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Comment by aleph_minus_one | Hacker News Reader

> What's the likelihood of that?

Sufficiently high that Meta is willing to pay such an amount of money. :-)

Also, do you have a better way to spend that money?

If it were me, yeah, park it in bonds and live off the interest on a tropical beach. Spend my days spearfishing and drinking beers with the locals. Have no concerns except how even my tan is (and tbh I don't see myself caring too much about that).

I'd forget the word shareholder even exists.

And let others govern the world?

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

I take that more as a rumination on the futility of vanity and self-aggrandizing rather than "ruling the world " which in the modern day comes down to politics. Yes, there is considerable overlap with ego, but there's more to that topic than pure self-worship.

Sounds good in theory but I'd be bored to death in a month, at most two. Traveling the world...maybe good for a few more months and that's it.

Wouldn't you yearn for any more impact given how much that amount of resource could improve the lives of many, if used wisely?

The world is sufficiently large and complex that a few months wouldn’t even scrape the tip of the iceberg.

I agree. I just personally wouldn’t want to wander around exploring it continuously for months without more interesting work/goals. Even though cultures and geography may be wonderfully varied, their ranges are way smaller than what could be.

If you want to improve the lives of many, by all means go for it, I think that is a wonderful ambition to have in live and something I strive for, too!

But we are talking about an ad company here, trying to branch out into ai to sell more ads, right? Meta existing is without a doubt a net negative for mankind.

> Wouldn't you yearn for any more impact given how much that amount of resource could improve the lives of many, if used wisely?

Cynical take: increasing Meta's stock value does improve the lifes of many - the many stock holders.

Thus: when you talk about improving lifes, you better specify which group you are targeting, and why you selected this particular group.

I am interested in improving the lives of the many people who cannot afford to be stockholders

The reason I'm interested in this is twofold

First, I think the current system is exploitative. I don't advocate for communism or anything, but the current system of extracting value from the lower class is disgusting

Second, they outnumber the successful people by a vast margin and I don't want them to have a reason to re-invent the guillotine

> they outnumber the successful people by a vast margin

you can be successful and lower class.

What you’re suggesting does not at all require a lot of money.

I met a youngster on Boca del Toro island in Panama a decade or so ago. I was about to be fired from my FAANG job so I used up years and years of vacation for one big trip before I was let go. We hung out for a few days while I was there (I don’t recommend the place at all btw). He cashed out from early twitter and was setting up surf schools all of the world. All he did was travel, surf, drink, and fuck. I’m still angry that laughed at all the dumb startups in the late 2000s instead of joining them. But this guy did what you’re suggesting, and I think there are many more unknown techbros who did it too.

Setting up an international chain of surf schools actually sounds quite ambitious and stressful, though.

I imagine stress is relative to risk. I’d hope someone who has retirement on lock wouldn’t risk that for a side project.

Though for me the risk of the shops failing and people being out of a job would still stress me heh

There are some problems in the world that Meta could help fixing with that money.

Given history of the guy at the helm, most likely won't.

250M is not that much to solve a global problem, just take a look at bill gates fund.

Still huge amount of money which can improve life of millions.

downsize Facebook back to like a couple thousand people max, use the resulting savings to retire and start your own AI instead of doing the whole shadow artist "I'll hire John Carmack/top AI researcher to work for me because deep down I can't believe I'd ever be as good as them and my ego is too afraid to look foolish so I won't even try even if deep down that's what I want more than being a capricious billionaire"?

or am I just projecting my beliefs onto Mark Zuckerberg here?

Retire? Anyone with more than about 10-20 million that continues to work has some sort of pathology that leaves them unsatisfied. Normal people rarely even get to that level because they are too busy enjoying life. Anyone making billions has some serious issues that they are likely stuck with because hubris won't let them seek meaningful help.

> Normal people rarely even get to that level because they are too busy enjoying life.

And that's why these "normal people" don't become insanely rich.

(just to be clear: the reverse direction does not hold: just a tiny fraction of such workaholics will become insanely rich).

> Also, do you have a better way to spend that money?

Yes, I do.

I am aware of some quite deep scientific results that would have a deep impact (and thus likely bring a lot of business value) if these were applied in practice.

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