Is that the same guy who did that famous burn on HN? If so it's nice to see he's made it.

Yeah, assuming you mean this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35076 (ctrl + f: putnam)

I've always loved this.

A little known fact about it is one of his replies is this:

we're in a similar space -- http://www.getdropbox.com (and part of the yc summer 07 program) basically, sync and backup done right (but for windows and os x). i had the same frustrations as you with existing solutions.

let me know if it's something you're interested in, or if you want to chat about it sometime.

drew (at getdropbox.com)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35103

Exact link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079

I guess no one managed to top that comeback in the last decade (thread is 3600 days old!).

This is amazing.

I'd be surprised if he made millions from this service.

You shouldn't. Tarsnap is a decade old; a million dollars over ten years is not a lot of money by the standards of tech salaries.

I assumed that OP's "making millions" referred to a yearly-ish timeframe, not the entire existence of a business.

Ah, got it. Right, Tarsnap is under a million dollars per year.

Never mind that, your company is still awesome, and with Tarsnap now running on Windows (10) thanks to the 'Windows Subsystem for Linux' I'm sure it will do a lot better in the coming years.

Oh, I'm not worried about that... I don't think $1M/year is a sharp line dividing "success" from "failure". I decided a decade ago that my criteria for success were:

1. Staying in Canada,

2. Doing work which I found interesting and meaningful, and

3. Earning more money than Google offered me,

and I'm hitting all three.

Damn man, don't be petty, you're replying to the creator of tarsnap

Yeah, but did he win the Putnam?

Just once.

Sentences like this really make me want to move to America

Is that really required to be considered successful?

OP:

> people making millions

> It's made me think who has been the most successful at building a company as a sole proprietor.

are there any public numbers on tarsnap?

Yes, but they are all in unreadable picounits.