"I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job." -- Bill Murray

▲

wmeredith 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've heard a similar maxim that being rich is fantastic, rich and famous is good, poor is bad, poor and famous is a nightmare.

	▲	groundzeros2015 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The quote from the “jackass” crew is the opposite. If you’re famous you don’t need money. You just walk up and ask.
	▲	jongjong 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I was poor and recognizable in a tiny niche related to open source tools and 100% this was true. The recognition creates envy and ambitious people invest extra effort to sabotage you... Often, people who are rich see you as a threat and go all out war on you... And you don't have any buffer or support so you have to be 10x better just to stay afloat. Convincing people to work with you is much harder since you can't offer them any money and must offer pure equity... And your reputation, which fades over time, is the only thing that makes such equity potentially valuable. OP has the problem that his product is much more well known than he is. That's probably why he is not richer. Though at least his product is a mainstream brand by now. He can get recognition by association once he does the reveal "I'm the guy who created Mastodon" this creates opportunities... Though perhaps not as big opportunities as one may think. It depends on the degree of control he has over the product. In general, with open source or other community-oriented products, the control is limited.

▲

weinzierl 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In addition to that: With money you can always buy popularity easily, but converting popularity into money is hard work at least. I'd even say that turning fame into significant wealth is an art only few have truly mastered.

▲

RobotToaster 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And if you can't buy popularity you can always buy a really high wall.

▲

michaelt 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> With money you can always buy popularity easily

I don’t know if Elon Musk is an example or a counter-example. Maybe both?

▲

Tool_of_Society 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well he was doing a good job at buying popularity until he fired his PR team so..

▲

mlindner 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Elon Musk has never had a PR team... Which is maybe the better point. (Or if he did, he hasn't had one in the 15+ years I've been watching him.)

	▲	plorkyeran 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		After the taking Tesla private tweet that got him in trouble with the SEC he hired some people, but that didn't last long. Tesla had a PR team until a few years ago but he probably did not listen to them very much.

▲

forgetfulness 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What he can’t buy is being at peace and content with the popularity he already has

▲

bigiain 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sadly, I suspect he's reasonably successful at being popular amongst the people he wants to be popular with.

Taylor Swift is super popular in the demographic she plays to, while being unpopular with, say, techno or metal fans.

Musk is super popular in the outspoken nazi demographic. (And has fallen way way out of popularity with huge parts of demographics that he used to be popular in, like electric car people, home solar/battery people, and spaceflight fans.)

▲

mlindner 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> Musk is super popular in the outspoken nazi demographic.

It's sad seeing such poor misinformed takes like this on hacker news. I guess Marc Andreessen and the President/Co-Founder of Stripe, among many others, are nazis now. It's well known that among the group that I would call "pro-America technologists" that he's highly appreciated and many want to figure out how to replicate him.

> and spaceflight fans.

As a spaceflight fan who was a fan of Musk all the way back in ~2012, I'm still a fan of him today, even if I have more issues with him today than I did back then. I can confidently say that many spaceflight fans feel the same as I on this. People overstate his controversial opinions (and being a nazi is not one of them) and understate his past achievements (and continued achievements).

	▲	hat_monger an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> It's well known that among the group that I would call "pro-America technologists" You should start calling them “pro-India technologists”
	▲	undeveloper an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		is your idea of "pro-America" being a white supremacist state by chance? that hitler salute not subtle enough?
	▲	Nevermark 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> It's well known that among the group that I would call "pro-America technologists" that he's highly appreciated and many want to figure out how to replicate him. > As a spaceflight fan who was a fan of Musk all the way back in ~2012, I'm still a fan of him today Elon is a rare human being. He is pretty much what his haters think of him (a political/social troll/child). And he is also what his worshipers think (a generationally incredible technical and business visionary). Most people, whether ordinary or extraordinary themselves, have trouble with dissonance. Elon is dissonance. They see a joke or a god. A small segment sees both sides clearly. I find it a painful experience. Overlapping extremes of inspiration and damage. But reality isn't all bubblegum and glitter go pops.

▲

lovich 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

He’s an example. He has to burn massive amounts of money to counteract the fact that he wants to be the town asshole in public constantly.

If someone who had 5 dollars to their name acted like Elon Musk no one on this forum would question hating the fucker, but he’s got cash so some set of people think he might be right

▲

mig39 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, giving Nazi salutes is a great way to buy popularity.