| ▲ | twostorytower 4 hours ago |
| Really awesome that he was able to do this and give back, but none of this would have been possible without his unfathomable wealth and access. |
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| ▲ | Noumenon72 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| That's not a "but". Because he developed wealth and access, this is possible for one person when before it wasn't possible for anyone. This is how societies developed everything from refined sugar to rockets, as they passed various thresholds where individuals could afford to try things out. |
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| ▲ | fragmede 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And all of a sudden, I was bestowed with the greed to acquire more money than I can spend in a single lifetime. If I get cancer, I'd rather be rich and be able to do stuff like that, rather than die quietly. |
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| ▲ | perch56 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| According to some online sources his total wealth is under $3B. Hardly ‘unfathomable wealth’ IMO. Sure, billionaire territory but nowhere near the ultra-wealthy. |
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| ▲ | amazingamazing 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 3 billion is ultra wealthy, you can't be serious. | | |
| ▲ | perch56 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It’s entry-level billionaires club. The top 10 each hold $100B–$300B+, so the wealth distribution is extraordinarily skewed even within billionaires themselves. Musk is hundreds of times richer. Hardly obscenely rich. | | |
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| ▲ | chaps 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Friend, $3B is unfathomable wealth for an individual. | | |
| ▲ | perch56 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I can fathom 3B, I can’t fathom 300B | | |
| ▲ | crote 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Quick, without doing any kind of Googling or calculation: if I asked you to count 3B grains of rice by hand, how long would that take you? How big would that pile of rice be? How long would it take you to eat it? A billion is already unfathomably large. If you think it isn't, you just haven't tried imagining what a billion of anything would be like. | |
| ▲ | orf 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, big number better, everyone gets it. The point is that you’re deluding yourself if you think that there is any difference in terms of relative “unfathomability” between 3 billion and 300 billion. 3 billion generates more in interest per day than 99.99% of people make in a year. That’s unfathomable volumes of wealth for even the very rich. |
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| ▲ | dudul 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This comment left me speechless... There are just a bit over 3000 billionaires in the world, 900 in the USA. If $3B isn't "unfathomable wealth" I don't know what is. |
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| ▲ | esafak 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is an excellent use of his wealth and skills. Much better than Steve Jobs' response. I remember reading a similar article about a (cancer?) patient who used 3D printing for his personalized cure. |
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| ▲ | peyton 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There are grad students babying organoids right now. Saturday morning. If you can work a pipette you can do this. |
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| ▲ | yieldcrv 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Feeling inspired? |
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| ▲ | croes 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | It’s more like I hope more bad things happen to rich and powerful people so they start doing something against it.
As long as it happens to ordinary people most of then hardly care. Reminds me of the GOP who was against stem cell treatments until Reagan got Alzheimer‘s |
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| ▲ | rvz 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > ...but none of this would have been possible without his unfathomable wealth and access. ? What's that supposed to mean? Is that bad? You can do the same thing as he did, what's stopping you? |
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| ▲ | TobTobXX 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | wealth and access that is merely fathomable | | |
| ▲ | rvz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | You can literally apply to YC, just like Sid and now you are reading his story. He did not come from any of those backgrounds. |
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| ▲ | croes 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Wealth is mostly based on either luck and more often heritage. | | |
| ▲ | rvz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not only Sid didn't come from any of those backgrounds, neither did the founder of Freshworks who literally started his company based on reading a hacker news comment. [0] So I only see more excuses here. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28336815 | | |
| ▲ | croes 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | So it was luck | | |
| ▲ | rvz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Nope. He applied to YC and took that risk and already knew how to make money. You miss 100% of the shots if you do. not. try. | | |
| ▲ | croes 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | But you don’t hit 100% if you try.
That’s where the luck part comes into play. Right time, right place |
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