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Comment by Androider | Hacker News Reader

DHH has the coolest desk and home office I've ever seen: https://www.instagram.com/p/BcnPtAwlAKe/?hl=en&taken-by=dhh7... Check out the rest of the house too, amazing.

I think some people have this image that Basecamp and DHH is some scrappy bootstrapper fighting the establishment. But really he is living the life that even most successful "exited" venture fueled founders wouldn't be able to attain, and he's just saying there's another (perhaps even easier) way.

As I build my company, DHH + Basecamp, Jan Koum + WhatsApp, are my role models. Maximize the revenue per employee, not the number of employees (cough Twitter).

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He used to promote himself like this: https://m.signalvnoise.com/the-day-i-became-a-millionaire-55...

But then he counted his money again, bought a house in the hills of Malibu, a couple of mad cars (family car is a Rolls-Royce Phantom), starting being a race car driver (Le Mans),...

Never believe ANYONE who says money isn't the a key to happiness. Not the sole reason, but just take a look at his Insta again.

Kudos.

Money isn't the key to happiness, however it lets you get rid of a lot of the bullshit of life. And that bullshit of life is what's making the majority of unhappy people unhappy.

Yeah if you hate your spouse, don't have friends, don't have hobbies, etc, adding a few zeros to your bank account won't change that. But there are plenty of people who are unhappy largely because of the stress around the financial side of their lives.

> Money isn't the key to happiness, however it lets you get rid of a lot of the bullshit of life.

Wealth brings with it plenty of other bullshit to make up for the bullshit you lost when you first obtained it, though.

Of course it does but the impact on your life is minimal in comparison. Compare "I need to pay this financial adviser thousands a year to handle my medium and long term financial goals" with "I need to make $500 for a car repair appear out of thin air or I'll be forced to walk to work in the middle of the winter, and if I miss work I'll be fired in which case the money problems will increase tenfold."

While I've never been rich, I've been objectively poor and I've been comfortable, and the difference in mental load is unbelievable if you haven't experienced it.

Relationships (both romantic and otherwise) can become incredibly complicated when your wealth goes beyond comfortable. I'd say that's more than a minimal impact. Human nature tends to show its ugly side when you have a lot of something others want or feel like they deserve more than you.

That's another reason why I don't really understand the instagram bragging thing. It's like these people are actively trying to create bullshit for themselves.

> That's another reason why I don't really understand the instagram bragging thing. It's like these people are actively trying to create bullshit for themselves.

There's a pretty fascinating British doco on the phenomenon that I saw on a recent plane trip. In some cases they are actually that vain. In other cases it seems kind-of ironic, like they are doing it just to troll online haters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnD3_-zVjec

> just take a look at his Insta again

I'm looking. I see a guy who really likes Rolexes and cars and flaunting his wealth to strangers on the Internet. What am I supposed to be seeing?

I don't see what happiness you get from his Instagram. I get that he doesn't need to worry about money, but so..? He might be super-miserable for all we know.

Does anyone know what keyboard that is?

That is the special, black keyboard that comes with the iMac Pro machines. The only way to get one is to order an iMac Pro, at least for now.

The cars are pretty nice too...

Instagram bragging is so incredibly cliche at this point that it actually makes me sad for those who engage in or with it. It's like a race to see who can appear more desperate for the approval of strangers.

People with money have nice things. I don't think anybody is surprised by this. DHH is also someone that people want to follow, whether for Rails, or business, or whatever. It's not necessarily bragging. I don't know much of anything about DHH's personality, so maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

But come on, the dude is loaded. Is he supposed to move his desk to the other side of the room so that people don't carp on him for "bragging?"

I wasn't talking about the desk picture.

Fair enough, that was the only one I looked at

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