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Comment by pdq | Hacker News Reader

Agreed it's bizarre from Facebook's perspective.

But completely logical from Oculus' perspective -- if someone offers you $2B to cash out before you've even launched, you'd be silly to say no.

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Now that is the mentality that's killing companies.

Well, this is the mentality that's allowing somebody have 2B in cash now…

Say that to Elon Musk. Imagine the inventors using this money in the same way Musk did. If they do (or at least try) I'd say humanity comes out on top - even though this killed our dream of VR in the near future.

How many Elon Musks are there? Most billionaires seem to spend their money on fancy yachts and high-profile charity projects that make them look superior to their peers. Few are deploying their resources to push the technological envelope.

Although I don't agree with you about their motives (wrt just trying to look superior to their peers), I won't argue that point.

But even if you think their motives behind the charity are selfish, don't discount the effects.

How many Einsteins, von Neumans, Ramanujans, or Musks (pick your genius of choice, really) are stillborn in the developing world because of malaria or HIV? How many never achieve their potential because of malnutrition or polio?

If the Gates Foundation eradicates malaria and polio, and we get a few more world-changing geniuses out of it, they'll have done much more to push the technological envelope than any other endeavor.

I'm not going to argue that eradicating malaria is a bad thing, but it's inaccurate to infer that the only thing preventing the worlds extreme poor from being leaders of industry is good health.

It's Carmack. It's possible he'll use the money to restart Armadillo, doing pretty much exactly what Musk did!

> Now that is the mentality that's killing companies.

So Paul Graham selling Viaweb to Yahoo and starting Y Combinator is an example of "killing companies"?

What's Viaweb?

The company PG co-founded that was acquired by Yahoo (giving PG the money to eventually become a VC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viaweb

I can't say I'm the type of founder to say no but I'm glad they exist. They're the ones who disrupt entire industries.

Does it really always have to be about money? This is just stupid.

Try having none for a while. It's hard to stand by "principles" when you aren't eating. A lot of people are very, very afraid of stuff like that, even if they have not suffered in a long time or never really, truly suffered but maybe their parents grew up hungry and instilled in them terror of doing without.

I mean, some folks stand by their principles. But, seriously, it's not easy.

Oculus wasn't exactly starving for cash, and even if they were investors would have beaten each other to death for a chance to pour some cash into it.

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