
I am a guy who sold his startup and I have like $20M in the bank. AMA. - quilby
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/azgs6/iama_guy_who_sold_his_startup_and_i_have_like_20m/
======
Mz
From the comments:

 _Two quick stories for you, which I hope will give you some perspective:

1\. I knew a billionaire with cancer. Imagine having all the money in the
world and being unable to eat.

2\. I knew a super millionaire with half a dozen properties all over the world
who lived next to another super millionaire with half a dozen properties all
over the world; they were locked into a multi-million dollar argument over 6
feet of beachfront between them._

This is actually very relevant to my life. My medical condition can seriously
interfere with the ability to eat and can cost hundreds of thousands per year
in medical expenses. My oldest son has the same diagnosis. So, by getting me
and my kids well, I am literally saving millions of dollars over the course of
our lives, even though my income is probably a lot less than most members of
this forum and the quality of life aspect of it is worth way more than money
to us.

That helps keep me sane in the face of serious financial issues. :-) I also
like to think that if I ever do have serious money, this
perspective/experience will continue to keep me grounded and keep my
priorities straight.

~~~
mattmaroon
That sounds really rough. I had some relatively minor digestive issues this
year and lost 20 lbs in 1 month. I felt, for almost an entire month, as if I
would get sick at any moment (yet only did twice).

It really sucked, though it's largely over and I can't imagine what someone
with serious issues goes through.So good luck with getting well!

~~~
mrtron
I had similar symptoms that last summer - do you know what caused it?

I was tested with no conclusive result, but it was also during a listeria
outbreak which I was not tested for.

It was a rough few months.

~~~
mattmaroon
I don't know for sure. I think it was high stress, lack of sleep, poor diet
and exercise. I fixed the last three (the stress I am stuck with) and am close
to normal again.

~~~
mrtron
Interesting. I am still mildly worried that it could pop up again at any time
and I had a relatively good diet and exercise regime when it occurred. Sleep
and stress are tougher to solve.

Glad to hear you have had success getting better - stay healthy.

~~~
berntb
A tip from (bad) experience is to check for bacteria infection, if that hasn't
been done already.

------
Eliezer
> "My question for reddit: what would you do if you had $20M in the bank?"

Fight death.

\- Fight death of individuals:

Cryonic preservation: <http://www.cryonics.org/> \-- see also
<http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Cryonics>

Basic research on aging and fighting it: <http://mprize.org/>

\- Prevent the extinction of Earth-originating intelligent life:

Oxford Future of Humanity Institute - academic research on global catastrophic
risks. <http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/>

Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence - <http://singinst.org/>

\- Where to hang out with other people interested in rational philanthropy
with maximum utilitarian impact per marginal dollar: <http://lesswrong.com/>
and <http://felicifia.com/>

~~~
tsally
_Where to hang out with other people interested in rational philanthropy with
maximum utilitarian impact per marginal dollar_

As far as the human race is concerned, pretty much everything you listed
(cryonics, anti-aging, preparing for AI that may never be invented, etc) has
the least amount of utility per dollar spent.

~~~
xenophanes
Do you have stats showing anti-aging research has low benefit per dollar
spent? Or do you just have some kind of prejudice against life? Aubrey de Grey
says it's cheap, as these things go.

~~~
tsally
Just an intuitive understanding that if we decrease infant mortality we will
net the human race many more years of life than anti-aging research. Spare a
few cents for a vaccine anyone? As opposed to dumping a bunch of money into
theoretical anti-aging efforts.

Now you might argue that one additional year for an adult is more valuable to
society than one additional year for a child, but I'd rather not quibble over
the exact value of a year of life. There are counterarguments; how many genius
do you think we lose in Africa because of inadequate medicine and education?

EDIT: If it's cheaper than optimizing on the low end, then of course I would
support optimizing on the high end. But given the large number of human beings
that die young for stupid reasons, I can't imagine that the high end is
cheaper. Thanks for pointing out Aubrey de Grey, though. I'll do some reading.

~~~
MikeCapone
> Just an intuitive understanding that if we decrease infant mortality we will
> net the human race many more years of life than anti-aging research.

If we accept that there's no reason why we couldn't defeat aging (mostly with
periodical repair of the molecular damage that accumulates as a by-product of
metabolism -- not need to understand how everything work, just keep damage
under a certain threshold) and that we will some day do it, we should do
everything to bring that day closer;

100-200k deaths per day. All those that die won't come back. Lifes saved by
curing aging are actually saved for real, we don't just delay their death by a
few years/decades.

This would be one of the most important things that humanity ever did, and
once we do, we'll look back at our current lack of enthusiasm in curing aging
as a great sin of omission (we could have did it sooner, but just took our
time).

I'm all for vaccines, but right now it's not anti-aging research that is
taking money away from vaccines. There are a billion other places to cut
first.

If you're looking for a very important field that is dramatically under-
funded, it's hard to get more marginal utility than in curing human
senescence.

~~~
tsally
_100-200k deaths per day. All those that die won't come back. Lifes saved by
curing aging are actually saved for real, we don't just delay their death by a
few years/decades._

So you're talking about immortality? I'm not sure we're capable of devising a
governmental system capable of surviving such an invention.

When I read anti-aging, I assume the extension of lifespan, not immortality.

I really like your posts on this issue though, I'm going to check out the
links you provided.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
_I'm not sure we're capable of devising a governmental system..._

From the perspective of our ancestors, birth control is just as weird,
arguably weirder.

Human beings are strongy predisposed to believe that the way we do things
right now is the only correct/justifiable way they could be done:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias>

~~~
tsally
As an educated person, obviously I'm aware of this. I'm not rejecting the
possibility of designing a government that can handle immortality; I'm merely
remarking on what I perceive to be great difficulty in designing such a
system. I haven't said anything regarding the correctness, justifiability, or
longevity of our current systems of government.

Having a degree of skepticism is a far cry from supporting the status quo; I
want to be clear that I do not support it.

------
csmeder
"My question for reddit: what would you do if you had $20M in the bank?"

Thats a hard question, with that kind of money I can't think of any obvious
ideas that would have a big impact on humanity.

If he had said I have $20 billion heres my ideas:

\- Make Creative Commons text books. Hire a group of editors and staff that
over see super star teachers who write the books. Release them under the CC
licence.

\- Startup Apartment Complex in San Fransisco. Build a large building in San
Fransisco with small apartments. Small on size big on quality. Some floors
would be modular office space. Subsidize the rent for equity in Startups that
move in.

\- Rethink college: Start a college a new college. It would be like a start up
but instead of starting a business your creating a new college.

\- Create an ethical version of Best Buy. An consumer electronics store that
actually puts the customer first and treats it's employees well. The same for
an ethical version of Kmart.

~~~
pyre
> _\- Make Creative Commons text books. Hire a group of editors and staff that
> over see super star teachers who write the books. Release them under the CC
> licence._

The problem being that no one will use them. There was an article a while back
about how _all_ the textbooks' content is basically controlled by some
Christian 'watchdog' group in Texas.

~~~
Huppie
I think you mean this one: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=598523>

------
varaon
Note: the gold star next to the post means that the reddit moderators have
verified the claims/identity of the interviewee.

------
js3309
A comment I liked, that a reddit user asked:

Question: _Do your kids know how much money you have?_

His answer: _My oldest is 11, and I think she is figuring it out. It's
hilarious, because over the last couple of years she comes home and says "My
friend is totally rich - can we be rich someday? They live in a mansion!"_

~~~
Hexstream
You cut out the best part, which is that those friends are actually in debt
and just _look_ much richer.

------
staunch
I saw this early, and it was killed. Not sure why...this is right up HN's
alley. Not many people talk about this stuff publicly, so it's pretty
interesting to hear someone talk honestly and openly about it.

~~~
stanleydrew
have any idea what the startup was?

~~~
quilby
1\. He said that it was sold between 1 year ago and 4 years ago. In addition,
his company is still going.

2\. He said that before taxes he had 30 million dollars, so the startup was
sold for >=30 million dollars.

3\. He is married and has an 11 year old daughter (and at least one more kid).
Him and his wife are at least 30 years old.

4\. At least one newspaper reported on him selling his startup.

I tried using CrunchBase to search for his startup but the list of companies
sold in the last 5 years is huge...

~~~
crocowhile
>so the startup was sold for >=30 million dollars

 _He_ got 30M. That means that startup was sold for much more than that
(2-300M?)

~~~
jfarmer
Maybe not. Derek Sivers, for example, sold *Baby for that range but owned 100%
of the company.

------
Sukotto
If he wanted people to know who he is, he wouldn't have used a throwaway
account.

Give the guy some privacy.

~~~
brown9-2
If he didn't want people to read his "ask me anything" post, he would not have
made one on reddit.

~~~
tsally
Right so let's violate the privacy of every interesting person who posts
things online. Oh wait, that's what was done with _why. Seemed to work out
well, didn't it? I don't even want to think about how many interesting Ruby
innovations were lost as a result.

Bottom line: the information is meant to be read but decency and common sense
should prevent you from probing deeper. If you don't follow these guidelines,
interesting people will stop posting online. Unrestrained curiosity in these
situations leads to everyone losing.

~~~
lambda
You know, AMA stands for "Ask Me Anything", which generally implies that any
question is fair game (with obvious caveats for off-topic privacy-invasive
questions).

People who don't want to answer any question should probably write "AMAA"
("Ask Me Almost Anything").

------
ananthrk
I particularly liked this heart-felt comment/feedback in the original thread

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/azgs6/iama_guy_who_sol...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/azgs6/iama_guy_who_sold_his_startup_and_i_have_like_20m/c0k72z1)

------
sbhat7
Would it be possible to have AMAs and AMAAs here?

~~~
rms
Go for it

~~~
gxs
I like reddit. In fact, it is in my rotation of sites I check at least once
daily.

I visit HN mainly for the technical/startup articles. I would prefer,
personally, for general interest items to remain on reddit, since I check
both. It's not good vs. evil! We can have both.

~~~
icey
I'm a redditor too; but don't you think that the questions here would be a
different nature than the ones you see on reddit? Especially if it was someone
like the author of this AMA; I get the feeling there would be a lot more
advice seeking questions here (and far less begging for money).

------
icco
I must say the comments on this reddit thread amuse me more than most. Nothing
like a guy with a good sense of humor.

------
kls
If it where me, I would rebuild a 74 ford Bronco from the frame up, with my
son. Then, I would rebuild a 44 ft. Sportfisher and start competition sport
fishing in the Florida Keys.

More importantly though, when my kids where a little older, I would disappear
for a year, roaming as a drifter, I would find individuals and families in
need, not broke people, but people who have a tragic life story to tell. I
would personally help them one by one to overcome their adversity by becoming
their true friend as well as helping them financially and psychologically
repair their and their families life.

When I returned from my travels I would use my journal to write a novel and
then produce a film titled "the man who purchased friends" or "buying friends"
I can't decide. Obviously I would change my friends names as well as my own so
that it could be construed as potentially fictitious accounts, leaving people
to wonder always makes for a better tale.

------
stanleydrew
Honestly, I think this kind of thing is interesting, but it's totally for the
benefit of the ego of the poster. And I think it's fine to speculate about his
identity too. That's part of the ego stroking.

------
maksimka
basically you have 3 choices.

\- try to help others(less fortunate). Setup/contribute to charities, teach,
cure, feed...

\- try to change the world. promote democracy in russia, try to figure out how
gravity works, actively support/participate on a team that does something
visionary such as new energy initiatives or space exploration.

\- defer the question for some time. Try to turn 20 into 200.

~~~
houseabsolute
\- have a bunch of fun

You should probably do this, plus one of the other three.

~~~
whughes
That's a given, though. I don't know what kind of fun you're after, but
everything I can think of won't put much of a dent into a large sum of money.

~~~
vishaldpatel
I can think of a few things that will =)

------
ra
"My question for reddit: what would you do if you had $20M in the bank?"

Well, you could deploy 1mm or so in angel investments.

------
Kilimanjaro
So you are Stewart Butterfield.

------
aditya
Weird. This was killed earlier today, not sure how it came back.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1109895>

------
petercooper
_Like_ $20m? So he might actually have 5 million boxes of Twinkies in safety
deposit boxes or something..

