Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

The Air We Breathe

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A few years ago, I was chatting with an acquaintance of mine who happens to be pretty rich. I don’t know the exact figure, but his net worth was probably something like $80 million. He was definitely in “ultra-high net worth” territory and quite obviously never needed to work another day in his life.

He was bemoaning the fact that if he hadn’t sold his energy company so early, he would be “a billionaire by now.” My heart didn’t exactly ache for the guy, but his complaint (which these days I think is referred to as a “humblebrag“) made an impression.

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Do You Want to Know a Secret?

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I hate tech bubbles.

No, that’s not the secret. Everyone knows that. The secret I am referring to is a company named, literally, Secret. And the existence of this company, as well as the easy $6 million its co-founders pocketed when they shuttered the place, is absolutely symptomatic of this bubble-of-bubbles we are living in (the third one of the past fifteen years, incredibly).

I didn’t even know Secret existed, because I’m too old to spend my time worrying about every new little app that comes along that lets teenagers engage in cyber-bullying and exchange  dick pics. It’s just not my cup of tea. But I happened to stumble across this article yesterday, which was headlined:

0430-secret1

Now a startup shutting down isn’t any bigger news than someone finishing a satisfying lunch somewhere, but the “Ferrari” mention intrigued me, so I read further.

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