Notch Buys Beverly Hills Mansion
bhcourier.com
bhcourier.com
It's immensely comforting to know that this is possible, unlikely and unconventional as it may be. I'd much like to see more Notches out there making it big, as compared to the flood of Steve Jobs-wannabe assholes who are on a perpetual mission of conquest and destruction.
He's not from a rich background, is not well-connected, is not a business person, is not stunningly young or good looking, is not being sponsored by a media conglomerate - he is just a nerdy nice guy. I'm having trouble seeing the conformity you ascribe to him. In fact, he started out by being different.
> can go on and do things that really matter. Seems like he's wasting that opportunity.
It's depressing but interesting that big-time CEOs who are unpleasant in every way imaginable are somehow beyond reproach as long as they make a big show of donating a bit to charity here and there, but when someone who's not "a captain of industry" or a line-manufactured superstar buys something extravagant, people's propriety alarm bells start going off.
You also seem to imply that his wealth is somehow random and undeserved, and that he should retroactively work on deserving it - as if Minecraft didn't have an enormously positive impact on many people (including children) already.
No he doesn't come from a rich background. That's the point. A lot of people that end of rich come from a background where vanity is very important. They then have to spend a large part of their life trying to achieve that goal. That's why I don't care about "captains of industry". I don't expect any better, they've already "sold their soul".
I don't necessarily dislike people like that, because it can be very hard to opt-out of that life. The classic case is where you father works to much and neglects your mother, which self medicates a bit to much and in turn neglects you. So the only thing you know is trying to be your father to rationalize your sense of abandonment.
When people who doesn't have that background become rich and can do whatever they want, but instead opts-in to those values I think it's sad. Maybe he has personal problems of his own, or he just don't care anymore or whatever, I'm not going to be first in line to celebrate the guy. Because buying the most expensive house in the most vain place in the world is just not something I value.
Minecraft is still pretty cool though.
So, if we all "make it" and buy 70$ million dollars homes with bay view (an impossibility in itself), we will nevertheless all be poor.
Sorry to be negative, but we can not make it.
People saying it's a "tasteless piece of real estate" seem misguided. It's a lovely building, architecturally. I don't think the furnishings do it justice (it's all too plush and nouveau) but it's a really lovely design.
A slightly more modest but spacious house on the outskirts of the city is more my style.
I mean imagine how many other cool things you could do with that money instead of having sit in some house.
Well regardless it's his money and he can do whatever he wants with it although i wish he would invest it in something more interesting.
Something I learned the hard way: it's super hard to even politely suggest that there are better ways for people to spend their money without coming across as churlish. Be happy for the triumph of the nerd!
In theory I agree with you in your sentiment, but I have a hard time truly imagining my life with that kind of money.
Just an interesting observation; Minecraft was sold for 2.5B $, let's assume Notch got 1.5B $ out of it. Buying that house alone cost him 5% of his entire wealth.
This is an investment. He didn't throw a $70 million party, he bought an asset he can sell in the future and which he presumably thinks will increase in value over time.
And anybody who just became a billionaire is not going to stick that money into a savings account, they will get hooked up with a very good financial advisor who will help them to grow their wealth. Say he has $1 billion, a decent but not great return on that would be 8% a year. That's $80 million! He could buy one of these every year, spend $5 million and still have $5 million left over. And that's exactly how he should and presumably will manage his wealth. You don't spend your wealth, you grow it and spend some of the income it produces. Which is precisely what any rookie financial advisor would teach him on day 1.
He could be broke in 10 minutes, if he turned all his money into $100 bills and burned them, or invested it all in some company that immediately went bankrupt.
But obviously he wouldn't do those things, because they would be stupid. And if he doesn't do stupid things, how is he going to be broke even in 10 years? If his current net wealth is $1B then he'd need to spend $100M every year even assuming zero investment gains. Again, it's not like spending $100M in a year is difficult if you are actively trying to go from being rich to being poor, but it's not the sort of thing that happens by accident.
Besides, I'm fairly sure Notch will put part of those billions towards worthy causes.
I've often wondered what Notch intends to do with his Minecraft millions. Looks like he's "loading up the truck and movin to Beverly, Hills that is". Sounds like a nice house, kind of an odd bedroom to bath ratio though.
The bedroom/bathroom metric is probably a sub-optimal frame of reference for size when you have a mansion with a dedicated candy room, and thus lots of large non-bedroom rooms. The room/bathroom metric is probably a little closer less skewed. Opulent none the less.
This is a house for entertaining. The ratio makes sense.
The observation should really be: creating anything interesting gives you potential to be wealthy.
Hyperbole, or truth? and why?
http://equitablegrowth.org/research/exploding-wealth-inequal...
Start from:
If all were almost equal the top 0.1% would be doing more or less as well as everyone else.
Then take the limit for almost -> exactly
In the last year or so I've seen a lot of houses in Hollywood Hills / Beverly Hills purchased, demolished, and rebuilt from the ground up. Needless to say, that's quite an expensive endeavor. Compared to a few years ago when houses in the same area sat on the market forever, it seems like things have taken a turn for the better.
Also amusing to see a nerd outbid entertainment megacouple JayZ/Beyonce.
If you're offering a home at $85,000,000 (the original list price) and you even create a website for the property, at least spring the extra $12/year for your own domain name.
I know good furniture is expensive, but seems like a lot!
Tangentially, it is probably a lot of pressure to be that rich. Must be easy to feel that you are not making the most of it, when at any given moment you could be doing whatever ridiculously expensive thing you can imagine, rather than sitting in a dentist's chair or being stuck in traffic somewhere.