyone just having a great time. And on Linkedin, people are....trying very hard? But not the really successful people, but like, the middle management of success? It borders on depressing, which almost makes it an antidote to the effect you get from other social media sites.
Like on Insta you see your mates living it up in Dubai with fancy cars and Dior bags. You know the car's hired and the bag's probably cost them a month's salary, but whatever, good for them.
Then you open LinkedIn and some kid who's barely old enough to drink has dropped out of Stanford and just sold their company for 700m.
Makes you want to crawl under a rock, doesn't it?
Mind you, the memes on LinkedIn are absolutely brilliant these days, so at least there's that.
Your linkedin in much more like my twitter. My linkedin is mostly people posting
Amazing things they learned
from the best sales rep you've never heard of
in posts with
way
too
many
line breaks.
Serious about blowing up
your sales by 1300%?
Drop me a DM with
SUCCESSFUL SUCCESS!!!
As a gift you’ll get an exclusive guide on how to breathe through your prostate during a waxing moon in retrograde Mars while Saturn is just in the 36th house of Aquarius.
You’ll also get lifetime access to my groundbreaking course called Leader Hormones. And for the truly chosen ones we’re giving away a trip to a two week silent Vipassana retreat in Bali
... that was a damn good opening quote.
I couldn’t help it. I did the math. If I’d invested $100 in bitcoin on the date of my earliest email that mentions the currency, I would have $2.3MM today.
Oh my
You're asking very good questions. Don't stop seeking.
Thanks, but also, I'm not sure asking, "so when did I get my first email about someone wanting to sell me (now very cheap) bitcoins is at all a good question to ask...
😂
If it floats like a bubble, it might just pop like one....or not
Does the Stock Market Know Something We Don’t? - The Atlantic https://share.google/PSzgfRUqduzTAnRdT
Reddit would save us
But, obviously not enough, lol. As you insinuate, this could just be the beginning of our AI dominated future.
It makes me want to engage in some forecasting or likely future simulations, but would we even believe the outcomes?
I mean, probably not? Not because any forecast is necessarily bad, but because it feels like there are so many layers of weird effects that any kind of prediction gets really hard. Which is about the only real forecast I have: that it's gonna be pretty weird.
Agreed!
"the inner anxieties of the bourgeoisie is not a morally pressing question"
IDK, feels like "how do we make billionaires more convinced that growing their wealth is inherently immoral" is like...maybe the most morally pressing question of our time! I was a long established effective altruism hater even before they all became convinced that AI was the answer to all of human suffering but whew baby at least a few of them tried to alleviate poverty for a little while. Who's trying now?
Money only flows up, and inequality keeps rising... but apparently if we can just get over that big invisible wall, everything will solve itself and we will find ourselves in a perfect utopia. And until then, I guess the poor will just have to keep suffering while their blood feeds the beast.
Soylent Green is people.
Or to put it another way: by being more self-centered, we expect to create a world which is somehow more altruistic?
How many billions do you need to run a soup kitchen? None. You just need a soul.
Yeah, i would've said that I'm not sure there's much to be done to convince rich people that their wealth is immoral, though the whole EA thing seemed to actually do a pretty good job of that part. Which is kind of weird? But maybe there's something to it's culty nature, where, rather than being like, here are various reasons why you should believe a thing, the main thing about EA is that it seemed to frame the whole thing as this secret math problem that only smart people can figure out. So it's more about making the whole thing an exclusive club than what the club is actually about.