[HN Gopher] Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince buys local paper, feud...
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Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince buys local paper, feuds over mansion
build
Author : only_an_egg
Score : 111 points
Date : 2024-04-17 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (archive.ph)
(TXT) w3m dump (archive.ph)
| dcgudeman wrote:
| Billionaires can't even stop NIMBYs
| contact9879 wrote:
| ironic to post a direct archive.ph link
| zzz999 wrote:
| It should be the default since way too many links are pay
| walled on HN
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Tech folks being dicks east of the Sierra Nevada / Cascade ranges
| makes for great popcorn.
|
| Mostly because the rancher / local types would rather spit in
| their eyes just to make a point that not everything can be
| bought. Kudos to them.
|
| Want to throw your dollar weight around? Do it in California, New
| York, or Florida. There are towns there that are happy to kowtow.
|
| _Edit:_ Watching the wild karma + /- swings on this comment has
| also been entertaining. Strong opinions!
| paxys wrote:
| The regions you mention are also very much ruled by money, just
| like everywhere else. The only difference is the demographic of
| the people calling the shots. Old oil money/railroad
| money/ranch money billionaires will put any costal startup
| founder to shame with their power and antics.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Imho, there's difference between "money of a community" vs
| "money in a community".
|
| Ranch/mineral family money seemed tied to land/place/town in
| a way that's fundamentally different than corporate wealth.
|
| Which isn't to say that those folks can't be assholes too!
| But I gotta support rich assholes who have generations of
| history in a place, over rich assholes who are transplants.
| kentonv wrote:
| > rich assholes who are transplants
|
| Matthew Prince actually grew up in Park City and his family
| has been there for generations, according to Wikipedia:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Prince
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Ooh! In that case, I kinda gotta give it back to Matthew
| Prince.
|
| And also to his PR team: that's one of the slickest
| Wikipedia pages I've seen!
|
| But can't fault someone for reinvesting in their roots,
| even if your roots town is pretty bougie nowadays.
| mustache_kimono wrote:
| > Mostly because the rancher / local types would rather spit in
| their eyes just to make a point that not everything can be
| bought. Kudos to them.
|
| I think the point here is they are all rich a-holes.
|
| Guy wants to build a home on land that he owns? Hard for me to
| fault the guy. Stupid he has to take it this far.
|
| After awhile though, I don't know whether to be amused by rich
| people pissing on each other, or disgusted.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| >Guy wants to build a home on land that he owns?
|
| Seems from the article he wants to build something that
| doesn't adhere to local code restrictions on height and size
| limits.
|
| It seems to be a part of the human condition to want to say
| "we should make these rules!" and then say "but I don't mean
| for _me_ " It's just that people with a lot of money have
| more options when it comes to that second part.
| wbl wrote:
| My understanding is he grew up in Park City.
| seanhunter wrote:
| > Bruce Baird, an attorney for Prince, said he doesn't agree with
| the characterization of Prince as a bully. If anything, he said,
| Prince is being bullied by his neighbors who are "trying to play
| the victim card."
|
| He's just a regular Joe Billionaire trying to build his McMansion
| and buy the local press to give him positive coverage. Everybody
| needs to take a good long look at themselves and then stop
| bullying him by playing the victim card.
| skilled wrote:
| The original article & free link,
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-17/cloudflar...
|
| https://archive.is/uFfMP
| akira2501 wrote:
| It seems like such an absurd thing to care about. How nice of a
| home do you really _need_? Is it really necessary to bully and
| harass the citizens of your city into capitulating to your
| demands? If you stop being a paper billionaire can you even
| afford to keep the home?
|
| It just seems like unsustainable absurdity for the primary
| purpose of rubbing everyone else's face in it. I suppose that's
| what makes some people good at being CEOs, but consequently, it
| makes them terrible neighbors that no one wants to be near.
| malermeister wrote:
| At this level of wealth, there is no reason or empathy. It's
| all ego.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Economic systems that prevent excessive wealth are controls
| and guardrails against paperclip maximizer mental models.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > It just seems like unsustainable absurdity for the primary
| purpose of rubbing everyone else's face in it. I suppose that's
| what makes some people good at being CEOs
|
| The arrow points the other way: Power corrupts, corruption then
| loses power.
|
| Spending resources on rubbing people's faces in 'it' doesn't
| produce anything of value; it wastes valuable resources on
| personal desires, which is corrupt.
|
| A traditional model of Chinese history is the pattern of the
| dynastic cycle: The dynasty rises to power, then they are
| corrupted (I'm not sure of the model says 'corrupted by power'
| specifically) and decay, and then finally lose their mandate
| and fall.
|
| Much better to have democracy, where you can vote them out much
| sooner and generally they can't stay for generations. And also,
| better to have well-governed corporations where the board is
| independent from the CEO.
| PierceJoy wrote:
| > And Don Rogers, the editor Prince hired to run it, is living
| rent-free in one of his properties at the moment.
|
| > Rogers says he doesn't believe Prince's ownership of the paper
| (or his current living arrangements) poses a conflict of
| interest.
|
| Sure, Don.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| That is a hideous building and a ridiculous size. Have some damn
| restraint.
| kentonv wrote:
| Eh... It's a big house but not unprecedented. Apparently 7500
| sqft of finished space plus a lot of unfinished basement, on a
| 3500 sqft footprint[0]. That's like... maybe 2x-3x a "normal"
| house. But if you look at the fanciest neighborhoods of any big
| city there's usually streets where every single house is this
| big. In fact, there are several such streets in Park City! I
| loaded it up in Zillow and immediately found an entire
| neighborhood full of similar-sized and larger houses [1][2][3].
|
| As for "hideous", I guess that's a matter of taste but the
| style is frankly very common and popular these days, and IMO
| not at all out-of-place compared to some of these...
|
| [0] https://www.parkrecord.com/news/dissenting-planning-
| commissi...
|
| [1] https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7475-Foxglove-Ct-Park-
| Cit...
|
| [2] https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/680-Hollyhock-St-Park-
| Cit...
|
| [3] https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/795-Hollyhock-St-Park-
| Cit...
| ultrasaurus wrote:
| Yeah, it can be a little mindblowing coming from the SF
| market, but just about any city[0] you can name has a couple
| of 10,000 sqft houses on the market right now. Sometimes they
| are pricey [1], sometimes less than a starter house in SF
| [2].
|
| [0] https://www.redfin.com/city/10943/MN/Minneapolis/filter/p
| rop... [1] https://www.redfin.com/NM/Albuquerque/Coyote-
| Canyon-DR-SE-87... [2]
| https://www.redfin.com/NM/Albuquerque/800-Salida-Sandia-
| SW-8...
| mvdtnz wrote:
| I didn't say it was unprecedented. What a strange way to
| respond.
| zzz999 wrote:
| I've seen a lot worst
| drak0n1c wrote:
| He may win over more people if he adapted the architecture to a
| style that fits the area and enhances the scenery. From a
| distance the modern glass and ruddy panels make it look like a
| rusty jagged shack with an iron roof. Local opinion might be
| amenable if instead it was stonework, or Spanish-style, or Gothic
| Mormon.
|
| This is his chance to build an American Neuschwanstein, why not
| bring quality to the table?
| nailer wrote:
| American Neuschwanstein's generally look like Disneyland
| bennyhill wrote:
| I would never want to be one of the CEOs because of this gap
| in options between having the money and skills to manipulate
| Bavaria in to selling you the real Neuschwanstein and then
| moving it brick by brick and living in a converted olive
| garden.
| lacker wrote:
| But that neighborhood is already full of bland-looking vaguely
| modernist mansions. This style is a perfect fit for the area!
| Spivak wrote:
| Government really is where community goes to die huh? The only
| reason this asshole even has the chance of getting what he wants
| is that once he buys his approval he will have state backing to
| protect it. Without violence-as-a-service he's just one guy
| pitted against a town that hates him that would seemingly happily
| send him packing. The fact that the people of the town have any
| means whatsoever to stop him is a feat unto itself.
|
| It truly is amazing how government enables this kind of assholery
| at an institutional level under the guise of property rights. I
| can't even imagine trying to join a community with my first move
| being to piss them all off by building an eyesore right in front
| of the nature conservation the town just paid for out of their
| own pockets.
| malermeister wrote:
| Without government, this guy would buy an army of goons to
| violently force his will on us.
|
| The monopoly on force protects us from billionaires taking over
| even more than they already have.
| Spivak wrote:
| So what do ya do when they manage to buy the government
| instead? I don't know if there's any good answers here, if
| there was an obvious solution we would have implemented it by
| now. I'm not saying that the alternative isn't worse but the
| current state of things is nonetheless bad.
|
| The fact that this guy very nearly got legislation quietly
| passed against the will of the larger community means
| something is terribly broken.
| malermeister wrote:
| I agree. As I said in another comment I think the solution
| is to prevent them from getting rich enough to buy
| government in the first place. Wealth tax the shit out of
| everything over a few mil.
| samhw wrote:
| The law locks up the man or woman,
|
| Who steals the goose from off the common,
|
| But leaves the greater villain loose,
|
| Who steals the common from off the goose
|
| The law demands that we atone,
|
| When we take things we do not own,
|
| But leaves the lords and ladies fine,
|
| Who take things that are yours and mine
|
| The poor and wretched don't escape,
|
| If they conspire the law to break,
|
| This must be so but they endure,
|
| Those who conspire to make the law
|
| The law locks up the man or woman,
|
| Who steals the goose from off the common,
|
| And geese will still a common lack,
|
| Till they go and steal it back
|
| - 17th century English folk poem, post Enclosure Acts
| more_corn wrote:
| What a dick
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Didn't like this at first.
|
| But...
|
| He's a self made billionaire that seemed to want to build a big
| mansion around where he grew up ( did a sanity check in this)
|
| He's involved with websites/piracy/..., so he's more accustomed
| to law suits and legal affairs than us/me.
|
| He's not doing anything illegal and there seems to be a build
| violation from ( his also rich) neighbor.
|
| Probably they can't agree on something and the court will decide.
|
| Ps. It's also private matters, but I don't see much actual off.
|
| Bought the newspaper, but also the guy is now living/working,
| seems to be more close involved than just trying to influence
| something. Perhaps they just hid it off as friends too and things
| led to unexpected ways?
|
| Either way. It's his personal life and private matters. Just
| didn't want to jump to conclusions as many others and has not
| much value here in hn.
| latentcall wrote:
| >self made billionaire
|
| I see this thrown around and want to understand what this
| means. When I hear "self made billionaire" I imagine someone
| with zero connections or family money or money at all, going
| out and starting a business with loans that then years later
| they become a billionaire.
|
| It seems as if Matthew Prince doesn't meet my qualifications
| for that:
|
| "His father, John Browning Prince,[3] is a former journalist,
| restaurateur, and owned a stock brokerage firm, while his
| mother owned several gift stores; in high school, Prince worked
| for his mother. The Prince family, who have resided in Park
| City for multiple generations, assisted in the construction of
| various buildings in Park City, such as the Parleys Summit Ski
| Resort, the Stein Eriksen Lodge Deer Valley, and the Yarrow
| Hotel."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Prince
|
| So it seems to me he had a great head start being born in an
| affluent family, which I would hardly consider "self made".
|
| Not to be a pedant, just curious what people's definitions of
| this are.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| For me, would be that you earned the billions yourself.
|
| Getting the right attitude, connections and perspective on
| life/business on how to approach things, is something that
| you need to learn/observe early on from your parents.
|
| That's almost always related to your parents being rich in
| this case ( multiple millions), but not billions.
|
| Bill Gates, Elon Musk, ... Are all self made billionaires.
| But their parents were still rich before they were
| billionaires.
|
| That's my perspective fyi.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| >> Self-made billionaire
|
| > For me, would be that you earned the billions yourself.
|
| I think that would be billionare.
|
| At the least, yours seems to be an uncommon understanding.
| It deviates from 19th and 20th century use where self-made
| was applied to wealthy people that started without any
| access to privilege - commonly immigrants and their direct
| descendants.
|
| This was during a time when historical class divisions were
| still in play. There was real distance between the upper
| classes and everyone else.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| My interpretation includes going abroad and becoming rich
| there without knowing anyone ( even while that makes it
| easier).
|
| Consider it a ladder with 5 steps representing dirt poor
| to super rich and you can at most go up or down 2 steps
| in 1 generation.
|
| If you grew up poor, chances to get rich and stay there
| is almost non existent.
|
| It's not related to hierarchy like in the middle ages,
| although I'm presenting it like that.
|
| It's about multiple factors at once.
|
| The hierarchy of the middle ages may be gone, but
| personal interpretations of life are still influenced by
| how you grew up. That still matters a lot.
| voidwtf wrote:
| Money provides opportunity, better education, early
| networking with other wealthy people, the ability to try
| and fail. If your family was in the most common tax bracket
| growing up, then maybe you could be considered self-made.
| Otherwise, you had opportunities the majority will never
| have.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| None of these require lots of money in many cases/places.
|
| They mostly depend on some money and what you learned
| early in life ( not school related, but in how to connect
| with the right people even later in life)
|
| - You can go bankrupt and start again without problems in
| my country.
|
| - Education is good and cheap, the US is an exception in
| comparison to Europe
|
| - Networking can be done at any age.
|
| To become super rich though, you'll probably be better
| off in the US. Investors are easier with giving you a
| bunch of money and if you tried well, could give you
| another shot later on.
|
| Most of all, I think, is you need exposure to how others
| did it to find your own "place".
| redundantly wrote:
| Buying a newspaper to alter coverage of one's own story not
| only crosses ethical lines but also mirrors an oligarch's
| tactic to manipulate public perception.
|
| Your dismissal of these actions exposes a lack of objectivity
| and betrays your partisan stance.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| I have Cloudflare stocks, not denying that.
|
| I have them based on how it's management is, the
| company/employees and the product.
|
| I'm not saying there couldn't be an ethical issue.
|
| I'm saying I don't see proof atm. I see suggestions in that
| direction, but not proof.
|
| There are many unknowns here and I'm giving the benefit of
| doubt based on past perception, but yeah, I don't know him in
| person.
|
| What I think:
|
| - neighbor feud, never fun. We don't know a root case
|
| - a newspaper that got bought close to where he grew up.
| There are tons of variables to consider here. Perhaps read
| their interpretation and take it into consideration:
| https://www.parkrecord.com/opinion/tatiana-and-matthew-
| princ...
|
| - he has a big place. As far as I can see, he worked for it.
| Nice
|
| What I see from his company ( my so called bias):
|
| - fair in the amount of possible, growing pains
|
| - accurate quarterly reports ( low balling future revenue)
| with detailed info on delicate things and interesting
| perceptions ( eg. Marketing headcount replacement during mass
| layoffs in other companies) - new boss in the department too
| then
|
| - good products that I want to use, interesting approaches (
| eg. Egress costs vs. ml ingress). My employer uses them
|
| - potential cloud competitor ( huge market)
|
| Business wise. Sure, I'm biased because of my past analysis
| :)
| xyst wrote:
| What an insufferable person
| davidandgoliath wrote:
| What an absolute non-issue. Take a peek at 555 King Rd., 445 King
| Rd or the other nearby mansions. Good luck Mr. Prince, enjoy your
| new house (and that what looks to be a kickass ski mountain
| behind it).
| otterley wrote:
| Every time I read a story like this, I console myself with the
| fact that there are decent rich people out there like Warren
| Buffett, Mackenzie Scott, and George Lucas. (Bill Gates is on the
| fence; it's hard to forgive him for the Linux Wars.)
| daymanstep wrote:
| Bill Gates also planned to cheat Paul Allen out of his
| Microsoft shares.
|
| There's also the fact that he lied about his dealings with
| Epstein (Coffeezilla made a video on this).
| ricardobeat wrote:
| If you google "Park City Utah homes" you will see hundreds of
| larger and more eye-catching houses, not sure what all the fuss
| is about. Maybe just demand they get a better architect?
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