What a word of wisdom right there, the bit about internet is beautiful because it's ok to be weird - this is often the opposite on twitter, fb, reddit and many discords where if you have a different opinion you get mobbed by angry comments making one feel worse about their own weirdness.
Lerc 39 minutes ago [-]
It's great to be in a position to do this, however I'm beginning to think that their greater contribution is ghostty
I don't really know how to value things any more when I see someone develop a tool that is kind-of useful that then gets acquired for half a billion dollars. As someone with a decent number of decades of terminal hopping, the improvement that ghostty has brought a breath of fresh air. To me it has represented more utility that a few of those acquisitions.
wickrom 1 minutes ago [-]
I'd love to hear what made you settle on ghostty. There is not dearth of terminal emulators out there, each claiming performance or batteries included.
ksdme9 1 hours ago [-]
It must be pretty satisfying to be able to throw that kind of money at stuff you admire.
sph 31 minutes ago [-]
You can 'throw' what you can afford and it will feel as satisfying. Just try it.
dwroberts 22 minutes ago [-]
Seems obvious the parent comment was making a point about how much money it is and not just whether it feels nice to donate money. 400k can go a long way
asimovDev 15 minutes ago [-]
i don't think my bank will let me withdraw 400k in cash with the reasoning of "I want to throw it"
fhn 10 minutes ago [-]
your bank owns your money?
alchemist1e9 20 minutes ago [-]
Try to purge envy from your heart. It’s a poison.
MyHonestOpinon 4 minutes ago [-]
I don't feel the parent post is about bad envy. There is also good envy, when you feel happy for someone's blessings. But you also would like to have it for yourself.
sevenzero 12 minutes ago [-]
In a working society, nobody should be able to throw away life changing money. Being rich is poisonous to society. Most of us suffer due to people hoarding money and humanity needs to overcome the concept of money generally.
cyber_kinetist 1 hours ago [-]
I really do not understand how people talk about "Being rich / being a billionaire will make you fundamentally unhappy". Damn if I had all the money I have so many good-willed projects I want to throw money at!
jmull 25 minutes ago [-]
Being rich doesn’t make you unhappy.
But spending your life pursuing an unsatisfiable goal (because the goal is “more”) probably isn’t good for your happiness.
Not to mention, there are very satisfying ways to contribute to things you think are important that don’t necessarily involve a lot of money.
thomascountz 44 minutes ago [-]
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy less unhappiness. There's diminishing returns, of course, but I'd hazard it looks a bit like ln(n), in that the returns are quite significant in the beginning.
the_mitsuhiko 41 minutes ago [-]
Money can very much buy happiness. Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money. How much money you need to accomplish that depends though.
bryanlarsen 4 minutes ago [-]
Unhappiness and happiness are surprisingly orthogonal. Removing unhappiness does not make you happy, it makes you not unhappy[1]. Being not unhappy is a requirement for happiness, but it's not sufficient.
1: not unhappy is weird phrasing. Substitute not sad or not angry or not hungry or whatever for your particular state of unhappiness.
cortesoft 25 minutes ago [-]
The person you are replying to agrees that money can get rid of things that cause unhappiness. The point is that removing unhappiness is only part of what creates happiness, and money can’t buy the other part.
Mond_ 29 minutes ago [-]
> Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy less unhappiness
> Money can very much buy happiness. Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money
Was it too hard to read beyond the first comma?
sph 23 minutes ago [-]
> Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money
Nonsense. Most of the things that can be remedied with money are not the truly painful things of life either.
Will money save you from heartache? From the pain of losing a loved one? From being lonely? From having no respect from your peers? From losing your health to incurable cancer?
At that point, all money can do for one is make them even more pathetic.
SoftTalker 11 minutes ago [-]
Money won't cure pain and suffering (although it does make trial lawyers happy) but even there it can buy better care. But pretty much everything else in life is better and more enjoyable with more money. You can live in a nicer house, in a better neighborhood, with better schools, with better goods and services, with more things to do, etc. You can travel more, in a more comfortable style. You can support other projects, artists, charity, etc.
hnlmorg 16 minutes ago [-]
I agree money doesn’t buy happiness, but money can go a long way to helping with those problems.
For example, money can pay for better medical care.
tsunamifury 43 minutes ago [-]
And the remaining unhappinesses can end up in starker relief, as you continuously try to remove all unhappinesses from your life to nearly impossible and sometimes distorted degrees.
The problem isn’t that money doesn’t buy happiness, it’s that it can remove your ability to endure the necessary amounts of unhappiness in life.
genxy 47 minutes ago [-]
The kinds of people that become billionaires are not those who are happy, the hole in their sole is why they are billionaires in the first place. Yes there are exceptions, just like with everything.
You should probably have a billion dollars, you would do great things. But you probably shouldn't become a billionaire to get there. Being rich doesn't make one unhappy, but getting there does.
That relentless grind changes a person, much like the ring.
It will not make you unhappy. It will just not make you happy. Big difference. The saying "money can't buy happiness" is in fact true no matter how much people want to rationalize the opposite.
fps-hero 9 minutes ago [-]
People conflate the ideas of happiness, and comfort. Money buys access to increasing levels of comfort, but comfort becomes normalized very quickly. Once you've become accustomed to a certain level of comfort, the luxury of it wears off and it becomes a new norm. You also have an expectation to, at a minimum, maintain wealth so that you don't lose access to your current level of comfort.
When people with 1X see people with 10X or 100X and go hey! Why aren't you doing more? That gives me hope. When these people succeed, they are exactly the type of people who will give back and derive happiness from it. The right person who acquires wealth can do a lot of good in the world.
Herbstluft 45 minutes ago [-]
What that always leaves out, however, is that no/little money can very much cause a lot of unhappiness.
bluGill 21 minutes ago [-]
The amount of money to get over that hump is small. Many people in poverty are happy. If you are at the very bottom with not enough to eat and such money can buy happiness, but you can be below the poverty line and still be about as happy as everyone.
SoftTalker 5 minutes ago [-]
This is a lie that people with money tell themselves to make themselves feel better about not giving away more of their money (ironically, proving themselves correct).
> Everything feels like a side quest, but not in an inspiring way. I don’t have the same base desires driving me to make money or gain status. I have infinite freedom, yet I don’t know what to do with it
What a hyper-capitalist statement. You are living a sad life if money and status is all that is driving you.
This person is free to do what they like. Family, friends, hobbies, philanthropy, … But apparently they have been stuck in a hamster wheel, chasing money and status their whole life, without ever stopping to think what they actually want or like, what is important to them.
Lariscus 22 minutes ago [-]
The whole section about him working for DOGE to "embark on a journey to save our government" tells you everything you need to know about him.
Semaphor 24 minutes ago [-]
OTOH, that’s probably how they got rich, and why I’ll never be.
corndoge 27 minutes ago [-]
Point and laugh at the man who is honest about what he feels
j1elo 24 minutes ago [-]
I mean, the answer is so obviously in front of our faces right now... :-)
Use the free time to learn some Zig! And start a life of happily giving back powerful and useful GPL software to put your own 2 cents on the mountain of society building blocks that allowed you to thrive in such a way to begin with.
wnevets 44 minutes ago [-]
> The saying "money can't buy happiness" is in fact true no matter how much people want to rationalize the opposite.
I'm willing to test this theory out, send me some money.
epolanski 10 minutes ago [-]
Yet most wealthy people don't act like that.
The wealthiest man on the planet looks to be quite miserable, insecure and bitter most of the time.
IshKebab 1 hours ago [-]
Yeah I feel the same about people who say they wouldn't know what to do when they retire. I have so many projects! I guess we are just different...
Daishiman 1 hours ago [-]
Because the most vocal rich people in this age seem to have an unusual lack of empathy and just being able to enjoy themselves.
InsideOutSanta 53 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, I think people have the correlation backward. I suspect that driven people are more likely to get rich and less likely to be happy, so there seem to be a lot of angry rich dudes.
Meanwhile, people who get rich by accident often seem able to improve their own lives and those of others with their money. The recent article about the founder of Craigslist comes to mind.
yard2010 36 minutes ago [-]
I wonder what is better, for people, for society, having many rich angry people or having many poor angry people?
InsideOutSanta 30 minutes ago [-]
How about let's aim for neither ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
toomuchtodo 48 minutes ago [-]
Nailed it.
sph 29 minutes ago [-]
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jaypatelani 7 minutes ago [-]
I would gladly donate this much to NetBSD foundation.
15 minutes ago [-]
GodelNumbering 54 minutes ago [-]
I have been experimenting with modifying Ghostty lately. It's a well attended codebase and a pleasure to work with, props to Mitchell.
One thing the has been a little unintuitive is the pattern of all code and tests in single files, which makes the filesizes grow much larger. Also if you're coming from inheritance supported languages, Zig forces a different way of thinking
teekert 1 hours ago [-]
Adults responding in adult ways. Respect.
osigurdson 1 hours ago [-]
Zig is really nice. I enjoy using it a lot. Glad to hear that it is getting a little more funding.
mawadev 16 minutes ago [-]
I love this guy
walthamstow 49 minutes ago [-]
I'm not in the OSS world much so hopefully someone can help me understand: what does 700k buy you in OSS language development?
hiccuphippo 38 minutes ago [-]
In the case of Zig, You can see their financial reports here:
Major props to Mitchell (and his family) for these donations.
tadasv 18 minutes ago [-]
This is great IMO. I like zig as a language and the idea behind it. But boy, it has a syntax issue. I with they figure out better syntax before 1.0, developer ergonomics I think are as important.
lukaslalinsky 10 minutes ago [-]
Zig has multiple issues, but syntax is definitely not it. It might take a little bit of time getting used to, if you are coming from another language, but it's one of the most readable languages I've ever worked with.
I really appreciate the "it's okay to be weird" sentiment. It has never been easier to try out a crazy idea. We may as well embrace it and try to learn something.
mi_lk 1 hours ago [-]
Nothing more beautiful when game recognizes game.
Npovview 2 minutes ago [-]
I wish Rich people did this more often. Not just rich people but rich companies. Not just rich companies but rich governments. But we are a broken society. People should be paying more to OSS for building digital infrastructure.
Imustaskforhelp 1 hours ago [-]
> I use AI heavily. I've written about my AI adoption journey and shipping real features with AI assistance. I'm also quite vocal about remaining rational about its capabilities and frustrated with its negative impacts on open source.
> The point is that I have opinions. Those opinions don't fully align with ZSF's approach. And yet, I have nothing but respect for ZSF: the people, the policies, and the project. Part of what makes the internet and open source great is that projects can be weird and different. They can set unusual boundaries, build their own culture, and pursue quality in ways that won't make sense to everyone.
Mitchell does feel like the adult in the room when other people are having chain-saws and acting irrationally for a lack of better term (for example jared/bun controversy which the post just somewhat touches on)
(Mitchell's tweet about AI psychosis is genuinely influential and is now a pointer to what this phenomenon might be)
I really think him and simon's opinions are somehow decently nuanced opinions on AI that the internet has to offer.
Now glazing of mitchell aside, I am happy that zig foundation gets such amount of money and I am really excited that Zig an independent language is able to get the level of love that it does.
There is a famous talk by the creator of Elm on the economics of independent programming languages and how its hard for them to get sponsored if they aren't already working at a company (Rust was created at Mozilla, Golang was created by Google)
This is a real issue that is true for most of open-source and I am just happy that we are atleast moving slowly towards some good as well. Its an uphill battle with multiple lows but I am happy for the positive changes as it gets as open source does have a special place in my heart as it taught me about privacy and many of your hearts as well.
throwaw12 1 hours ago [-]
I read it as a pledge to continue doing non-AI-LLM-slop work. End result could be interesting for everyone, on one side project with no-LLM policy and on the other side projects which heavily rely on LLMs.
In the short term we might not see the benefits, this pledge reads like: "Please keep doing what you are doing now, I am interested in how far it goes" (not in any negative sense)
cute_boi 19 minutes ago [-]
I have been using zig and it is so much better. I am thankful they are avoiding vibe slop in compilers.
hylaride 1 hours ago [-]
If I ever get "fuck you" money like Mitchell did, I plan to use his post-money life as an inspiration to "retire".
jdw64 7 minutes ago [-]
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swordlucky666 1 hours ago [-]
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colesantiago 1 hours ago [-]
Doesn't this prove that Mitchell Hashimoto is probably the only "good billionaire"?
I thought all billionaires were bad?
adrian_b 3 minutes ago [-]
It is very likely that most billionaires are very bad.
That does not mean that there are no good billionaires. There are even billionaires who have become billionaires by being bad, but who nonetheless have attempted after that to do only good things, perhaps to atone for their past sins.
Mitchell Hashimoto appears to really be one of the good ones.
I have recently discovered the ghostty open-source terminal emulator, written by him in recent years, which appears to have some advantages over its competitors that I value, and I have switched to it, after using a very large number of other terminal emulators in the past, and switching between them whenever I encountered a better one.
Therefore I am grateful to him for his good programming work, shared with the world.
qmmmur 8 minutes ago [-]
I’m not going to personally donate a little under 0.1% of my net worth, and I may seem a hypocrite, but at some point you have to acknowledge that it’s a maddening, life changing amount of money that in no way would have a noticeable effect on his life. On the other hand, it could hurt most people’s ability to pay rent to give away that money.
Survival is mostly a fixed cost that is unmet by many people, while other people donate those who are less off’s life earnings to their fancies they vibe with. It’s gross. Unfortunately humans are not brave or imaginative enough to realise another system (99% tax on billionaires would be a start), but most people also hate the idea that someone in need would get something for free or at a low cost.
randusername 8 minutes ago [-]
Billionaires have an extraordinary economic footprint and level of influence. They employ teams of people managing their affairs through their family offices [0].
I do not think they should be thought of or spoken of as individuals, they are brand entities. Their true intentions are as unknowable from scale and complexity and opacity as, I don't know, Macy's.
Commenting on if any specific billionaire is a uniformly good or bad person distracts from the more important conversation on what the optimal number of billionaires should be and what the tradeoffs are in recalibrating the system.
It's because you only hear about the loud ones. There are lots doing good work.
In particular Lauren Bezos and Laurene Powell Jobs.
Warren Buffet is essentially bequeathed the majority of his wealth to good causes.
A lot of the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is phenomenal (despite the recent and disturbing Epstein news).
George Soros has funded a lot of good causes, depending on how far you want to believe the conspiracy theories.
Harris Rosen funded free daycares and university tuition to benefit an impoverished Orlando community.
Dolly Parton's philanthropy is legendary.
A lot of the Robber barons (Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller's) bequeathed to causes that Americans are still benefiting from today.
Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia, pretty much gave the company away for environmental causes.
Chuck Feeney pretty much gave away 99% of his wealth.
sigzero 1 hours ago [-]
I am sure there are some bad billionaires. That moniker is used to demonize them for the most part.
InsideOutSanta 50 minutes ago [-]
I guess it depends on exactly what you're talking about, but my impression is that the primary "billionaires are bad" argument is simply that a system that allows billionaires to exist is inherently broken. A system that rewards people based on their actual contributions would not allow billionaires to exist.
The fact that some billionaires use their money to do good does not contradict that argument.
hresvelgr 1 hours ago [-]
Another language that is in a similar space to Zig that I think deserves more attention, particularly for funding is Odin. While I think Zig is a great language, there is a consistency of design and simplicity to Odin that makes low-level programming more ergonomic and enjoyable to me. While Zig boasts a lot of impressive projects, Odin was used to build the JangaFX suite[1].
I don't really know how to value things any more when I see someone develop a tool that is kind-of useful that then gets acquired for half a billion dollars. As someone with a decent number of decades of terminal hopping, the improvement that ghostty has brought a breath of fresh air. To me it has represented more utility that a few of those acquisitions.
But spending your life pursuing an unsatisfiable goal (because the goal is “more”) probably isn’t good for your happiness.
Not to mention, there are very satisfying ways to contribute to things you think are important that don’t necessarily involve a lot of money.
1: not unhappy is weird phrasing. Substitute not sad or not angry or not hungry or whatever for your particular state of unhappiness.
> Money can very much buy happiness. Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money
Was it too hard to read beyond the first comma?
Nonsense. Most of the things that can be remedied with money are not the truly painful things of life either.
Will money save you from heartache? From the pain of losing a loved one? From being lonely? From having no respect from your peers? From losing your health to incurable cancer?
At that point, all money can do for one is make them even more pathetic.
For example, money can pay for better medical care.
The problem isn’t that money doesn’t buy happiness, it’s that it can remove your ability to endure the necessary amounts of unhappiness in life.
You should probably have a billion dollars, you would do great things. But you probably shouldn't become a billionaire to get there. Being rich doesn't make one unhappy, but getting there does.
That relentless grind changes a person, much like the ring.
I echo the sentiment in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48630565
When people with 1X see people with 10X or 100X and go hey! Why aren't you doing more? That gives me hope. When these people succeed, they are exactly the type of people who will give back and derive happiness from it. The right person who acquires wealth can do a lot of good in the world.
What a hyper-capitalist statement. You are living a sad life if money and status is all that is driving you.
This person is free to do what they like. Family, friends, hobbies, philanthropy, … But apparently they have been stuck in a hamster wheel, chasing money and status their whole life, without ever stopping to think what they actually want or like, what is important to them.
Use the free time to learn some Zig! And start a life of happily giving back powerful and useful GPL software to put your own 2 cents on the mountain of society building blocks that allowed you to thrive in such a way to begin with.
I'm willing to test this theory out, send me some money.
The wealthiest man on the planet looks to be quite miserable, insecure and bitter most of the time.
Meanwhile, people who get rich by accident often seem able to improve their own lives and those of others with their money. The recent article about the founder of Craigslist comes to mind.
Since Ghostty is written in Zig, I ended up adding native Zig AST support in Dirac (https://github.com/dirac-run/dirac/blob/master/src/services/...)
One thing the has been a little unintuitive is the pattern of all code and tests in single files, which makes the filesizes grow much larger. Also if you're coming from inheritance supported languages, Zig forces a different way of thinking
https://ziglang.org/news/2025-financials/
Most of it goes to contributors.
> The point is that I have opinions. Those opinions don't fully align with ZSF's approach. And yet, I have nothing but respect for ZSF: the people, the policies, and the project. Part of what makes the internet and open source great is that projects can be weird and different. They can set unusual boundaries, build their own culture, and pursue quality in ways that won't make sense to everyone.
Mitchell does feel like the adult in the room when other people are having chain-saws and acting irrationally for a lack of better term (for example jared/bun controversy which the post just somewhat touches on)
(Mitchell's tweet about AI psychosis is genuinely influential and is now a pointer to what this phenomenon might be)
I really think him and simon's opinions are somehow decently nuanced opinions on AI that the internet has to offer.
Now glazing of mitchell aside, I am happy that zig foundation gets such amount of money and I am really excited that Zig an independent language is able to get the level of love that it does.
There is a famous talk by the creator of Elm on the economics of independent programming languages and how its hard for them to get sponsored if they aren't already working at a company (Rust was created at Mozilla, Golang was created by Google)
This is a real issue that is true for most of open-source and I am just happy that we are atleast moving slowly towards some good as well. Its an uphill battle with multiple lows but I am happy for the positive changes as it gets as open source does have a special place in my heart as it taught me about privacy and many of your hearts as well.
In the short term we might not see the benefits, this pledge reads like: "Please keep doing what you are doing now, I am interested in how far it goes" (not in any negative sense)
I thought all billionaires were bad?
That does not mean that there are no good billionaires. There are even billionaires who have become billionaires by being bad, but who nonetheless have attempted after that to do only good things, perhaps to atone for their past sins.
Mitchell Hashimoto appears to really be one of the good ones.
I have recently discovered the ghostty open-source terminal emulator, written by him in recent years, which appears to have some advantages over its competitors that I value, and I have switched to it, after using a very large number of other terminal emulators in the past, and switching between them whenever I encountered a better one.
Therefore I am grateful to him for his good programming work, shared with the world.
Survival is mostly a fixed cost that is unmet by many people, while other people donate those who are less off’s life earnings to their fancies they vibe with. It’s gross. Unfortunately humans are not brave or imaginative enough to realise another system (99% tax on billionaires would be a start), but most people also hate the idea that someone in need would get something for free or at a low cost.
I do not think they should be thought of or spoken of as individuals, they are brand entities. Their true intentions are as unknowable from scale and complexity and opacity as, I don't know, Macy's.
Commenting on if any specific billionaire is a uniformly good or bad person distracts from the more important conversation on what the optimal number of billionaires should be and what the tradeoffs are in recalibrating the system.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_office
In particular Lauren Bezos and Laurene Powell Jobs.
Warren Buffet is essentially bequeathed the majority of his wealth to good causes.
A lot of the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is phenomenal (despite the recent and disturbing Epstein news).
George Soros has funded a lot of good causes, depending on how far you want to believe the conspiracy theories.
Harris Rosen funded free daycares and university tuition to benefit an impoverished Orlando community.
Dolly Parton's philanthropy is legendary.
A lot of the Robber barons (Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller's) bequeathed to causes that Americans are still benefiting from today.
Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia, pretty much gave the company away for environmental causes.
Chuck Feeney pretty much gave away 99% of his wealth.
The fact that some billionaires use their money to do good does not contradict that argument.
[1] https://jangafx.com/