Cited on HN 3 times, 2023–2026, never outright recommendedscore 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN mostly cites it as a joke or as a prior example of inflating a company's valuation through a small share sale.
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.
“Max Fosh already did something like this[0]” (HN, 2025)
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]
Prior example of inflating company valuation via a small share sale.
> It would be the same thing as me asking my friend to invest $1 in my business, giving them 1 share out of 10 billion shares, and then claiming my net worth was 10 billion dollars. Or selling one share for £50, be richer than Elon Musk, and then get accused of fraud [this video]
> "at least on paper" This fact regularly seems to be forgotten by a lot of media reporting. People see "Musk is a trillionaire" and assume he has anywhere near that amount of liquid cash, completely ignoring that the company itself actually just lost $4.28bn. Value is simply what the market is willing to pay for a share at the margin. As a founder, my own startup has a valuation, but that sure as hell doesn't make me a millionaire. Oxfam has this daft 2% wealth tax idea on any assets over £10m. If we actually started taxing people based on paper valuations, most startups founders would be bankrupt by Series A. Funny and related: [this video]
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