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Comment by dear | Hacker News Reader

I have never seen a successful (rich) founder posting here. Is there a reason for that? Is it that once they become rich, they have to shut up? What about before they got rich? There is no trace of any activities of these people on the Internet/any forums. Or is it because a successful founder tends not to spend any time on internet/forums?

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Depends on your threshold for "rich", but the #1 in the list of HN posters (https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders), tptacek, sold his startup for >$10m.

I am extremely small potatoes compared to some of the people who occasionally post here. Jason Fried, for instance, posts on stories about 37s.

If we're talking the Larry Page scale, well, Marc Andreessen posts here often enough to have noticed Maciej Ceglowski's Co-Prosperity Cloud; he saw a comment I left about a $50 follow-on investment and matched it.

True, you are no Bill Gates, or even Marc Andreessen. I think you would still qualify as a successful founder who posts here, though.

How successful? Depends on your perspective. I thought I had relatives who I would classify as "extremely successful" and "rich", and they sold their companies for... high 5 figures. :) I must admit, my vision gets a bit blurry when it comes to distinguishing between numbers with 8+ figures...

Any opinion they shared here would be splashed all over every tech rag scouring HN for news to rehash faster than cnet can turn someone else's chat with woz into a 'apple founder says android is better!' article.

Your thesis is incorrect: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pmarca for example.

Andrew Mason posted on here a few times, but when the website was in the early stages. See below for the posts

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=picnichouse

However they were not well received (as has been discussed in a couple other threads)

Drew Houston posts here. In fact, he posted a few days ago.

pmarca? joshu? benhorowitz? guys from instagram? early FBers? dude from DDG? michaelwolfe?

Andrew Mason asked quite a few questions on HN as well (before Groupon got big), afaik.

Doesn't pg count as a successful (rich) founder? He might not be a billionaire, but he ain't poor. I think he's involved in some kind of business that invests in start ups.

Yes he is. But he is the owner of this board.

>I have never seen a successful (rich) founder posting here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dhouston

His last submission was nearly 3 year old. His comments and submissions were mostly about his product. His post history has shown that he's substantially cut down his activities on HN. This case shows a negative correlation between success and activities on HN.

I'm sure a ton of successful and rich founders lurk here.

who gives a damn?

Promise us. Even if you become famous and rich one day, you would still keep posting loyally here, not just about your own product tho.

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