His point was that the money could be used for things like buying a home. After taxes that 1.5 million turns into a bit more than 1 million (assuming long term equity gains). And if you live in the bay area or Palo Alto, a million doesn't buy you much.
I think there is more to it than luck. For example, Elon Musk is an entrepreneur that has done well time after time. I don't think he is that lucky. ;-)
When I think of link bait, I think of sites that go after Digg and not really Hacker News. Hacker News is an awesome resource (better than digg imho), but if you get to the top I don't think you get too many links out of it.
I never knew that the PriceGrabber.com guy was a hustler. If he raised raised no venture capital (only financing from friends/family) and sold the company for $485 million, I need to become one.