As a founder you probably don’t get wealthy either and a lot aren’t really satisfied with a $150k/yr total comp/benefits for their successful lifestyle business.

It was pretty nice to exit my startup for hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, I don’t think I’d like to settle for $150k. YMMV, but I suppose a lot of folks are taking a calculated risk and swinging for the fences.

More power to em, if you prefer software be a certain way write it yourself.

Agreed, sure I fucked over my customers after my startup was bought by Google, but I didn't really care because I was able to afford three yachts. I didn't even write the shutdown message myself, I paid some dude on Fiverr to do it. Maybe 150k is fine if you're willing to settle for an above-ground pool in some shithole state in the Midwest, but if you want to spend your time where the true work happens, and collaborate with other innovators and founders in the only place that matters (bay area) you have to set your sights a bit higher.

Humans have agency. If you enter into an agreement for software at a particular price (especially $0) that’s on you.

Imagine not being "satisfied" with a ~85th percentile wage[1]. Anyone who earns more than $150k/yr should be forced to spend 6 months every 5 years working a minimum wage retail job. They can keep earning their normal salary in escrow until they're done with their "get some damn perspective" temp job.

[1] https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percen...

I assume someone running a very successful lifestyle business of this sort 1) Probably had a pretty good chance of making nothing at all or even lost money and 2) Could make more money with benefits etc. if they just took a job at a big company.

So, yes, they’ve done pretty well but they took a risk and still probably didn’t come close to maximizing comp even they had a rather good outcome.

And I just threw out the $150k number because it’s a very good outcome. Could just as easily be something a lot lower including negative.

While I do agree it would be good for those who haven't experienced poverty to get a taste of it, it's not realistic to expect people to feel satisfied simply because they are more fortunate than some other group. Success is always perceived relative to your surroundings and the possibilities available.

I think most of the founders on HN are far above the 85th percentile in intelligence (let's not get into the philosophical arguments about it), so why would they be satisfied with that?

Because, being over 85th percentile in intelligence, they would be more likely than average to realize that the marginal impact of income on experienced utility declines sharply the higher you go on the income distribution. (Especially if they’ve experienced life at a variety of income levels, including some near the 85th percentile.)

Marginal impact decreases, but the absolute impact is still positive... And the marginal impact is still quite high at the 85th percentile of income because the income distribution is very skewed (the absolute dollar difference from 85th percentile to 99th percentile, where most HN / YC founders probably are on the intelligence scale, is probably much greater than the absolute dollar difference from 15th to 29th percentile, as an example).

> Imagine not being "satisfied" with a ~85th percentile wage.

In aggregates: Household income > individual income > wage/salary; you've confused the first with the last.

$150K is beyond 90th percentile individual income. [0] I can’t find wage/salary percentiles separately, but its probably even further beyond 90th percentile there.

https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-individual-income-perce...

As a co-founder, I'd say you can get wealthy or at least comfortable.

But, we started with two people. At some point we needed funding. That put us on a track of angel investors, VC's, and a cycle acquisition, buyback, funding, acquisition, buyback, etc.

As the techie guy, I found that tiring and distracting. When we changed from software as a product to SAAS, it got a lot less fun. When we grew to 2000 employees (mostly non-tech), the company was a pain.

So after 20 years (to the day), we sold it and moved on.

It's really nice to hear something like that from someone who experienced it.

If you were back to two people with a promising idea, how would you do it this time?

You can make A LOT more money than that as the owner of a small company. If a VC firm wants to invest, it's because the company has the potential to make an absolute killing.