EXCLUSIVE: Brian O’Kelley says he’s capped his wealth to $100 million. The tech founder tells Fortune, billionaires are wasteful, out of touch, and “othered” from real life.
In the military there were two kinds of officers: the ones moved from enlisted to officer through schooling and hard work and the ones who started their career in ROTC.
The ones who came up from nothing were always the first to help out the workers and rarely pulled rank. They wanted the entire unit to don well and were not above getting dirty. They were also the most highly respected for it.
The worst and most selfish officers were the ones who came out of ROTC as officers and were essentially police, but with rank only. They sucked and no one liked them and any respect they received was only due to their rank, never to them.
I feel humility and the actual act of working your way to the top is the only way to maintain a connection to your humanity. So many of the current ultra wealthy come from money, didn’t work for it, and don’t know how to be a human being as a result of it. The last time that kind of generational-wealth was flaunted while the masses starved and suffered, it was in France, and there were a lot of removed heads. The only thing that saved the rich during the Great Depression was the fact there were a lot of them that lost everything as well. Almost everyone was in the same boat.
Those at the top will learn, soon enough, that they only maintain their wealth through the grace of those near the bottom. Squeeze too hard and their whole world will come down around them.
personally: a lot of the dudes i grew up with are absolutely full-blown “my purpose in life is to be better than everyone else, and trump is going to give me that” mentality
again, i’m glad that your experience is better, but please don’t assume that it’s across the board
the maga fascist cult is a fucking cancer that afflicts every age group. make people afraid, give them an “enemy” to hate, profit
I hear you and agree, I know some people I grew up with went full maga. I think my use of “most” could have been “some”. Which probably applies to all generations, sadly.
Also, fuck Nazis. 💯
Seeing the Woodstockers of yesteryear become the Boomers of today means that my secondary retirement plan is a bullet. If I ever so fundamentally betray my values like that my friends and family have explicit instructions to put one through my brain stem and put me in a hole. There is no event, experience or injury that exists that can turn me into a conservative without first removing all parts that make me myself. At that point, that is no longer the Skul you once knew, that is a zombie, and it needs to be put down. I will never, ever understand how yesteryear’s free love hippies became today’s “fiscal conservatives”.
You won’t… The so-called “hippies” turned Trumpers never actually believed in anything, they just enjoyed the music, vibes, and aesthetic.
I should know, my dad is one of them.
I was told my whole life that I’d become more conservative as I got older and started working and paying taxes, etc. Literally the exact opposite has happened. If anything, those things radicalized me against capitalism.
I’d say we Gen-Xers are at a crucial age in human development where, for whatever biological or other reasons, people lean into their base beliefs hard. Much like booze, age reveals who you really are.
I hear you bro I’ve been drunk for as long as I can remember and it really does make you an honest human being. Sometimes it’s painful but most of the time it’s beautiful. I could just be a normal sad guy but instead I choose to be this
Better than most but at the end of the day it would have been nice to give that money to the people that built the company he sold for $1.6B.
I would think there’s a lot of talented people that worked hard to build the value of that company such that he could sell it for a huge amount of money.
Definitely better than buying a yacht, but he still got to decide what to do with the value created by others.
AppNexus employs 1000 people across 5 continents. If the ceo has an extra $1.5B kicking around he could have given every person that helped build AppNexus $1.5M, which is a truly life changing amount of money for your average person.
Wait is this really a good rich person? I have to think something’s up
In the military there were two kinds of officers: the ones moved from enlisted to officer through schooling and hard work and the ones who started their career in ROTC.
The ones who came up from nothing were always the first to help out the workers and rarely pulled rank. They wanted the entire unit to don well and were not above getting dirty. They were also the most highly respected for it.
The worst and most selfish officers were the ones who came out of ROTC as officers and were essentially police, but with rank only. They sucked and no one liked them and any respect they received was only due to their rank, never to them.
I feel humility and the actual act of working your way to the top is the only way to maintain a connection to your humanity. So many of the current ultra wealthy come from money, didn’t work for it, and don’t know how to be a human being as a result of it. The last time that kind of generational-wealth was flaunted while the masses starved and suffered, it was in France, and there were a lot of removed heads. The only thing that saved the rich during the Great Depression was the fact there were a lot of them that lost everything as well. Almost everyone was in the same boat.
Those at the top will learn, soon enough, that they only maintain their wealth through the grace of those near the bottom. Squeeze too hard and their whole world will come down around them.
Gen Xer, we’re mostly cool. Still some ass hats but most of us try to be cool, do the right things
Oh, sorry, forgot you were here
i’m also gen X. your experience doesn’t match mine
Sorry man. I hope you’re ok.
not really, but thanks. for some reason gen x went “i love fascism.”
https://williamfleitch.medium.com/why-did-generation-x-go-so-hard-for-trump-ab5ce5ac8659
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/heres-the-generation-that-went-strongest-for-trump-and-the-surprising-one-that-shifted-left/ar-AA1tTVEc
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/gen-x-politics-explained-republicans.html
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-gen-x-went-maga/
personally: a lot of the dudes i grew up with are absolutely full-blown “my purpose in life is to be better than everyone else, and trump is going to give me that” mentality
again, i’m glad that your experience is better, but please don’t assume that it’s across the board
the maga fascist cult is a fucking cancer that afflicts every age group. make people afraid, give them an “enemy” to hate, profit
fucking nazis
I hear you and agree, I know some people I grew up with went full maga. I think my use of “most” could have been “some”. Which probably applies to all generations, sadly. Also, fuck Nazis. 💯
Boomers: we went to woodstock! Free love
Gen X: I know just the way to rebel against that!
(I kid, of course)
Seeing the Woodstockers of yesteryear become the Boomers of today means that my secondary retirement plan is a bullet. If I ever so fundamentally betray my values like that my friends and family have explicit instructions to put one through my brain stem and put me in a hole. There is no event, experience or injury that exists that can turn me into a conservative without first removing all parts that make me myself. At that point, that is no longer the Skul you once knew, that is a zombie, and it needs to be put down. I will never, ever understand how yesteryear’s free love hippies became today’s “fiscal conservatives”.
You won’t… The so-called “hippies” turned Trumpers never actually believed in anything, they just enjoyed the music, vibes, and aesthetic.
I should know, my dad is one of them.
I was told my whole life that I’d become more conservative as I got older and started working and paying taxes, etc. Literally the exact opposite has happened. If anything, those things radicalized me against capitalism.
I’d say we Gen-Xers are at a crucial age in human development where, for whatever biological or other reasons, people lean into their base beliefs hard. Much like booze, age reveals who you really are.
I hear you bro I’ve been drunk for as long as I can remember and it really does make you an honest human being. Sometimes it’s painful but most of the time it’s beautiful. I could just be a normal sad guy but instead I choose to be this
Aren’t most MAGA Gen Xers?
Idk about most. But, yeah, Gen Xers are roughly 45-65yo right now, so there’s definitely a whole lot of ladder pulling being done by that group.
Better than most but at the end of the day it would have been nice to give that money to the people that built the company he sold for $1.6B.
I would think there’s a lot of talented people that worked hard to build the value of that company such that he could sell it for a huge amount of money.
Definitely better than buying a yacht, but he still got to decide what to do with the value created by others.
AppNexus employs 1000 people across 5 continents. If the ceo has an extra $1.5B kicking around he could have given every person that helped build AppNexus $1.5M, which is a truly life changing amount of money for your average person.
Yeah that amount of money would change my life I knew there was something wrong about this thank you for pointing this out
I’m too lazy to read, but they probably didn’t grow up in this wealth they ran into it later and didn’t hold on to it long enough to be corrupted.
Also see Chuck Feeney