[chwahoo]

Wow, where did that come from?!? Was starting her workday at 2am everyday part of her "luck"? From this profile, it sounds like she's worked very hard, she's smart, she's sacrificed living on very little as a grad student, she's taken risks, and she's been driven to do work that's important too her (developing technology to save her daughter).

Sure, tons of people live fortunate lives by skating forward on the momentum of a privileged upbringing. But I get exactly the opposite vibe from this article.

[ebbv]

Lots of people work very hard and never make it rich. Working long hours is not a trait unique to very successful people. Therefore, what is unique? Luck.

As far as "living on very little as a grad student", grad students may live on a tight budget but they don't know what poverty means.

I didn't say there was no hard work involved, but the article is not really about the work. It's about these big things that Martine was only able to do because she got very wealthy and very lucky early on.

If you're not already super rich, no amount of hard work is going to let you start a drug company to save your child.

Please don't confuse my dislike for this fawning profile with dislike of Martine. My whole point is that this article nothing but sycophantic fluff, and as a result I don't know Martine at all really. The most insightful thing in this whole article is that she started a weird cult.

[chwahoo]

The vast, vast, vast majority of people who are born with every advantage don't accomplish anything worthy of a profile like this. And I don't dispute that, if she'd been born in a starving village in a third-world country (or probably even to poor parents in the US), its very unlikely that that she would have done these particular things.

It seems that the only criteria for interestingness or laudability that you'll accept is to have overcome underprivileged circumstances. I think that's a perfectly fine factor, but I'm personally interested in reading profiles of people for LOTS of other reasons: impressive accomplishments, impressive problem solving, overcoming/motivated by bad things happening to you or your close family, personal struggle, unusual ideas / perspective, hard work, humor, ... and many more (some that I'm not even aware of).

If a person's story has the right weighting of factors like that, I'm interested. And Martine Rothblatt's story was WELL OVER the bar for being someone who I'd want to learn about.

[ebbv]

Most of the things I think are good criteria for admiring someone have nothing at all to do with their bank account. Thanks for missing the point entirely.

[dang]

> Thanks for missing the point entirely

Please don't be personally abrasive in Hacker News comments, even when the other person misses a point.