Summary of Michael Mechanic's Jackpot

By IRB Media

Get the Summary of Michael Mechanic's Jackpot in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: Have you ever fantasized about being ridiculously wealthy? Probably. Striking it rich is among the most resilient of American fantasies, surviving war and peace, expansions and recessions, economic meltdowns and global pandemics. We dream of the jackpot, the big exit, the life-altering payday, in whatever form that takes. (Americans spent $81 billion on lottery tickets in 2019, more than the GDPs of most nations.) We would escape “essential” day jobs and cramped living spaces, bury our debts, buy that sweet spread, and bail out struggling friends and relations. But rarely do we follow the fantasy to its conclusion—to ponder the social, psychological, and societal downsides of great affluence and the fact that so few possess it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Nov 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638159162

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

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Insights on Michael Mechanic's Jackpot

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The story of James Everingham is a good example of how the rich got rich in the tech industry. He was one of the Mozillians, as the Netscape employees who worked on the company’s web browser project were called.

#2

James Everingham was a rebel growing up in Pittsburgh. He was thirteen when he wrote a simple BASIC program on a Commodore VIC-20. He had discovered computers.

#3

The dot-com boom created millionaires overnight, but it also created a new class of millionaires called the Mozillionaires. These were the guys who got rich from the NASDAQ crash.

#4

The author met a lot of these guys at a company called Netscape, where he worked as a programmer. One of the guys, Matt Everingham, was a close friend of the author’s, and both of them were Mozillionaires after the company they worked for, Netscape, went public.

#5

The conventional wisdom is that winning the lottery will ruin your life, but this hasn’t stopped millions of people from playing.

#6

The author met with Kurland, a lawyer who specialized in helping people who won the lottery. He helped set up a trust for a woman who won $1. 5 billion on the Mega Millions lottery.

#7

Big lottery wins are magnets for weirdos. Charities and scam artists will try to cash in on your good fortune, so anonymity is a must.

#8

The author was interviewing attorney Jeff Weissglass, and the conversation turned to what people do after they win the lottery. Weissglass explained how he didn’t have to work anymore, and how this troubled him because he didn’t know what to do with himself.

#9

The author’s friend, Mike Depatie, was the CEO of Kimpton Hotels, a hotel chain based in San Francisco. He was