The billionaire founder of Y Combinator is being slammed for quibbling with a couple of children at a school bake sale. Graham, whose net worth is $2.5 billion, asked 7-year-olds to return change for 5 pounds at the charity bake sale, which drew the internet’s resentment.
Graham posted about the incident on the social media platform X, where his post was met with disbelief and contempt. Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, is one of the most influential startup accelerators in the world.
He co-founded Viaweb, one of the first web-based applications, which Yahoo later acquired for $49 million in 1998. Graham founded Y Combinator in 2005.
The English-American computer scientist was born in the UK and raised in the United States. He and his family have lived in England since 2016.
“Why ask children for change?” the internet’s reaction to the Billionaire founder of Y Combinator
Given his successful career as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, his X followers were taken aback to learn that he asked for change for £5 at a charity bake sale organized by schoolkids.
“At the school bake sale, I bought an indeterminate type of baked good from a pair of 7-year-olds. I asked if they could give me a change for £5. They said they couldn’t. I pointed to their tub of coins, but they said they couldn’t give me any of that because it was for charity.” Graham posted on X on January 25.
His post is sweeping the internet with over 7.6 lakh views and many lashings. Despite the high number of views, the post only received around 2,000 ‘likes’.
“If I were a billionaire, I bet one of the ways I would enjoy that is never asking children for change,” wrote one X user criticizing Paul Graham.
“He’s a billionaire, and he asked for change at the school bake sale,” another writer wrote in disbelief.
Graham asking for change at a school bake sale and his publicly sharing the incident on social media for the world to see was shocking to some.
“If I were a literal billionaire who had haggled with 7-year-olds at a bake sale over a couple of bucks, you couldn’t waterboard that information out of me. Do tech guys just not have any shame?” a user asked.
“Billionaire denied change for £5 at kids’ charity bake sale; whines to the world of the injustice,” another added.
While Graham hasn’t responded further to the tongue-lashing, the incident raises concerns and questions about the responsibilities of wealthy people at charitable events and even in seemingly trivial situations.