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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

> Tomorrow is my 65th birthday.

Congrats!

> the day after tomorrow, I am pitching my 3rd startup to investors.

I'm still pretty active (58) but there is no way I'm going to do another run, I'm happy tinkering with stuff, spending time with kids and working on average 3 to 4 months per year. I always saw money as a means to an end, just another tool in the toolbox. I don't need more of it so that part of the drive is gone and I'd much rather spend a day playing piano or fixing something than that I'd want to be worried about metrics, investors, customer acquisition, payroll and the bi-annual whack over the head from the fourth dimension that throws all your carefully laid plans into disarray.

But I do very much wish for you to succeed at whatever endeavor you've got lined up and I'm curious to hear about it. Much, much good luck with your plans.

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I am sort of blown away by the response to my post. I feel like I need to respond. But the posts from so many people are so amazing. I have "retired" a couple of times, but I keep coming back because, this is fun.

The thing I want to do, it has to do with a new technology that would revolutionize LEOS technology, at least, that's what I think. And, I have some models that support that. Who cares? Millions of people who can't afford a decent internet connection, or one at all. If I say more, I could spoil it.

But what if we could do both. Turn a small reasonable profit and provide connectivity, well, everywhere. And decently. That's my dream. It's OK to laugh. I do too. But heck. What else am I supposed to do. Why not take a shot with a kooky idea. So here I go, fingers crossed and all that.

Godspeed, if I can help in any way definitely ping me.

This situation/attitude is exactly the thing that great people end up in. As I've mentioned previously I have known a lot of people that developed enough wealth over time to "retire."[1] And by retire I mean choose to work on what they wanted to work on, and not work if they didn't want to. I once explained as "being a consultant with infinite days of paid vacation." Some folks like Jacques and the GP author are "old" (as in > 50 yrs old, (me too)), some I know are "young" in that they are under 40.

In very general terms I see three "types" as most common, the first type are what I think of as "score keepers" who equate bank balances with their "score" in life and a bigger score than their peers mean they "win" life. This is not a point of view that I really understand, but I generally think that is because in my younger years I lived in Las Vegas and knew other kids whose parents were professional gamblers. Their life was really random in terms of how much money was available that year/month/week/day. Money came and went based most on luck, and less on skill. As a result these folks understood money wasn't the definition of how "good" they were, just how lucky. That is how I translated equity earnings from stock options / grants. If you happened to get lucky then you got some wealth, if not well it didn't change the quality of your work or your abilities.

I see this a lot in the second type of person which is they are happy to not have to worry about money, but they don't "need" to generate any more. So they follow their passions which can be very different. One friend of mine became a patent attorney because they really liked the law and how that system worked.

The third type is the person that "fails" at retirement (I put it in quotes because I don't think of it as failing, just a different path) and they miss the technical/intellectual challenge and the camaraderie of being in a group working on tough problems. If you get to be senior enough you come to realize that you can get more done as a group of blended skills than you can as individuals. Recreating that in a non-company way is hard.[2] As a result people often "go back to work". My favorite example of this is Guido Van-Rossum, who "retired", got bored, and then went to work for Microsoft.

Tenured professorships are excellent for this third type as well. There isn't an industrial equivalent (there used to be, tech companies would have the title of "Fellow" but the grind of MBAs on margin over innovation has pretty much killed those in most places).

[1] Not a flex, I just happened to be part of a number of companies that were generous with stock options and grew into larger companies. These are not founders, they are regular employees whose stock options ended up being worth enough that they could diversify them into something they could live off of.

[2] I proposed a member-benefit type company arrangement that would address this need but have so far not pushed the idea into existence.

Are: your member-benefit idea - we live in an extreme mono-culture of company structures and I think any innovation there might help. Tell us more :-)

Basically the concept is to create a company that does the "house keeping" (in the USA a company health plan for example, managing tax requirements) and a record keeping system of "points" related to work product of members, and an annual distribution of profits proportioned strictly on a point basis.

Because this was originally conceived for people who "could retire" but chose not to, employee pay would be $1/month plus medical coverage for the member and a spouse that is all paid for[1], office space, "lab" space if the space in the office is insufficient, and shared high-expense infrastructure.

Revenue sharing based on points and other work products (such as consulting and training classes).

There is also an "investor" option where for every $1M you put in you get $3M back. The trick though is that in the early stages it is unclear how quickly you would get your $3M. Later when rates of return are better understood that ratio could be reduced.

[1] Given the tax laws, there is also a requirement to include money to cover this "income" (US considers anything you give an employee income) so there is also a cash amount to cover those taxes. From the members perspective, they get $12/year "take home" pay, and if they did nothing else could file a tax return with $0 tax required. (caveat existing government tax shenanigans)

> record keeping system of "points" related to work product of members, and an annual distribution of profits proportioned strictly on a point basis.

This is hilarious :) It is so close. I called them 'stakes' but otherwise it is pretty much the exact same thing. I wonder how many other implementations of this idea there are out there.

The company that is running using this idea is 'Infocaster', a project company in Arnhem, NL. One of the founders put his own spin on it with a whole pile of automated administration but he's - as far as I know - yet to farm it out beyond that one company. He also wrote a book about it.

Good ideas are good ideas :-). Infocaster wins though for releasing a product, so far I haven't done that.

Everyone I've talked to about it (and that has been quite a few people) have all nodded their heads and said "Wow, that is a really good idea, let me know when you kick it off!" But at the same time there is a chicken/egg problem of initial runway to initial payout. I've looked at a couple of lean ways to kick this off but so far none have come to fruition.

The way we figured to best approach that is to simply create a set of tools that would allow others to use the core principles and then to see where they take it and adapt as requests come in.

There is a potential legal issue that I have yet to find a good solution to: whether you call them points or stakes doesn't really matter, but what does matter is that they take on some properties of stock and that means that in the eyes of the regulators they may end up being stock. And I haven't found a convincing way to argue myself out of that. This was pointed out to me by a notary public here in NL that otherwise thought that the idea had merit but had serious doubts about whether that part of it would fly, especially if it was employed at scale because essentially you'd be creating a new kind of legal entity out of thin air, a company that behaves in all but one sense like a traditional one but then there are 'shares' and 'points' and somehow the shares then end up calling the shots.

This flies in the face of what the whole thing should stand for and by working hard to say 'stakes' (or points) rather than 'shares' you end up in an undefensible position. I even caught myself once or twice thinking 'shares' rather than 'stakes' so he was making a very good point.

Have you thought about that aspect of it?

Yes. They are absolutely securities. I explained them to a finance lawyer as basically a zero coupon bond without a fixed maturity date. So basically a variable yield. They quickly understood this and also understood why people would be somewhat reluctant to "invest" in something like that. My particular system had three types of points, one was investment points (weird zero coupon bonds), patent/inventor points (one revenue stream was licensing the portfolio of patents assigned to the company), and the third were service points.

Service points were for vendors, where a vendor contracts for say $100K of services and will be paid $200K for those services (so double their rate) but based on the payout of points vs monthly billed. Interestingly the lawyer I talked with thought this would be popular with law firms. The way that would work is that the vendor would invoice against the point up to the max value of the point. And annually they would receive a payout value of one point (what ever that happened to be) up to 2x what had been billed against the point so far.

The problem here in NL with this scheme is that if they are stock and they are not traded on the open market (which would require an IPO) then all of the transactions would be required to be passed through a notary, the fees alone would wreck the plan.

There are no other ways to sell stock in an unlisted company. And yes, law firms would be a good candidate. As would almost any project based business. I wonder how the Mondragon company manages to work their way around such restrictions.

That would be painful, perhaps you could argue that patent points were not securities, just record keeping (I mean you could literally derive them from a select on a database of patents held by the company). Investor points would be infrequent so fees there probably not as big a deal. Do you have to buy bonds on the open market in NL? Service points work a lot like having a tab at a bar rather than securities as well.

There is this thing called a shareholders registry which you are supposed to keep up to date and at the company offices which lists each and every shareholder in a privately held company. While there is no legal limit to how many shareholders a dutch BV can have there are practical ones: the typical shareholder registry does not anticipate more than low double digit shareholders and the fees really add up when you start doing many transactions, especially small ones. Every modification to the shareholders registry is notarized, and there are strict requirements with respect to KYC/UBO and AML/ATF that each of these transactions is subject to.

The 'record keeping' argument was shot down based on several (good) arguments, the basis of which is that if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck that it is probably a duck. The main points of interest: profit division, endurance beyond the work done for a particular job, the ability to trade them with others (possibly outsiders) and the fact that for taxation purposes they would likely be seen as shares. Having 'investor points' is a neat variation, but would probably be seen as a different class of shares.

Finally, there is a big problem in case the 'real' shareholders suddenly declare the points system invalid (because they have a big incentive to do so, for instance to be able to sell their 'actual' shares at a much higher valuation) to capture the profits themselves. This would likely result in a lawsuit where the points holders would take the position that their 'points' are shares and that suit would probably be lost based on the expected behavior.

So I can see many reasons why 'points' === 'shares' and only a few limited and ultimately broken ways in which they are not. The question then becomes 'is it possible to create a low-fee way to trade shares without going public?', and to me that one is still open. If the answer is 'no' then I think the idea is DOA, if the answer is 'yes' then it becomes a lot more interesting.

Bonds are traded on Euronext here (one of several major exchanges here), a retail investor would have to go through a bank or a broker and can't buy them directly.

> I proposed a member-benefit type company arrangement that would address this need

Funny, I did this too (the Modular Company is actually named for the idea). Some people are actually running their company along a loose version of it and are moderately successful, it's not exactly the Mondragon Corporation but they're still alive and ticking over well after 16 years in business.

I sincerely think that the present corporate culture can suck the air out of anyone's life and force to seek contentment elsewhere very soon. Doing a research work and solve problems, where one does not have to seek approval (easier when you NL next to your name), on a daily basis can keep one engaged and energized.

Why do you assume the poster above you is in it for the money?

They shared their own thoughts, not an assumption about op.

The poster above says he has enough money, so that’s why he does not want to bother with investor, acquisitions, metrics, etc. The underlying assumption is that money is why you want to get into startups, which I think is not correct.

If I go cut trees in the forest, it'll just be for the money, because I like computers and sitting down.

For someone that loves physical exercise and the outdoors, and has an appreciation for falling trees, it'll be their passion.

I can describe a situation where I decide to not cut trees if I don't need the money without passing judgement on others that do it for love. Assuming they are connected was your mistake.

It's possible to share something about one's life candidly even if it's different without thinking less of the other.

EDIT : I found the message about being beyond money to be patronizing, but I regret that I couched my comment in a way that was not charitable. Hence this edit.

Not really, I can see why you see it that way but I don't. The guy shared his path in life which was similar but then diverged, gave reasons why, seemed genuine. Was an interesting anecdote to me.

I didn't. In fact a close reading of their comment suggests that they are not.

Why did you assume I assumed that instead of asking: "Do you believe the poster above you is in it for the money?"?

And given this comment of yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36589357 I find it curious that you would project that onto others.

Your comment is entirely centered around money and how, since you have enough, you will not bother with startup stuff. You are mistaken about why people create startups, and I do believe you missed that this is not the reason the top poster is knee deep in a startup at 65, otherwise you would not have made the comparison, or you would have acknowledged the situation was different. In a way, you tried to one up the top poster by presenting yourself as someone beyond the need for money.

I see you went into my comment history. The one comment you mention, I have to admit, is not written well. My point was simply that you cannot turn your hobby or passion into your main activity if that activity does not earn you enough money to make a living.

I think it is you that is focused on the money. I merely wanted to illustrate that money is no longer a driving force for me, without any relation as to whether or not the GP was doing what they were doing was for the money. Since they indicated that what they were doing was by choice, not out of need I assume that they weren't in it for the money but I'd rather let them speak for themselves.

The reason why I said that I'm not motivated to do another start up and I clearly indicated that for me making a living always was only a partial drive, the other one being that I like interesting tech, is that my health is failing me in many different ways and I don't have the energy for that level of engagement any more. So I consider myself very lucky that I don't have to do any of this. Though, if something really interesting rolls around (a few months ago that nearly happened) I would be sorely tempted but would probably still refuse. Because I know the price of running a start-up isn't measured in dollars but in time and stress.

Finally: you are putting a lot of words in my mouth and thoughts in my head and making all kinds of statements about me. You probably would do better if you asked questions instead of making all kinds of weird inferences.

I’ll be frank, I read your message carefully and I am stil pretty confident about the inferences I made. However, I see your point, my statements are too forceful. I acknowledge that I should have been more graceful and phrased them as questions. Thank you for the advice. Furthermore, I am sorry to hear about your health and I hope there’s a way for things to get better for you in the future.

> I read your message carefully and I am stil pretty confident about the inferences I made.

Aka a non-apology apology. Now that you have asked and I have told you you still stick to your guns? Really, that's just weird.

Ok, let me be clear: I apologize for being too forceful, but I still think your comment is very patronizing and I won’t apologize for that.

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