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Comment by Clubber | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, I would be thrilled to triple my money in 18 months. Using the gambling analogy is disingenuous though.

I don't see why it's disingenuous? Investing is extremely risky, and I'm not convinced that he didn't just get lucky on the second bet.

This isn't ok because the original investor was paid off. That's also how Ponzi schemes work - the original investors are paid off (I know, here the money seems to be generated from Retrophin, but the behavior is the same).

This gave me a perspective: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-12-17/martin-sh...

Investing money with some knowledge and control of the outcome vs. gambling with house stakes are two completely different categories of risk.

I think that's being too results driven and doesn't take into account the risk that was taken. As another example, suppose your uber driver drove you home while intoxicated. Even if the trip ended up being fine (no accidents, smooth ride), you would still have valid justification for complaining about this.

I understand a risk was taken, but gambling has a less than 50% chance of return (by design) while buying a Pharma company that you control is conceivably less risk.

Let me add to this: Buying a company you have a government mandated monopoly on (patent) that owns a product that people will die if they don't take (inelastic demand), and has a huge barrier to entry for new, competing entrants (FDA) is conceivably less risk than throwing chips on a roulette wheel.

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