Your friend is simply wrong. I think buying a house in italy and commissioning a custom super car is evidence that he doesn't know what he is talking about.
Sorry to post this here, but jsprinkles' profile is empty.
@jsprinkles: do you have a blog or website? Really enjoyed your xip.io comments (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4082017) and would like to keep up with your adventures. On a related note, it would be nice if HN had RSS feeds for specific user submissions and comments.
I prefer to stay semi-anonymous, but a few people know who I am (it wouldn't be rocket science to deduce). When I posted under my real name folks I did not know would come up to me at conferences and argue with me about things I had said on Hacker News. People tend to get offended by my remarks because I disagree with a lot of this culture, so it's also easier to just keep that separate from my career.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/09/07/pagani-zonda-hh-commissio...