
Paul Buchheit: Is there more to life than money? - karthikv
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-there-more-to-life-than-money.html
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aswanson
I don't know man. I'm just circling a huge fusion reaction 93 million miles
away at 66,000 miles per hour like everybody else I know.

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whacked_new
This comment made my day.

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aswanson
Cool.

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breily
Its a lot easier to ask that question when you have millions in Google stock.

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tx
That's not how wealth perception works. Wealth is a relative substance. We
compare ourselves to our peers to construct an image of our own success.

When I just moved to US I made less than 30K in my first year and I did not
feel poor. In fact I made more that year that both of my parents combined. I
also remember seeing a happy family at a parking lot near Lincoln Park in
Chicago. They did not speak any English and they were all posing in front of a
brand-new, shining red Toyota Corolla, laughing and taking pictures. It was
probably their first brand-new car, very possibly an unthinkable achievement
among their friends and relatives left in whatever country they were from. I
am sure they felt richer at that moment than Paul does now.

I would like to re-phrase Paul's though, assuming I got it right. To
westerners, who are already born rich by most standards, money most likely
mean the freedom of doing whatever they feel like doing. PG mentioned it in
his essays as the only driving factor behind programmers trying to make money
- to set themselves free to work on problems they enjoy.

Thing is, you don't have to be rich to work on something that makes your life
exciting. Joining a startup that fits your needs is another way of not wasting
2/3rds of your life while @work.

My personal pet theory is that most people, given appropriate education and
development, are pre-programmed to work on something they love. This is
precisely why so many Hollywood style millionaires like rock and movie stars
end up dependent on drugs facing alcohol problems, etc. They never had any
creative nuclei in them and had been working simply to put food on the table.
And when they end up with more food that they can swallow, they literally go
nuts: wealth can be dangerous, even life-threatening to unprepared.

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mrtron
I disagree.

Having millions is different than living on a 30k income vs a 60k income.

Someone like him is in a position to do whatever he wants for a few years
without worrying about rent, food, or any basic needs.

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SwellJoe
Almost everyone using this site is in that position, or at least can get there
with a few months work, whether they know it or not. The exception, of course,
are those folks who have a family to support. But if you're single and a nerd,
you could do 6 months worth of contract work, and live for a couple of years
on the proceeds, if you live frugally.

I've done it a few times, and I don't even have a college degree worth
speaking of (community college, but that doesn't count). In fact, I've just
come off of two years of doing so--Virtualmin, Inc. has recently become
profitable enough to pay me a nice salary, but I lived for the first year
completely without a salary, and the second on about $1000/month. I'd saved up
for a year before knowing I'd be quitting contracting and working full-time on
something cool. I did the same for my first company--decided I wanted to start
a company, worked for six more months at my old position and then quit with
about one year of runway in the bank.

The "basic needs" bar is actually much lower than most Americans think it is.
You don't need cable, you don't need a $75/month cell phone plan, and you
don't need a McMansion or a sweet apartment in the swish part of town. Hell,
you probably don't even need a car, though I've considered living in a van and
traveling the country (which really cuts down on rent--campgrounds run
$6-$20/night, with discounted weekly rates)...I might even still do that at
some point.

You don't have to be a millionaire to have the luxury to live your life as you
choose. Sure, it's nice to know you never have to go get a real job again.
But, if you live below your means, no matter what those means are, you're in a
very flexible position.

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jimbokun
"though I've considered living in a van and traveling the country (which
really cuts down on rent--campgrounds run $6-$20/night, with discounted weekly
rates)...I might even still do that at some point."

Kinda like this guy.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhTsZGK-d0A>

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jadams
"Love your work" is often just a way for startups and other small companies to
extract unreasonable hours from you, with little payback.

I've done the startup thing. I've worked 9-5 er I mean 9-6, oh, wait it was
more like 10-7:30. In the end, any job will require you to put up with things
you don't like. Obviously, some jobs are a better fit than others.

I find the startup smugness naive.

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npk
There is a psuedo-empircal monetary value to enjoying life. Consider a thought
experiment where you plot "free time" or "enjoyable time" versus "salary." Now
consider a job where your enjoyable time is ~ 0, coal miner 100 hours/week,
for example. How much would you need to be paid? Now maximize the other
dimension, how much salary do you need to live, but have a rewarding and
stimulating job?

For me, the numbers are like, $1M a year and $50K a year. This means that if I
manage to maximize my enjoyment axis, I'm an enjoyment millionare. My personal
goal in life is to be on the manifold that connects those two points.

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timr
There's something to be said for the Buddhist take on happiness: life is
suffering, but suffering is ultimately the result of craving and desire.

(Of course, that blows a bit of a hole in the "be an entrepreneur to get rich"
mindset, but I still think there's something to it.)

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ntoshev
Thank you for reminding this. I don't live according to or even agree with the
Buddhist way of thinking, but I do respect it as one of the ways to be truly
happy.

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imsteve
Is there more to life than money?

Yes

Is money still a really awesome thing?

Yes

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rms
Amen to that. Money means freedom.

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Alex3917
The problem with freedom is that most people aren't very good at optimizing
their own happiness. At least when you're stuck in an institution there is
some base level of engineered happiness as a by-product of that institution's
need to fulfill its stated goals. Otherwise, freedom may start with travel and
book-writing, but it has this habit of quickly devolving into sitting around
reading Reddit and Slashdot. In other words, in their state of nature people
have this tendency of doing just enough to make themselves minimally happy,
even if greater happiness is ultimately attainable. Look how many people sit
around all day playing World of Warcraft.

I guess what I'm saying is that even if you need freedom to achieve maximum
happiness, complete freedom also leaves you with a much greater chance of
getting stuck in some minimal existence. Which basically describes about a
quarter the population of Japan.

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imsteve
Money doesn't just give you freedom.

This whole question could be answered by answering: what are the basic desires
of people? I can think of:

1\. power

2\. love

3\. reproduction

4\. glory

5\. health

6\. just wanting to feel good.

Not surprisingly, you can more or less buy any of those with enough money. Or
at least make it 100x harder to fail.

However, I suppose that prestige or glory would be much harder things to buy.

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kingnothing
Your answers remind me of "The Game of Life." The three goals in that game
were Fame, Fortune, and Love. Pick two.

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cellis
This reminds me of a thread I read on nuclearphynance
<http://nuclearphynance.com/Show%20Post.aspx?PostIDKey=12757>

Wherein a slew of highly paid quantitative finance dudes argue about the
optimal amount of money (to quit). I think most settled on about $10m/L5m.

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rokhayakebe
I am certainly not a millionaire, but I have a few friends who are and judging
from the way they are, I can guarantee you that anyone who says " there is
more to life than money" is telling you 95% bullshit. That is unless you live
somewhere Capitalism is not KING.

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dawie
Money can't buy happyness, but happyness does not buy food, houses, vacations
or a porsche

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icky
Yes, but it's certainly a limiting factor.

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damon
Matthew 6:24 - You cannot serve both God and Money

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daniel-cussen
And many hackers are atheist.

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boucher
Many are not. In fact, statistics would suggest most, by far, even if you're
willing to believe (which i have seen nothing to backup) that "hackers" are
more likely.

