Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company

Hey, #1 on Hacker News! I don't think that's happened since...I launched Gumroad back in 2011:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2406614

Thanks HN for being a part of my journey!

I love your story Sahil, it is so true that people equate 'wealth' with 'success' but that is short sighted. If you step back and look at the big picture, you're on this planet for anywhere from 70 to 100 years, and at the end of that time there are two metrics, the number of people you helped and the amount of wealth you amassed and held on to, which number is a better representative of 'success'?

Working on things you enjoy, making a positive impact on people's lives, and raising a new generation to carry on where you left off, that is success.

Stay focused there and you might accidentally accumulate so much wealth you have to work at putting it to use helping people like Bill does!

> at the end of that time there are two metrics, the number of people you helped and the amount of wealth you amassed and held on to, which number is a better representative of 'success'?

Let's not forget personal satisfaction. I'm a little leery of putting the entire assessment of my life onto other people (even though if I was going to, I could do a lot worse than number of people helped).

Hopefully helping other people leads to some amount of personal satisfaction for most people, and they'll have a fairly good life and good impact on others by the end. :)

Personal satisfaction doesn't matter once you're dead. Those other things do. And your entire assessment of your life at that point will be put onto other people.

With that said, optimizing for after you're dead might be selfish and reasonably desirable, but there's a lot to be said for optimizing for tomorrow instead. Life would be pretty pointless if none of us were supposed to optimize for some enjoyment while we're here.

Intentionally being provocative here, but by that logic, why does your effect on other people matter? You are unlikely to leave a lasting legacy, and the generation you do affect, will die as well.