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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

He neglects one possible explanation: that some of the apparent braggers are actually trying to abase themselves to prevent themselves from becoming too arrogant, and perhaps just doing a clumsy job of it.

I remember reading something once by a guy who was annoyed to hear rich people talk about the days when they were poor. He thought they were bragging. But I find I do this all the time, and mostly not to anyone else. I do it to fight the pull of the hedonic treadmill-- to try to get my old poor self back so that I can appreciate not being poor anymore.

Possibly some of the people he thinks are humblebragging are doing something similar.

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Interesting. Honest question: when were you poor, Paul?

According to Wikipedia, you graduated from Cornell in 1986. You defended your PhD in 1990 and had sold Viaweb by 1995. Grad school life is certainly not luxurious, but I certainly would not refer to myself as being poor right now. Are you referring to the few years (91-94) before Viaweb was acquired? Or did you grow up poor at some point?

Also, have you noticed any correlation-- positive or negative-- between founders who come from more humble beginnings?

I meant grad student poor, not living on the street poor.

(Incidentally, we didn't sell Viaweb in 1995. That was when we started it. But from that point I didn't feel pinched anymore because I had a regular salary.)

I suspect your using poor in a different sense than he is. Paul probably meant poor in the loose sense of the word.

Is your income less than $30,000? I think that's typical for grad students. That may not be 'poor' according to official statistics, but it's well below the aspirational income levels for college grads.

I earned somewhere between 30,000-40,000 dollars this year. That's above the median income in Canada. But if and when I hit my goals of earning much more than that, I'll look back on this as being 'poor'.

I still have to think about day to day purchases. Paul doesn't. That difference is more meaningful than any official definition of the word poor.

I will never let myself consider $30-40k to be poor, at least in Texas. That's enough money to take care of an average family and still have a very nice Christmas.

I'm young, in college, and working full time to support my family (which includes my mother and younger siblings) while my mom goes back to school to earn a degree and work somewhere she will be happy. I made what you would consider in the "poor" range this past year and was still able to pay bills in my apartment, pay all my moms bills for the house she rents, blow money on Steam sales, buy myself and my girlfriend used cars, make a mortgage payment for a struggling family member, and a lot more.

I'm not poor. I have been not rich, but not poor.

It's all relative. I appreciate your perspective and think that many of us should pause to reflect on where we stand in this world.

For example, the poverty line in the U.S. is around $11,000 — that's in the top 13.1% richest people in the world (globalrichlist.com)

Although we are one of the wealthiest nations in the world in terms of personal well-being and life expectancy, we are also one of the poorest nations at consuming the world's resources responsibly. We are currently ranked 7th to last in this regard and our overall HPI is 105th in the world. [1]

[1] http://www.happyplanetindex.org/data/

I think one's interpretation of "poor" rests primarily on location. This is for two reasons. First, location determines absolute cost of living, and can effect quality of life. 40k might be above the median, but it barely livable in Manhattan. Location also has a bearing on relative perception of wealth. Someone making 40k in a neighborhood populated with people making 100k will make one feel poor.

Ultimately, the word "poor" is too subjective and is interpreted too idiosyncratically, and I try to avoid using it (along with words like "smart" and "good", etc.)

I think we're just having a semantic disagreement. I'd be fine with calling 30,000-40,000 'not rich'. I don't think I'm poor in the sense of poverty.

I think Paul Graham meant poor in the sense you're using 'not rich', and I commented to clarify that.

I think what you're doing is pretty good.

If you don't remember where you came from you will lose perspective very quickly and you might start to think that you have some kind of innate right to being rich.

The rich people that I've known that were easy to get along with and genuinely nice all made a conscious effort to remind themselves they weren't always rich and went out of their way to help others to help themselves.

I think your whole incubator trip is something along those lines. Sure it makes you money. But it also enables tons of others and that is far more powerful than the side effects for you.

Happy 2013 Paul!

I'm the programmer/computer expert in the family so I often get the "you're so smart" line from family and friends. Most people here can relate.

It's much the same with me for intelligence. I do a similar thing on Facebook where I'm much more likely to post about a stupid moment than a smart one. I can see how it might look like a humblebrag, but to me it's more a way of asserting normalcy to my friends, my family, most of all to myself.

There's a big difference between "I tripped on my shoelaces today... what a klutz" and "The shoelaces on these $900 Prada shoes are so long I tripped... what a klutz".

If you spend $900 on shoes then the 'klutz' bit clearly doesn't refer to tripping over the laces but on your ability to spend your money wisely.

You can't tell me this is an unwise choice: http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/prada-studded-oxford/3334607?ori...

Yes I can. But likely you forgot the sarcasm tags ;)

You're totally right!

The second sentence is both more useful and more funny: it contains a warning for people buying $900 Prada... They should consider buying shorter shoelaces.

It's also funnier because you'd expect $900 Prada to have well-thought-of shoelaces that you can't trip on ; )

Generally people wearing $900 Prada shoes have handlers or, in a pinch, some paparazzi to catch them or break their fall, so better-engineered laces is pretty low-down on their list of things to address.

"you'd expect $900 Prada to have well-thought-of shoelaces that you can't trip on"

You're paying for craftsmanship, fashion, and materials, not technology.

Clumsy is a great explanation. I hope people can tell the difference between someone insecure enough to name and fact drop, vs someone genuinely trying to share an experience they found strange, for whatever reason.

Another thing I've heard about is not being able to accept a compliment and it being taken as wanting people to heap on more praise.

Instead, the person might just be wanting to maintain that they're not special and just worked hard, or applied themselves like anyone could, and anyone could learn to do what they did.

Self abasement is still a humblebrag, and thus can't remedy arrogance.

I don't understand this application of self-abasement to the case of rich people talking about the days when they were poor. If it is self abasement, then that implies that being poor is some type of wrong. But it clearly isn't, particularly when at the start of a journey.

Yeah, false stories of humble origins and "bootstrapping" that selectively leave out privileges aren't humblebragging.

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