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Comment by dba7dba | Hacker News Reader

This stunt actually makes me angry. Not a good PR move imo.

"I have enough money that I can risk giving up a billion $. And I may just give it to you if you can beat the odds that's harder than getting hit by lighting multiples times in 1 year."

How about offering pot of 100 million to top (aka sweep) 16 instead...

But never mind, it's their money...

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I would argue that as a PR move, it's pretty brilliant. It's been brought up countless times since it was announced, and it's been pretty hype up until now. Sure, it was basically a sure bet for Buffet.. But it spawned a community in itself[1] and captured the imagination of many. I'd call that a good move.

[1] http://www.takebuffettsbillion.com/

Not a good PR move? Is this because you think it is a bad idea for:

  * quicken to get a ton of free mentions in the press with one month before
  income taxes are due?

  * this otherwise unknown gentleman from the midwest to announce to the world
  that he has a lot of money?

I agree with you, but he is hardly unknown. (Not sure if that was sarcastic?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

he may be referring to dan gilbert...

It was sarcasm. I had hoped that including the bit about omaha would make it obvious. To be honest the motivator of the second option was:

"I have enough money that I can risk giving up a billion"

I had assumed everybody knew that Buffet had so much money. I did not understand how the commenter thought that this contest was going to be the way the world found out that Buffet was loaded.

it's quicken loans, not quicken, which aren't related except for the name. but the mindshare spillover quicken is getting from people like yourself certainly doesn't hurt (and didn't cost them anything!).

This does seem silly. According to the article, the odds of picking the correct bracket are less than 1 in 128 billion, so there is practically zero risk.

...drum roll...

Accurately assessing financial risk is the reason Buffet has stacked so much paper.

Unless you have a really good crystal ball.

Don't all these "odds" assume each game has same odds as a coin flip?

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