Supermoney

What Hacker News says

1. PaulHouleMar 2023
   In a previous time I would have sent you to some classics on bubbles and their popping like The Money Game and Supermoney written under the pseudonym Adam Smith and in that time (it seems like forever ago) when people were into crypto there was

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusion...

   but once ChatGPT came out people forgot about NFTs, the "Metaverse" and such.

   FAANG employees are hurting (because FAANG has FAANG problems) but it seems most normal employers are struggling to hire, it is not so clear we are in a recession yet.

   Inflation is still here and the Fed is talking about raising interest rates and if they do it enough there will be a recession, or at least we think so. An obvious investment choice is

   https://www.treasurydirect.gov/savings-bonds/i-bonds/

   for money you might want in the next few years, you have a juicy interest rate but it will go up if inflation goes up. I bought a lot of I bonds at the 2000 bubble peak and they did really well even though inflation was under control. Investing in the similar TIPS product as part of a hedge fund made Ray Dialio of Bridgewater a household name.

   It is strange how the stock market has done well. People mostly quit trading crypto so the prices have not dropped despite the loss of interest. I am loathe to make any predictions about either.

   I think VC firms are pulling back, particularly from money losing boondoggles like Uber. I do see a lot of people are in stealth mode and self-funded, some will bootstrap, others will have great pitches for funding.

   The AI goldrush is real but don't be one the lazy people who gets ChatGPT to write their pitch deck. The same technology behind ChatGPT can be reconfigured for other purposes, this page

   https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/quicktour

   lists 13 different uses of transformer models, really understanding what you can do with the tools from that site can change your life. Most importantly, Facebook and Google won't be able to fully take advantage of this technology for reasons mentioned in this post and elaborated in my comment

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35069965

   basically they need to train a model that pleases everybody which is organizationally and politically intractable, but transformers put the power to train a model that pleases you in the palm of your hand.

   Show morethread
2. TechBro8615Nov 2022
   This sounds like an homage to a well-known quote, which is apparently sourced from Supermoney [0] by Adam Smith (not that Adam Smith):

   > We are all at a wonderful ball where the champagne sparkles in every glass and soft laughter falls upon the summer air. We know, by the rules, that at some moment, the Black Horseman will come shattering through the great terrace doors, wreaking vengeance and scattering the survivors. Those who leave early are saved, but the ball is so splendid no one wants to leave while there is still time, so that everyone keeps asking “What time is it? What time is it?” But none of the clocks have any hands.

   [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471786314

   Show morethread
3. scrlkApr 2022
   Supermoney by George Goodman - he wrote under the pseudonym "Adam Smith".

   p.s. You might enjoy watching "Margin Call", if you haven't seen it before. This clip is particularly relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtFyP0qy9XU

   thread
4. sireatMay 2012
   I will have to respectfully disagree with pg here. Going public usually involves getting quite a bit richer by some multiple of the original value.

   In a hot IPO market you generate what Adam Smith(a pseudonym) called "Supermoney" in the late 1960s.

   A company which catches public's fancy can generate market values hugely over what the company would be worth in a private sale(think NFLX, think AMZN, most likely Facebook shares and so on). The liquidity and with it coming diversification is a nice plus but not the sole reason.

   Of course, the company can fall from grace at some point, but even then it retains a premium over what it would be worth as a private company. This is almost by definition, otherwise the company does get taken private.

   Show morethread