I Became The World’s Richest Man For 7 Minutes
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN mostly cites it as a joke or as a prior example of inflating a company's valuation through a small share sale.
What it is
Comedy YouTuber Max Fosh stunts his way to briefly becoming the world's richest man by selling a tiny share in a company at an inflated valuation. It is a lighthearted prank video about paper valuations.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2023 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites godelski · 2025-08 · on “Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company”
The author is forgetting another scenario: a multibillionaire creates a company and values the business at $1bn. Though of course Max Fosh already did something like this[0] Which also makes me wonder, is this not a bet that can be filled simply by will? There's a lot of abstraction to money, so can't someone like Altman just find a one person startup and invest in them such that this happens? I think this makes the whole thing a lot trickier than it appears at face value. Personally, I wouldn't be all that shocked if something like this happened because it could probably end up being worth more in advertising than the the tens(?) of millions to invest in the company. [0] [this video]