Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Would You Do If You Were Suddenly Wealthy?
An anonymous reader writes: There are a few articles floating around today about comments from Markus Persson, aka "Notch," the creator of Minecraft. He sold his game studio to Microsoft last year for $2.5 billion, but he seems to be having a hard time adjusting to his newfound fame and wealth. He wrote, "The problem with getting everything is you run out of reasons to keep trying, and human interaction becomes impossible due to imbalance. ... Found a great girl, but she's afraid of me and my life style and went with a normal person instead. I would Musk and try to save the world, but that just exposes me to the same type of a$#@%&*s that made me sell minecraft again." While he later suggests he was just having a bad day, he does seem to be dealing with some isolation issues. Granted, it can be hard to feel sorry for a billionaire, but I've wondered at times how I'd handle sudden wealth like that, and I long ago decided it would make the human relationships I'm accustomed to rather difficult. So, how would you deal with Notch's problem? It seems like one the tech industry should at least be aware of, given the focus on startup culture.
I know you're trolling a bit here, but if you want specific evidence of something Carter has done right, check out the Guinea Worm Eradication program. The Carter Center is a major part of this initiative, that is reducing (with the goal of eliminating) a painful and debilitating parasitic condition. Cases of Guinea Worm have dropped from over 3 million yearly in the early 80's to less than 100 so far this year (W.H.O. stats). The Guinea Worm life cycle requires human infection, so once this thing is gone, it's totally gone.