[HN Gopher] Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his...
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Tony Hsieh bankrolled his followers, who enabled his risky
lifestyle
Author : stevenj
Score : 87 points
Date : 2021-03-26 17:02 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| Drblessing wrote:
| This is a tragedy and I sympathize with everyone involved. Also,
| a lesson to not surround yourself with sycophants and drugs. It's
| easy to blame the sycophants, but Mr. Hsieh would have replaced
| anyone who tried to help. Imagine you're around and care about
| him. Is it better to stick around and try to help, as they
| attempted with the wellness center and doctor, or just leave him
| to the wolves?
| [deleted]
| d3ntb3ev1l wrote:
| Billionaire dies partying. Fucks given: zero
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Most narcos do the same thing. Escobar was powerful, in part,
| because he donated millions of dollars for the construction of
| residential units in Colombia.
| ericskiff wrote:
| The excerpts from Jewel's letter to Tony are heartbreaking. It
| seems that she saw where he was headed, the situation he had put
| himself in, and what was likely to happen as a result.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2020/12/04/tony-hs...
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/I4O0E
| s5300 wrote:
| The sticky notes of meaningless delusions/motivational words
| younger grade schoolers may be urged to think and write about how
| they feel of them seem oddly reminiscent of pictures surrounding
| Kanye West in recent years. For quite some time, and still, I
| believe he's going to end up at the center of the next cult
| shootout we see in the US.
|
| I was lucky to have met Tony twice, having a decent discussion
| one time. What happened is really unfortunate, and I feel as if
| we're going to see very similar situations unfold with many of
| those who are new money making a fortune from tech. I imagine
| it's got to be unfathomably hard to stay grounded and find
| meaning after acquiring so much money. All the syncophants in the
| world will come after you, and as it's been seen with Musk, many
| others will attempt to bet against any future endeavors of yours
| just to make a quick buck.
| lookalike74 wrote:
| When a random addict dies everyone knows whose fault it is. But
| when a rich addict dies, everyone wants to know whose fault it
| is. Sure.
| stickfigure wrote:
| That's unnecessarily cynical. Tony Hsieh was not just some
| random rich guy, particularly not to this community.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Is there a non-paywall version anywhere?
| veeti wrote:
| https://archive.is/I4O0E
| magneticnorth wrote:
| I appreciate the more nuanced view of the way his entourage both
| enabled and tried to help him. Earlier coverage (that I saw) just
| focused on the fact that all his friends were on his payroll and
| were forbidden from trying to get him to rehab or an
| intervention. But it sounds like many were trying to help in ways
| they could come up with that Tony would tolerate - hiring the
| doctor, for example. And it sounds like his family had started
| considering a conservatorship, as well.
|
| I'm glad to have the impression that he wasn't surrounded only by
| sycophants - it sounds like he was a fundamentally good person
| trying to do good in the world, and it's a more positive thought
| that many of his friends were trying to meet him where he was and
| get him back on track, rather than only enabling his downward
| spiral - though certainly it sounds like there was plenty of
| that, too.
| hangonhn wrote:
| A teacher of mine once told us that "The road to hell is paved
| with good intentions." I think that's one of the paradoxes of
| life and we see this over and over again where a lot of good
| people try to do the right thing but the collective effects of
| their efforts end up being net negative. Rather than
| conspiracies, I think this paradox can explain some of the
| challenges we face today. Barbara Tuchman wrote a great book
| called "The March of Folly" that basically documents some
| famous cases of people unwittingly working against their own
| best interest, even if the individual steps themselves might
| have made sense.
| prionassembly wrote:
| I didn't know about this.
|
| I can't open the link, but I read
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/technology/tony-hsieh-dea...
| and the whole thing seems classic untreated bipolar disorder.
|
| I wonder how much of SV shenanigans can be attributed to manic
| breakdowns. There was already a "hypomanic advantage" meme going
| around a while ago; and, of course, thinking you can slightly toe
| the line towards a controled flirt with mania is classical
| bipolar anosognosia.
|
| PSA: For many years, I self-administered the Young's Mania
| Ratings Scale everytime I felt the scales begin to tip. It's very
| short and impressively insightful. You might not know what mania
| is actually is, and if you live a high-intensity lifestyle you
| owe it to yourself to take it just once:
|
| https://psychology-tools.com/test/young-mania-rating-scale
| [deleted]
| rchaud wrote:
| I wonder if this will be the new frontier of bio-hacking:
| attempting to replicate the symptoms of mania to get a
| "performance advantage".
| redisman wrote:
| Is mania a desired state though? It's very chaotic and we
| already have adderall. I would guess it was more of a
| facsimile of happiness than a productivity hack. I'm partying
| all day, my mood is chemically elevated so surely this is
| what happiness is right?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| This is one reason some people use some kinds of drugs
| (particularly uppers of various sorts). They create a
| temporary manic or hypomanic state, even if that's not the
| term the users would choose to describe the produced state.
| Of course, it doesn't always lead to positive or even neutral
| outcomes especially as many are habit forming and the user
| can develop a tolerance to it (necessitating more of the drug
| in order to achieve a comparable effect as before, which
| exacerbates issues stemming from the side effects and high-
| dose/long-term use).
|
| Look at college students and knowledge workers using various
| ADD/ADHD medications, as an example.
| sneak wrote:
| > _and, of course, thinking you can slightly toe the line
| towards a controled flirt with mania is classical bipolar
| anosognosia._
|
| This is one of those amazingly insightful things sort of hiding
| in plain sight. There is some plain wisdom right here.
| Elof wrote:
| I've been in tech in the Bay Area for 15 years, mostly in
| startups, and I can say that untreated mental health issues
| (myself included for many years) are a very real thing.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| US-centric views of love have evolved more towards 'if it feels
| right, do it'
|
| It feels odd to tell anyone 'no' because people think you are
| judging them, so most just stay quiet.
|
| In a different culture, Tony may have survived if people felt
| comfortable questioning dangerous behavior.
| pen2l wrote:
| It's not contributing much to the discussion to just say "
| _This._ " but man I really just want to say, indeed as someone
| who isn't originally from an American culture but now resides
| in America: the observation you make is profound and so
| important, and I hope everyone considers this and thinks about
| this.
|
| Because I know exactly what you're talking about and I'm
| struggling with this so much, about being supportive of our
| friends on various decisions they make sometimes even when we
| don't think deep down it's the right thing in some situations,
| but we're afraid to say it for an increasing amount of reasons:
| criticism from woke culture, being afraid of being seen as
| bossy, party-pooper, disagreeable, puritan. But friends are
| friends, give them honesty, show them the doubt you feel, tell
| them your gut feeling. Yeah it'll take some work to make it
| palatable, but do it, give the hard take that you really
| should.
| rxhernandez wrote:
| I don't think this is true. In the circles I run in (which
| are as nearly as "woke" as you can be), your family and
| closest friends have carte blanche to tell you you're full of
| shit.
|
| I know I rely on my family and friends to do so. Conversely,
| I know I'm able to do so with them and they love me just the
| same.
|
| I mean, it's a trope at this point in American media where
| your loved one can slap your face hard to give you a reality
| check. I've never personally had that happen but to say the
| culture is a culture of enablers doesn't seem well supported.
| haram_masala wrote:
| There's a Russian saying, "Your friends are the ones who can
| tell you 'no.'"
| jfengel wrote:
| There's an American joke that "Your friend is the one who
| comes to bail you out of jail. Your best friend is the one
| next to you in the cell going, "Duuuude, that was
| AWESOME!!!!"
|
| It's a joke, but the humor exists because it illustrates the
| idea that the people really like their enablers. Not
| everybody would find the joke funny, though I have no idea if
| Americans in general find it funnier than people from other
| cultures.
| codezero wrote:
| These truisms tend only to apply to people who are subject to
| social pressure, a feature that goes away when you are
| wealthy enough.
| ProAm wrote:
| People who do not listen to their friends are already dead.
| [deleted]
| goat_whisperer wrote:
| I don't know if you read the article. But there were people
| trying to intervene, namely his family, and people calling the
| police to check in on him. However, the people who were on his
| payroll made an effort to prevent this stuff, and Tony himself
| saw any kind of intervention as a kind of betrayal.
|
| So generalizing this example and applying it to US culture is
| off base.
| Leary wrote:
| "Among the many friends the entrepreneur made over his life, some
| said the cause of his death had spanned many months, in plain
| sight to those who surrounded him. Last summer, his Park City
| companions hired an on-call doctor. Unless Mr. Hsieh moderated
| his drug and alcohol use, the doctor said, he would die within
| six months."
|
| It's one thing to overly indulge a billionaire friend, it's
| another to endanger his physical/mental well being to the point
| of death.
| rchaud wrote:
| You cannot forcibly make someone go to rehab. People are quick
| to blame his 'friends', but it appears that they hired a
| personal doctor, who gave doctorly advice. What more could they
| do?
| omginternets wrote:
| I've often wondered about this, in the abstract.
|
| What if the reason someone isn't motivated to get better is
| precisely because of the acute drug dependency? In other
| words, what if getting someone through the initial withdrawal
| of, say, heroin stabilized them enough to feel motivated to
| improve their lives?
|
| After all, we use this reasoning to prescribe medication for
| e.g. anxiety and depression. The reasoning is that drugs are
| sometimes very good at providing people with just enough
| stability to allow for long-term solutions like therapy.
|
| If this is indeed the case, might there not be some
| situations in which forcibly taking someone to rehab would be
| helpful?
|
| The "you cannot forcibly make someone go to rehab" seems like
| policy more than actual truth. It may even be a good policy,
| for all I know. But assuming I'm right, maybe we shouldn't
| confuse the two.
| caycep wrote:
| In geriatric medicine, there is a somewhat defined, albeit
| difficult, process of declaring someone medically incompetent
| to manage their own affairs; they usually are committed to
| specialized (memory care) facilities. In some cases, the
| symptoms and rationale are clearly obvious. In others...these
| patients can be vulnerable to less scrupulous individuals.
|
| For a wealthy high functioning billionaire, but one who is
| arguably affected by dopamine dysregulation that compromises
| his faculties, I'd imagine it's a trickier path to walk...
| rchaud wrote:
| The press have already painted his friends as opportunistic
| hangers-on. Imagine how it would have looked if they
| actually started making moves to take on power of attorney.
| caycep wrote:
| yeah...that's what seems to make it especially tricky.
| There would have to be a good lawyer involved, and I'm
| not sure how they would find a trusted third party to be
| the conservator...
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| I kinda agree. It's entirely possible that they were being
| callous and greedy, but from what I've read, it sounds like
| they made every effort short of getting fired. Now, maybe
| they should have all worked together and risked him declaring
| them all disloyal, but it's not like they didn't try.
|
| Plus, if I had a close friend who was doing mushrooms and
| nitrous oxide, I wouldn't necessarily think that was
| particularly dangerous. I, perhaps ignorantly, would have
| considered those to be relatively safe things to experiment
| with.
|
| It's so easy to say what should have been done after the
| fact, but it can be incredibly difficult to know the right
| thing in the moment.
| Drblessing wrote:
| +1, anyone that was telling him the truth gets removed, so
| what are they supposed to do? Looks like they tried with
| the wellness center and doctor. It's more grey than black
| and white.
| sneak wrote:
| Our lives and bodies are our own, to use, build, and destroy as
| we see fit.
|
| It's one thing to help a friend avoid an accidental death, but
| this speaks to a months long pattern of behavior that was
| clearly a deliberate personal decision.
|
| What's the point of wealth if not obtaining the basic freedom
| to live (and die) how we choose?
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| >a months long pattern of behavior that was clearly a
| deliberate personal decision
|
| Drug/Alcohol addiction is hardly a personal decision... This
| is a dangerous point of view to take.
| sneak wrote:
| Whose decision is it, if not the person who opts to become
| addicted and continue that addiction?
|
| People like to personify addiction, as if there is some
| outside force controlling the person, but this is to
| discount and discard every single addict who decided to
| clean themselves up. I know lots of addicts who chose to
| continue, and I know lots of addicts who chose to stop.
|
| Don't personify the addiction: the brain of an addict is
| still _that person 's brain_, and their decisions are still
| their own, even if they are de-legitimized in your own
| opinion due to their addiction. There is literally no one
| else who could possibly be responsible for the decisions of
| that human's brain and actions than that human being.
|
| What goes in to our own bodies when we are not coerced by
| another person is our own decision, full stop.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| Ultimately everyone makes his own decisions, especially someone
| with essentially unlimited funds. We can go through the moves
| and end at the same conclusion.
| colmvp wrote:
| Within minutes of his death breaking the news, someone in the
| comment posted on HN about this enablement. I had skepticism but
| it also felt way too specific and out of nowhere for me to think
| they were lying. It was heartbreaking to eventually realize it
| was indeed the truth.
| neonate wrote:
| Do you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=exzappos?
| colmvp wrote:
| Yup, precisely.
| reaperducer wrote:
| It's what I call the Michael Jackson Effect.
|
| Someone surrounds themselves with people who are financially
| dependent on them, so they only tell them that they're great,
| and whatever they do is the best thing that has ever happened.
| The unchecked praise-money feedback loop eventually leads to
| the host's destruction.
|
| See also: Silicon Valley.
| Animats wrote:
| In the end, he's just another dead junkie. At least he didn't
| take anyone else with him.
| ksm1717 wrote:
| Congrats! Pure evil take!
| lenitabinol wrote:
| What's the point in disparaging the dead.
| Animats wrote:
| To discourage adoration and emulation.
| viklove wrote:
| Whip-its? This guy had $840M and his drug of choice was whip-its?
| That is strangely amusing...
| ng12 wrote:
| Whip-its have become pretty popular among the burning man
| crowd. I remember seeing piles in East Palo Alto parking lots
| and wondering if they were from bored kids or bored techies.
| waterfowl wrote:
| maybe the implication is that it is surprising he would be
| cracking whipped cream chargers vs. using his billionaire
| concierge connections to get a tank(crooked dentist,
| whatever).
|
| Would look classier than 10000 little chargers in piles --
| nitrous addicts can consume a staggering quantity of little
| pods, basically back to back constantly every 15 seconds for
| hours. It is reportedly very 'moreish', as the brits would
| say.
| AlanYx wrote:
| Previous articles about his death mentioned that he also
| had portable nitrous tanks that he'd use on walks outdoors
| in Park City and in other situations where he couldn't go
| through individual whip-its. His being tethered to the tank
| was one of the things that motivated Jewel to write the
| letter.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| With all due respect (and not saying these groups have overlap)
| there is a notable presence of people on Hacker News that
| minimize the danger of or encourage drug experimentation, if not
| regular drug use.
|
| Tony Hsieh is ultimately responsible for his choices that led to
| his tragic and early death. But it leaves a bad taste to see
| people calling out his entourage here and then other people
| advocating similar behavior in other submissions.
| sneak wrote:
| > _With all due respect (and not saying these groups have
| overlap) there is a notable presence of people on Hacker News
| that minimize the danger of or encourage drug experimentation,
| if not regular drug use._
|
| I think a better way of describing it is a continuum of belief
| around drugs. Most people aren't talking about caffeine or
| alcohol when they say "drug use" but those are indeed
| psychoactive drugs as well.
|
| "All drugs are wrong, but some are useful." is perhaps a useful
| model for thinking about it? (Not that I think drugs are wrong,
| just that nothing, and I mean nothing, in life is without cost
| in a cost/benefit analysis.)
|
| All substances we ingest, from distilled water, to table salt,
| to a cup of coffee, broccoli, a beer, a cheeseburger, morphine,
| or methamphetamine have various effects, long term and short,
| on our bodies, and we should understand those effects as best
| we can before we ingest any of them.
|
| I've seen ketamine save people's lives, and I've seen it
| destroy people's lives. Same with firearms. Sharp tools are a
| good thing, on balance, in my opinion, but should be wielded
| with knowledge and understanding in order to be safe.
| jamesgreenleaf wrote:
| One simple and obvious lesson to point out here is that you
| better make peace with yourself before coming into possession of
| any large sum.
|
| Money can destroy you just as easily as it can empower you. Look
| at what happens to a significant percentage of lottery winners.
|
| It's an amplifier, and it can amplify your problems and self-
| destructive tendencies along with your desire to do good.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Young athletes seems to be another really big case of this.
| Lots of people with short careers but huge earnings who either
| cannot handle the money or hand their finances over to people
| who try to take advantage of them.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| "In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand
| the function. We make men without chests and expect of them
| virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find
| traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be
| fruitful."
| airhead969 wrote:
| C.S. Lewis, Abolition of Man.
|
| It's the epitome of unreasonable expectations: a self-
| fulfilling prophecy by setup. "Yes men" are terrible,
| especially if they're there to mooch rather than question or be
| more than good weather "friends."
| jzellis wrote:
| I worked for one of the startups Tony funded in Vegas and was
| around for most of the Downtown Project stuff, and was also one
| of the most vocal critics of what happened there. This story
| covers just the tip of the iceberg.
|
| I'm really sorry he died, even though I was horrified by the
| externalities of what he did in my town and, frankly, didn't much
| like the cat personally. But this idea that all of this started
| when he went to Park City is just not true. The culture of heavy
| boozing and drugs was very much always a big factor in the Vegas
| downtown tech scene. I don't think that statement would be
| considered controversial by anyone who was around for the real
| surge of it, from about 2010 - 2014 or so. And look, I'm not a
| Puritan or an abstainer, but it's hard to take people seriously
| when most of the meetings seem to be done whole day drinking at
| the casino or by the pool in the Ogden condo.
|
| Whatever. It's all over with now. I didn't even know Tony had
| left town - he'd stopped really making the scene outside his
| trailer park long before that. I wish he'd had people who could
| help him, but he spent a long time being told that he was an
| instinctual visionary whose every act was an act of genius. That
| isn't very good for honest self-evaluation.
|
| I wish everything had happened differently, but it didn't. It's a
| shame.
| sadgrip wrote:
| Hey I'm from Vegas as well and I have a friend getting his MFA
| working on a story on the Downtown Project and it seems like
| he's coming to a lot of the conclusions you've come to. If it's
| possible I'd love to get you in touch with him to talk about
| your experience a bit.
| ethanbond wrote:
| > Ms. Baleson helped spearhead plans for a wellness center at the
| Ranch, hoping to pull Mr. Hsieh out of his spiral. The plans were
| canceled in September after a disagreement in the group over who
| should get a commission for the project.
|
| Sheesh... this really sums it up. Tragic.
| goat_whisperer wrote:
| Anyone else get a sense that something similar is happening with
| Elon Musk? Guy seems to be unraveling
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(page generated 2021-03-26 23:03 UTC)