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Comment by swendoog | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but wonder what it's like to have that kind of money.

Does such a person ever wake up, and wonder how the dice rolled so amazingly in their favor?

Or do they wake up and stand proud, recognizing that they are so successful because of their own hard work and intelligence?

Do they ever think about how insane life is that they ended up with 94 billion, while some people are starving?

I'm not making any moral projection here. I'm not saying there's anything right, or wrong, about that situation. I'm just genuinely curious what it feels like to be in their shoes.

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There are people in the world who’s life would be more transformed by your wealth than your’s would be by Bezos’.

How did you wake up this morning?

Also not making a moral projection here. We just tend to look up instead of down.

I've never heard anyone say it like that. It's given me pause.

Extremely well said.

Bezos has taken to recently calling his immense wealth, his "Amazon lottery winnings." Which gives you an indication that he is fully aware of the role good luck has played in his life. I'm sure it's also meant to disarm or preempt criticism to an extent, Warren Buffet has done the same thing the entire time he has been famous & wealthy (using various explanatory concepts such as "the ovarian lottery," and joking about how he'd be dinosaur lunch in a different time given how a vicious carnivore might respond to his capital allocation skills). To the extent that Bezos's wealth is particularly wildly outsized, I'm sure - based on what he has said - that he recognizes it as being well beyond just the result of hard work and intelligence (both of which he usually gets credit for).

> Does such a person ever wake up, and wonder how the dice rolled so amazingly in their favor?

More likely they wake up thinking about how to further weight dice rolls into their favour, even those stretching years into the future.

I'm just genuinely curious what it feels like to be in their shoes.

The contemplation of this question satisfies ones need for introspection. Whether it's Bezos, or someone you are not there is great value in trying to answer this.

Struggle and pain and want is cleansing. Constant success can be a house of cards for children.

Wealth, enormous, is a burden. Just making it is freedom. Imo.

As he cant understand our life anymore we cant understand his.

I don't know the answer, but how do you feel every morning waking up knowing your top 1% of the world and top 0.xxxx% of the history of all man kind? I don't think you think about it too much and keep doing things... Maybe even wine a bit :))

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