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Comment by vrganj | Hacker News Reader

Not just stupid, sociopathic. Definitionally.

You don't generally reach that level of wealth and success without at least having strong sociopathic (maybe even psychopathic) tendencies.

that's a stretch: andreessen got wealthy because he worked for the UIUC group in a project which turned out super popular, super funded by Jim Clark, and got massive explosion in worth. there's no sociopathy involved from him back then.

Musk made a company that jumpstarted some wealth and invested in other things which exploded.

Toto Wolff is a gazillionaire because he too made some pretty incredibly timed investments.

point is, extreme wealth results from some combination of work, timing luck, strategy, and sociopathy, but they're not all required to span the space of wealthy people.

You might get incredibly lucky and bexome a billionaire without being a sociopath.

There's no way to stay a billionaire without being one, as long as there's abject poverty and suffering.

Yeah, that's the thing; once you have a billion dollars, you are set for many lifetimes of extremely comfortable living. Allowing a single person to suffer while you have more wealth than you can spend in a dozen (or more) lifetimes is pretty cruel. I mean, I don't really see how it is significantly different than hoarding.

I've never had billions of dollars and realistically I probably won't ever have billions of dollars, but I would certainly like to think that I'd keep enough for myself to keep myself thoroughly entertained, and then give the rest away somehow.

Of course, I've never been tested with this. Maybe if I was gifted billions of dollars I'd be as evil as the rest of the billionaires.

i think your observation is consistent with the giving pledge thing of warren buffett and others, that they accrued massive wealth but want to give it away.

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