
If you get rich, you won’t quit working for long - happy-go-lucky
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161208-if-you-get-rich-you-wont-quit-working-for-long
======
ChuckMcM
I have known perhaps a hundred people go through this process. When Sun went
public it made a bunch of people "rich"[1], when Sun released Java and the
stock split 8 times and climbed over $100 it made still more people rich, when
NetApp stock crossed a $100/share in the dot com days still more people
crossed into that line of not having to work any more. The total number of
people is going to be higher than that.

Some stop working, some continue working, and some decide to get together and
create a startup incubator :-). Pretty much everyone I know that has gone
through that process though are engineers. And engineers got to be engineers
because they had a passion for building things or solving problems. Many
people who have been engineers for a few years also realize that a group of
talented engineers can solve bigger problems as a collective than any single
engineer can. So the thing that really gives you satisfaction, solving some
huge problem, can be best accomplished on a team.

There are three ways you can do that, you can work on a volunteer basis, you
can start a company, or you can join an existing company. I've been playing
around with some ideas around an experimental fourth way but so far have not
found the right balance for that.

[1] Rich is such a subjective term but we'll use the article definition of
having enough savings to never work again.

~~~
Retric
Collage professors will also often work well past retirement age.

So, IMO it's more complex than just 'builders'.

~~~
zardo
Making collages is a kind of building too.

------
geophile
After 25 years in startups, with several of them paying out, I was able to
retire at 55, so I did. I still love writing software, but I got tired of: not
having a life, due to insane startup schedules; the stress of startups;
working for idiots, (partly this is because we hired idiots, but also because
my tolerance for idiocy has vanished).

I have more time for family and friends. I can tinker with new ideas in
software, and eventually find new projects to work on, (I have one now). I
have started teaching again, on and off. I get to sleep late, go out more,
both at night and on vacations.

However, I have done less than I thought I would, and honestly, I am sometimes
bored. However, I absolutely will not work again if I don't have to. Why?
Because going to work for someone else is an admission that I don't know what
the hell to do with myself, so I might as well fill my time sacrificing my
precious time for someone else's dream. No thanks. Not only does that re-
introduce the problems mentioned above, but it masks the _real_ problem of not
knowing what I really want to do.

Also, I'm really tired of the startup life. Charismatic startup founders who
use their charm to extract what they need from you, VC lemmings, "this is the
most important release ever", open floor plans, ...

~~~
blueatlas
Have you considered investing in or coaching a startup to guide them through
(around) what you found so frustrating? It seems like that would be quite
valuable to a young startup and would have a level of satisfaction for you ("I
helped these kids avoid VC lemmings and other idiots").

~~~
geophile
I've considered and rejected the idea of investing. Coaching is an interesting
idea. Any recommendations on how to get started?

~~~
marcos123
I've recently launched a project and don't know any successful entrepreneurs
to talk to. If you'd like to dabble in coaching, please send me a message at
thankeeww at gmail.

------
ryandrake
This is an article about one person, Keith from Silicon Valley, whose personal
story the author tries to extrapolate (through a few cherry-picked quotes) and
apply to society as a whole, to fit a puritanical "employment gives you
purpose" narrative: a narrative which mostly serves the interests of
employers. I wouldn't read too much into it.

~~~
jasode
No, your TLDR is not accurate. You're getting mislead by the common
journalistic technique of adding a "human interest" angle to a story.

However, the "outer wrapper" is not the main story nor is it the TLDR.

Instead of journalists just presenting it like this:

    
    
      <main story about research or science>
    

, they (or their editors) end up structuring articles like this:

    
    
      <human-interest as color prologue>
        <main story about research or science>
      <human-interest as color epilogue>
    

Yes, the "<human-interest>" is Keith[2], but the main story is _not_ about
Keith. It's mostly a story built around Jamie Traeger-Muney[3] and her
observations. There are also other observations from Timothy Judge's meta-
analysis and professor Brooke Harrington.

I do concede that if your only takeaway was "Keith's story", it's possible
that imprint was deliberate by the editors. (In other words, they know that
psychologically, most audiences will remember a character's struggles and
triumphs more than the abstract facts & figures.)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_interest_story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_interest_story)

[2] and also mentions Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Karen Gorden

[3] [http://www.wealthlegacygroup.net/wlg-
about/documentation/jam...](http://www.wealthlegacygroup.net/wlg-
about/documentation/jamie-traeger-muney)

~~~
nacho2sweet
LMAO at this community and using wrapper tags to debate someones argument.

~~~
metaphorm
considering that the average reader of this message board is XML literate,
it's a fairly effective technique.

------
paulcole
I stopped working for 2 years in my mid-20s (by choice) and only started again
when I was running low on money. If I was rich, "working" would never be on my
mind.

Run, bike, hike, camp, cook, read, walk, have coffee, relax, etc.

~~~
bambax
Of course. That's what people do when they retire, they don't "do" nothing,
but they don't "work" either.

But it's possible there's a sample bias; people who get rich are the kind of
people who can't stop working, even if/when they can. Other people would
totally stop working if they got rich but it's hard to prove, because they
never do get rich.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Totally agreed. I know a few people who (financially) don't need to work for a
living but still do, a couple of them regularly putting in 12 hour days 6 days
per week. Of course, that's how they got "rich" in the first place.

In their case, making a lot of money was a pleasant side effect of their
preexisting strong work ethic, not the driving force.

(...and don't get me wrong, these guys also play hard when they're not
working)

~~~
jazzyk
"regularly putting in 12 hour days 6 days per week"

"Play hard" after 72 hours of working? They must be super-human. What about,
you know, er, human contact? Like spending time with your family and friends?

~~~
xemdetia
The kind of people I know of that do 72-80 hours a week and are wealthy enough
to do less, generally the circle of friends are the people you worked
with/your clients. Doing good work for people at your own leisure and
participating in the community in that fashion is actually something I see
those type of people really get a lot of satisfaction out of- like the article
says a status thing. Going to local Chamber of Commerce style events,
sponsoring/participating in parades, events, youth leagues and so on. Being
able to write the check to send the school science team to a national
competition as just a generous member of the community at large can mean a
lot.

Family gets neglected in that case, or nepotism'd so you can see them.

The act of doing business for those sorts of people is play.

~~~
jazzyk
Hmm, I did not know "going to parades, events... and so on" was considered
working?

That's probably how Marissa Mayer was "working" 130 hrs/week :-)

~~~
xemdetia
Planning and participating in events is actually quite a bit of logistics
work. It isn't just showing up to consume, it's presenting/booth stuff and so
on. There's a difference between showing up to an event and
participating/running the event that often gets put on the better planner
types.

------
coldtea
> _He stayed on at first, but soon stopped working. He spent a year travelling
> and spending money on “frivolous things” but found it difficult to enjoy his
> life, he says._

That's because he didn't have the right personality and nothing prepared him
for it. Others have absolutely no problem not going back to the routine -- and
can find any number of small personal projects and hobbies to keep them
occupied.

Of course nobody just sits on a beach old day, because it gets boring in
itself. But there are tons of other endeavours to try that are not work.

~~~
serg_chernata
Of course, I think none of us really know till it happens.

However, I agree. I'm constantly coming up with new projects, ideas and
activities for myself. At this time I am convinced that I would not be bored
never having to work a formal job ever again in my life. I would assume that
is true for many HNers.

~~~
stult
Yeah, and then one of those hobbies becomes essentially full-time, and then
you realize it has some marketable value, then next thing you know you're
running a start up, completing the cycle of never-not-working-for-long.

~~~
jaggederest
What's the difference between a job and a hobby?

The answer is, extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation.

~~~
ikeyany
Extrinsic motivation is intrinsic motivation that you project onto an outside
agent.

You're not motivated by a job's salary, you're motivated by the nice things
you can do with money--things you decided are intrinsically more important
than the things you can do while broke.

~~~
coldtea
> _You 're not motivated by a job's salary, you're motivated by the nice
> things you can do with money--things you decided are intrinsically more
> important than the things you can do while broke._

We're not talking about the same kind of motivation, obviously.

We're talking about motivation in the work itself vs being motivated to work
because of others things you want to do with the money.

To make it an extreme example, in the first case you'd do the work even for
free, or even pay to do it (like many people pay to do some hobbies), even if
you had all the money you need.

------
kefka
Hmm. This seems like a pretty textbook case of Stockholm syndrome, if applied
to society and expectations.

Do they have to work? Nope. If they live leaner, they needen't work another
day in the rest of their lives. If they have hobbies, they can master those
instead. They could be the best at them.

But instead, "society" says they have to work to have a worth. That's
puritanical garbage that we need to nip at the bud. We're coming of an age,
where machines can increasingly provide more and more, and we are still
addicted to human labor and that connection of self-worth.

~~~
module0000
> But instead, "society" says they have to work to have a worth

I disagree. The drive to work and/or be productive is one of the reasons we're
the apex predator, and not our prior evolutionary human-like variations. It's
not "society" that says you have to work, but your DNA.

Example... do you notice the drive among the powerful/wealthy individuals,
governments, and corporations - to get to space and colonize our solar system
and beyond? That drive does not exist if we sit on our laurels. Those are the
people pushing the species forward - it would be simple to do nothing, and for
them to sip very _expensive_ coffee and entertain themselves until their life
expired.

> We're coming of an age, where machines can increasingly provide more and
> more, and we are still addicted to human labor and that connection of self-
> worth.

This isn't about "human" labor, it's about working in general. Perhaps your
occupation is designing, improving, or repairing these machines you speak of.
That is work, and has a noticeable impact - opposed to camping, hiking,
sipping coffee, and existing for the sake of existing.

tldr; if/when a society meltdown occurs, I don't want you on my team.

~~~
sedachv
> I disagree. The drive to work and/or be productive is one of the reasons
> we're the apex predator, and not our prior evolutionary human-like
> variations. It's not "society" that says you have to work, but your DNA.

I disagree. The large amount of mooches, bums, alcoholics, and freeloaders
around clearly points out that the evolutionary hypothesis you posit is wrong.

In general, any time you find yourself trying to justify something with
evolutionary psychology, you are probably wrong. I really hate the abuse of
the field and the trendy brainless use of "DNA-this" "in-our-DNA that" in
popular jargon. Evolutionary psychology is just Social Darwinism for the 21st
century with a new name. Unless there is a study that tested and confirmed an
evolutionary psychology hypothesis, consider it wrong:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psyc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psychology)

~~~
module0000
Let's break it down to DNA then, and not "dna-this" or "dna-that" \- which I
agree is popular and _usually_ incorrect.

Can we agree that your DNA(and most species) _does_ give you an innate drive
to reproduce? Past(last 100000+ years) and present mating suitability in a
male is perceived by his ability to feed/defend/nurture their mate and
offspring. The large amount of "mooches, bums, alcoholics" you reference would
be poor mates, yet they continue to reproduce. They do so [mostly] with the
assistance of another willing member of the class of "mooches, bums,
alcoholics". However, the people that are _not_ "mooches, bums, alcoholics"
make more desirable mates, because they have a higher potential to
feed/defend/nurture their mate and offspring. That means that yes, your
biology is still telling you that you need to work, even if it is only to
achieve higher mating success, and fulfill your biological imperative.

Hrm...I really don't like the direction my own thought is taking as I write
this down. It ends with "well, then those (people) should be eliminated for
the good of the species", and no one wants to hear that, whether it is correct
or incorrect. It can be interpreted in a very dark and nasty context, and that
is absolutely not what I'm trying to promote or champion.

In a nutshell, I'm arguing that I will win at the biological imperative
_because_ of my drive to work and succeed. Those people that don't want to
work and succeed would contribute to their species by going off somewhere
quiet, and avoiding consumption of the resources needed by their fellow
species members that are grinding away at "life" in the evolutionary sense -
_not_ in the "pursuit of happiness" sense, which is subjective and altogether
distracting.

~~~
kefka
Yep. And this argument is in parity with those people who wear white robes
with pointy hats, and burn crosses in people's yards whom they do not like.

It's also similar to Phrenology, the "science" of skull size, weight, and
shape that indicate intelligence. Of course, non-whites were all inferior.

There were many interests all surrounding Margret Sanger, with Planned
Parenthood and the original intentions of that group. Ideally, blacks, Jews,
"retards", and any other undesirable were sterilized as to not continue their
genes.

But talking of eugenics, even in a roundabout way has a lot of baggage. Is
there a way to do it right? I'm not sure. I'd think voluntary methods could
work, but only if they were truly voluntary. Remember, the kind of people we
have coming in government believe that one can electrocute the gay out of
someone (Pence).

~~~
module0000
> Yep. And this argument is in parity with those people who wear white robes
> with pointy hats, and burn crosses in people's yards whom they do not like.

Erm...is it? I thought that groups' entire mindset came from some religious
interpretation of doing a deity's work. Maybe I'm wrong, but when a bunch of
people(such as those that you mention) are so ridiculously self-destructive, I
can only assume some-or-other <insert-religious-stupidity> is behind it.

I'm not making a case for any of the things you
mention(sterilization...really!?). I'm making a case for the working people
building a working civilization and non-working people can't participate or
benefit.

------
madaxe_again
So, I'm only six months in the wilderness, and hindsight may well prove me
naive, but I never want to sit behind a desk again.

I left the business I founded 11 years ago 6 months ago - not because it was
failing - they go from strength to strength - but rather because it was making
me miserable - the fun freewheeling startup completely metamorphosed into a
serious organisation complete with office politics and all the rest.

I cashed out for a relatively meagre sum - halved my net worth in the process,
which now sits at about £1m 40:60 cash:assets. I'm 33. I plan to see every
nook and cranny of the world and to take my time about it - bought an old Land
Rover, driving everywhere.

A big part of the reason I left was identity. I had come to realise that my
company was my identity, my life, my entire existence, and that I had
remoulded myself continually to embody the company as it morphed and grew.
Eventually I could no longer identify myself within the layers of inherited
identity, and had lost all passion for the things that once drove me. I was
CTO, not human, not alive.

Since leaving I'm slowly remembering life - despite having had time off over
the last decade, there was only one one month period five years ago when I was
uncontactable - other holidays were consumed by me staring at my phone and
muttering curses as I'd hammer out emails.

It's going to take years to shed the burden, but already after six months I
find myself slowly becoming less neurotic, less anxious, although I still have
nightmares every night like clockwork.

The capital I have is not enough to retire on in the uk, but it is enough to
retire in many other parts of the world.

Then again, I've always been pathologicallly lazy, and status has always been
no more than a game to me, and I derive my identity (well, I did before I
drowned it) very idiopathically, so perhaps I am an oddity rather than the
norm.

This has ended up a ramble. I suppose my gist is that I currently believe it
better to derive identity from something other than a manufactured corporate
persona, or a job role. I just smile and say I'm unemployed.

~~~
kagamine
Well done on buying an old Land Rover, and welcome to the club. The
satisfaction I get from the upkeep and tinkering with mine is at least as
great as the satisfaction I get from work. Honestly, if I never had to work
there would another Land Rover and full rebuild. And I'd get to work on those
side projects if I had the time. I could be very productive if I wasn't having
to earn a living.

~~~
madaxe_again
I had a series IIa back when I was myself and before I became a drone in the
collective - rebuilt it completely, chassis, wiring loom, bulkheads, etc.,
fairey overdrive, loved it. Sold it during the early days of the business to
be able to eat and pay for the internet connection.

I want to write. I want to be highly impractical and live in the mountains
away from the madness. I recognise that what I want may well change, and
that's OK too.

I'm advantaged financially but I've paid for it with far more than time. I
suppose it all balances out.

~~~
kagamine
What do you have now? Mine's S3 Lightweight witha hard top that was on RAF
Kinloss for its service life.

~~~
madaxe_again
How funny - I used to fly from Kinloss and Lossie as a cadet. It's a '87 110,
in beautiful slightly weathered nick as it used to be someone else's
expedition vehicle - chassis goes ping, not thud, engine runs smooth and burns
less oil than expected, snorkelled up etc. gators on the steering joints and
chrome balls. Need a winch, hi-lift and all that jazz, and we hit the road in
May next. If anything I'm having to resist going overboard, as the last road
trip (that month of freedom from the digital shackles five years back) was in
a merc 190e, and it covered the 8000 miles to Kyrgyzstan, even if the exhaust
system and "sump guard" (plastic excuse for) didn't!

------
friendly_chap
Is this a feel good piece for the working class? Don't get me wrong - I have
no experience with getting rich overnight (not that I'm not trying).

However, going back to employment seems like an utter waste of a millionaire's
time - I have loads of plans which would make the world a better place, for
example: launching an incubator/hacker camp for troubled kids in the poor area
where I'm from. I only need maybe 1 or 2 millions to do that.

Why would I go back to working for a company where I have way less power to
change basically anything, really?

~~~
jon-wood
I don't think this is suggesting that people would go back to conventional
employment, more that they're not going to just kick back and relax for the
rest of their lives. You're example of going to do something useful would
still count as work to most people.

~~~
mjn
For most people I know, when they say they wish they had enough money that
they didn't have to work, what they mean is that they wish they had enough
money to escape the wage-labor relationship with an employer.

~~~
gvurrdon
Indeed. There are plenty of things I could be doing, such as writing books or
teaching martial arts, but there's not enough money in these activities to pay
for food and accommodation.

------
solatic
You can generally stratify most people into one of two categories: the work-
to-live types, and the live-to-work types.

The work-to-live types generally tend to pursue careers involving working for
some employer paying them salary plus benefits. With a few exceptions (the
early employees of some of the bigger IPO successes), these people will mostly
go on to earn middle-class or upper-middle-class incomes and live lifestyles
in line with their income. Very few will ever come across life-changing sums
of money.

Then you have the live-to-work types. Of course not all such people will
become rich, but if you were to look at successful entrepreneurs, it'll be a
long hard search before you find one who leaves the office every day at 5:00
PM on the dot to go home and loaf on the couch watching the game. These are
the people who, if they are successful at building their company (and that is,
of course, a huge if), will be able to walk away from the IPO with a fortune.

So why is it surprising in the slightest that the live-to-work types can't
rest on their laurels?

~~~
johnward
There's a group in between that slave away at their corporate job for 60+
hours a week. I don't know what to call them. They are basically doing the
worst of both worlds.

~~~
jonas21
...or the best of both worlds.

There are corporate jobs in tech where you can spend almost all of your time
working on the things you enjoy (say research, product development, or solving
hard technical problems) while letting others take care of the things you
don't. You don't really have that option if you're an entrepreneur. And the
fact that you can get a salary that places you in the upper-middle class is an
added benefit.

~~~
johnward
A remember the stories of people receiving paycheck and not having to report
to anyone. I'm on the consulting side so I often forget there are people who
don't track every second of their day and get scrutinized for merely working
40 hours.

------
stupidcar
Am I the only one who would go back to university and take a variety of
degrees if they got rich?

It would give you structure and deadlines, but without a 9-5 grind. Give you
an active social life. Give as much, or more, of an intellectual challenge as
a job. And since you'd be rich, you wouldn't have the same money worries and
pressure to achieve that other students have, and unlike a job, the only
person you can really let down is yourself.

~~~
tbihl
I guess my goal is a version of this: all my textbooks are sitting on a shelf
outside my bedroom, and I want to get back into them until I feel I've
mastered them. I wasted university with that idiotic determination of "look
how little work I can get by with", which of course is also "look how little I
can know while still surviving," an idiotic goal if ever there were one.

My job will probably be 60 hours/wk for the next year, then up in the 65-80/wk
range for the following three years, but after that, I'll be back down to 40
or even fewer. And I'm going to take advantage of all that free time a lot
better on the second go.

Who knows where I'll go from there. Realistically, my wife and I could get
along perfectly well on her working part time, and in medicine that's not too
hard an arrangement to get. Neither of us particularly trust the economy on
its current (last 70 years) trajectory, so we'll probably aim to put ourselves
in a partial homesteading setup closer to home in the next ten or so years.

Wow, I don't know where that went. TL;DR -- I want to read my textbooks and
start gardening.

~~~
tasuki
I can understand planning the next year, but isn't planning the following
three years a bit of a stretch?

~~~
tbihl
Mine is an odd job in that that assertion isn't much of a stretch at all.
There are a couple different paths that could steer me to different ends of
that range, but not too many ways I'd be outside it.

------
shubhamjain
Longing for FU money sounds just like "getting a job where I have nothing to
do" (maybe, slightly better). The idea of just idling all day, browsing your
favorite sites seems so amazing, but when you do get that you realise the
fulfilling-work imperative [1]. What you do everyday might be drudgery but
it's more so when you have nothing on your todo list.

Getting rich might help you in having comforts without monetary
considerations, and have more time with things you enjoy. All of it won't
subdue the need to fulfilling work. While I can imagine some people who would
happily spend all the riches on exorbitant possessions, the people who have a
higher probability of making that amount of money might not have propensity to
spend their lives in that manner.

[1]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/jobs/bored-to-tears-by-
a-d...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/jobs/bored-to-tears-by-a-do-nothing-
dream-job.html)

~~~
coldtea
> _Longing for FU money sounds just like "getting a job where I have nothing
> to do" (maybe, slightly better). The idea of just idling all day, browsing
> your favorite sites seems so amazing, but when you do get that you realise
> the fulfilling-work imperative [1]._

Or you need better hobbies and job substitutes than "idling all day, browsing
your favorite sites"...

~~~
ue_
How I wish I could spend all day filled with programming and continuing my
language learning. Instead I'm doing first year EE at university and it's hard
to find time to sit back and not worry that I should be working right now.

~~~
qntty
Why are you doing EE if you want to program?

~~~
ue_
I missed the university entry requirements for CS in my mathematics
qualification, so I was offered a place at the university to do EE instead,
which I accepted.

~~~
mattthebaker
That's ironic, EE usually has more math requirements than CS.

------
warcode
Clearly Keith does not play video games.

~~~
abrookewood
Have to agree .. I'm looking at my Steam back catalogue wondering how I'm ever
going to find the time to play everything .. And it's almost time for another
Xmas sale!

~~~
busterarm
I'm north of 550, about half unplayed at this point.

After a grueling year of work ending in a layoff in 2007, I took a full year
off in 2008. Played a lot of games, but also watched 4 films a day, became
competent with several instruments, read a lot and started myself on the path
to changing careers.

I have a stack of technical books on topics I'm deeply interested in that I
don't have time to read. At this point, I see work as a major impediment to
doing what I want with my life. It's a problem that I desperately want to
solve, but I don't really have hope for a solution. I'm on the low-end of
developer salaries.

~~~
abrookewood
Well, you managed to take a year off work which is pretty impressive! I've
never had a year off and don't expect to until I retire :( You could always
try remote work + moving to a cheaper country. Alternatively, if you can make
money doing something you enjoy, it won't really feel like work.

~~~
busterarm
I worked remotely for 5 years and that's how I managed to "level up" and
change careers.

The kind of stuff I want to focus on now though requires deep, focussed effort
over an extended period of time.

I enjoy what I do but not as much as what I could be doing, if that makes
sense.

------
geff82
If I got rich, I would do the following: try to work "as I want". That means:
shorter days in my most active time (like 10-4pm), go on vacation with my
family often (in a rhythm of 6 weeks work - 2 weeks vacation). I think, for me
the main point of being rich is not to work no more - but to know I don't have
to. Maybe I would even work better then with that peace of mind.

~~~
kross
This is almost exactly what I have done. I took enough time off to accept the
change, lose the working habit, and shed the rest of that identity. I came to
find I love working in tech. Sometimes I work long hours when I'm enjoying the
problem solving struggle, sometimes I just take off and go racing. To each his
own.

------
codeddesign
I believe this is a case where words don't reflect actual emotions. Many work
because they have to in order to survive. However, when you know longer need
to work it becomes a "hobby" in which you enjoy rather than an essential. You
have your pick of what you want to do and how you want to do it. Completely
different mentalities that the word "work" doesn't completely convey.

------
n00b101
"I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study
Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and
Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation,
Commerce, and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study
Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry, and Porcelaine."
(John Adam, 1780)

------
gloriousduke
Sometimes I feel like work is the meaning life. From a certain
(simplified/badly poetic) view, living existence exists just to, and because
it can, battle against the 2nd Law of Thermondynamics, and that sort of just
trickles all the way up to our complex social existence. If you're only
increasing entropy by hanging out and resting on your laurels (again,
simplified), rather than making/creating, you're sort of waste from the
aforementioned perspective.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life)

------
throwaway2016a
Sounds like it is about 50:50 here for people who would go back to work and
people who think it's nuts.

My personal plan incase anyone cares:

1\. Take a lot of time to take care of things I've neglected like my health.
Honestly, I would be working out a hour a day and trying out lots of new
recipes.

2\. Once I'm in the best shape of my life. Take my family someplace nice for
vacation so I can show off my new beach body ;) joking, about the beach body
part not the vacation

3\. Start turning my side project ideas into actionable ideas.

------
lazyjones
Why would anyone be surprised? Most people who strike it rich weren't working
for the money anyway, so their incentives aren't going away. The question is
whether (and how much) money will make the prospect of spending it instead of
working for the rest of their lives more attractive than what made them work
(presumably hard) in the first place...

------
ohstopitu
if i had so much money that I'd never have to work again, I'd probably do the
following:

1\. quit my day job and travel the world (and I mean all over - south america,
middle east and so on).

2\. get a couple of houses (one for my parents, and another for me)

3\. start contributing back to the community (If i get that kind of money,
It's probably because I would have IPOd or sold my business - in which case, I
would love to work on open source - no strings attached - MIT).

4\. buy a few toys (cars and what not) that I've always wanted.

5\. leave the rest for my kids/family/future.

------
norea-armozel
I think I'd be surprisingly busy and happy if I was financially free of 9-to-5
work. Especially considering that my biggest hurdles to my own personal
happiness are naturally expensive (gender transition isn't cheap). Having
those things covered on top of not worrying about my rent would take a load
off my mind. It would mean I could look at doing work that feels meaningful to
me. Maybe I would go back to college and get a degree in physics and maybe try
to do research. Or maybe I'd continue with my work in programming but do it
for a non-profit on a smaller salary. In any case, I would be freed up from
chasing career choices if I knew the bare minimum was assured. That and I
would probably try to explore the world because I've literally never left the
country not even to go be an annoying tourist (like most) in Paris. It would
be nice to see what the rest of the world is like before I die.

------
imgabe
The argument is that money is uncorrelated to "job-satisfaction" which is
believable, but using that to somehow conclude that you'd keep chasing "job-
satisfaction" after no longer needing a job doesn't make any sense.

Of course there are plenty of other things that can make a well-paying job
unpleasant. But the very idea of "job-satisfaction" presupposes a job in the
first place. Why would anyone who didn't need a job care about how satisfying
a particular job is? There are many ways to achieve a sense of self-worth
besides grinding away in a cubicle to make someone else rich.

~~~
btkramer9
> There are many ways to achieve a sense of self-worth besides grinding away
> in a cubicle to make someone else rich.

I kind of read it that many people don't know of any other way to achieve a
sense of self worth. They've worked for so long and it has become such a big
part of their identity that they don't know what else to do with their time.

------
gnicholas
I'm surprised more folks aren't mentioning spending time to raise kids. If my
startup were suddenly acquired, I'd certainly spend a lot more time with mine.
This would be partly to educate and enrich them, and partly to support my
wife's career (pre-tenure professor at demanding institution). I'd probably
pursue side projects and go back to working full-time at some point, but I'd
spend the bulk of my time working/playing/volunteering/traveling with my kids.

------
mianos
Same for me. I retired at 42. Once I spent the first few years with my new
daughter the misses got sick of me having too much fun at home and kicked me
back to work after just over four years of retirement. The only difference
between now and then is my tolerance of fools. I have been working for start-
ups as a senior engineer and like work as much as ever. People do treat you
quite differently if they have no strings attached to you. Mainly pros, some
cons.

------
petercooper
I could perhaps sell my company for a retire-able amount in a few years but
I'd just move on to another business anyway.. so why not instead develop my
staff to run the current business independently of me, so I can do whatever I
want anyway, but still own something for the long term? I'd be interested to
hear from entrepreneurs who've wrestled with this one and came down on one
side or the other :-)

~~~
devoply
Why because even then business needs managing. It's not going to manage
itself. Even if you have a staff trained to try to take care of business, they
will fail, and fail often enough that you have to intervene or your business
will be out of business in a year. People are difficult. Really difficult. And
outside of that the market is difficult, really difficult. It's always
changing, and you have to change your company to adapt or it will die.

~~~
padobson
One of the best measures of quality of a company is how well it does after its
founder dies/leaves. If your company can't run without you, you weren't
building a company, you were building a job.

~~~
kross
Agreed. But this doesn't mean you won't feel compelled to intervene and add
value in difficult situations. I chose to cash out instead of continuing with
the heavy burden of risking my net worth every day due to this. How is my old
company doing? Fantastic, exactly because I focused on building a company and
not a job. This is just to say that these two comments aren't mutually
exclusive.

------
misotaur
Very interesting,I wonder how would this tie into a possible basic income
scenario?Or the incentives of rich people are different from the average
Joe`s?

~~~
abrookewood
Well, the wealthiest people I know are all very motivated. I'm not surprised
that they don't stop working completely.

------
throwaway43564
I can add a different take -- I inherited a big chunk of assets a number of
years ago. As opposed to a lot of tech cashouts, this included a family
company, commercial office space and an investment portfolio. A big difference
between myself and others in the thread is that I've had a lot of exposure to,
and interest in, asset management.

I stayed with my corporate job for about a year, but ultimately the effort of
playing board member to the family company and making informed investment
decisions about the rest clashed with amount of work they wanted from me as I
kept rising at my corporate job. When I told them I was leaving, they offered
me a big raise and to double the team under me. I countered by asking for
part-time and, if they wanted, a smaller team or none at all. Ultimately that
didn't work for them, they needed a creative and driven manager, not a good
but expensive individual contributor.

Like a lot of people, I took the next year off, convinced my girlfriend to
quit her job too and we traveled. But I'm back to work these days, not a in
normal job though -- I really think of myself as a full time investor.

I think there's a big thing people miss in this situation is that they can't
see the forest for the trees. You have so many opportunities to create jobs,
create products, create places to live, or drive charitable change when you
have a lot of assets. Why work 2000+ hours per year in a normal job just to
add a drop in the bucket? There's a lot of spilled ink in the linked article
and elsewhere talking about, roughly, Maslow's theory of self-actualization
and how you can get there doing your old job or similar. Jeez, you finally got
to the pot of gold and now you're out of ideas? Swing for the fences, or at
least, try and hit a few singles. And the best part is you can spend 8 or 80
hours a week doing it, you're in charge after all.

Me? I'm going Warren Buffet style from here on out. Sure I doubt I'll ever be
a famous investor, but I'd love to take the amount I have and turn it into a
lot more. My long term goal is to shore up the future generation in my family
before I give the rest away. I think the happiness maximizing amount of work
for each person varies, but for me I know it's more than zero.

------
greggman
For me it would really depend on how rich and what you define as work. There
are lots of projects I would like to fund, supervise, produce, etc that with
10s of millions in the bank I would. I think I'd end up pretty busy.

------
iUsedToCode
I retired at 25 due to startup and some inheritance. Being free all the time
can be depressing and i began to look for challenges. It's not so easy if you
don't "need" to go through all the bullshit and hard work that gives you
results in the long run.

So now i'm focused on social issues. Fixing small social problem arising due
to bad laws with a bit of automation. I'm on my second startup (or rather NGO)
in that area and it brings me a lot of satisfaction.

But not having to do stuff can be sometimes as hard as having to do stuff.

------
chiefalchemist
Re: “I just felt unhappy at the lack of structure and not knowing what my
purpose in life was. My skills were deteriorating and I was finding it
difficult to interact with other people intellectually,” says Keith, now in
his mid-thirties. “There’s a higher reason why we all go to work.”

So as automation / AI creates a larger and larger class of the permanently
unemployed, what does this statement mean to them? And to us (i.e., fellow
citizens, unemployed or not).

This was THE BIGGEST issue of the election that never was. We're extremely
unprepared. Again.

~~~
GFischer
One huge substitute is games: I know several permanently unemployed people who
while away all the time on online games - there are some really addictive ones
out there, the ones I know are hooked on League of Legends or DOTA or other
games with e-sports, which give a substitute feeling of achievement (and it
can be a real one if they get to the pro scene).

It's a huge problem in Japan:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori)

And in other countries (not as big in mine, but it's growing):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET)

------
jetti
I've thought about this a lot, though I'm not planning on getting that kind of
money any time soon. My plan would be to invest a lot of the money and then go
back to school. I'd get a couple more master degrees as well as try for a PhD.
I love learning and not having debt would make it better. On top of that, I
would work freelance/consulting as a developer. I love programming and that is
what makes me happy so I wouldn't want to stop doing that.

------
tedmiston
> When Keith, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, worked at a technology company
> that went public, he became rich _overnight_.

Where overnight is defined as 5+ years building up the value of the company so
the equity is worth something.

Reminds me of the Mark Cuban quote:

"It doesn't matter how many times you fail. You only have to be right once and
then everyone can tell you that you are an overnight success."

------
rdlecler1
If most smart and educated people in the west work, then quitting that world
effectively cuts you off from those interactions. Think bout if you'd rather
have every Saturday off or every Wednesday? First and foremost we're social
creatures and we do what it takes to stay involved within a social society.

------
kensai
Let me be filthy rich overnight and I promise I will give the article some
thought! :p

------
elorant
I don't know about working but no matter how much money I/will have I'll
always write code. Even if it is for solving trivialities in my everyday life
with no hope of commercializing them.

------
kmonsen
I would still work, but probably not at the same job I have now (which is also
my early retirement plan, I will still work just less and in a more relaxed
environment).

------
jlebrech
if you get rich doing something you like, why not just start another venture
with something you actually love.

------
jlebrech
and even if you're a billionaire on paper you have to manage those investment
so that they cash out at the right moment. you can't just quit doing
everything. at that level it's a reverse debt where you (or pay someone to)
have to chase everyone for money

------
zem
interesting. i like to think that i would quit my job and just work on open
source projects, but the article makes some good points about not being really
challenged to work past the bits that aren't fun and easy without some
external motivator.

------
hayd
Alternatively: he's depressed but work provides sufficient distraction.

------
known
aka
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

------
necessity
Why was this removed?

------
branchless
Sounds like Keith needs a personality transplant. Loss of status! Learn to
play an instrument. Read Zola. Leave the uk!

------
ktRolster
I wish the article quoted statistics on how many rich people actually quit
(and I mean really rich, not $5million, which isn't really enough to retire
comfortable for life these days).

~~~
johnwheeler
If you had $5M, you could buy 87719 shares of Wells Fargo at market rates.
Those would yield .38 per share quarterly or $133,333 annually. You'd likely
get annual dividend increases and wind up with around $13M if you compounded
at a rate of 5% for 20 years. That assumes no dividend reinvestments--and 5%
is conservative. It could be as high as 10%. In that case you'd have over $33M
at the end.

Sure, you'd want to diversify, but I'm just making the case that it's more
than enough to live off of for the rest of your life.

You could also buy 4 or 5 McDonalds restaurants or 20-25 houses and watch them
appreciate while living off rental income.

~~~
gambiting
Sure, but that's super ultra boring, and it doesn't improve your life in any
way right this second. But...you could go and buy yourself that $1M house in a
nice area. And a nice car for you and your partner. And mum's house needs
fixing, we can do full remodeling. A friend has a business idea, let's chuck
some money his way. Or better yet, let's invest some of that money into a
cupcake business you always wanted to open.

Then poof, 2 years later that money is all gone.

Like, I seriously doubt that my first thought after winning the lottery would
be to go and talk to an investment banker.

~~~
Already__Taken
I'm pretty sure when you win the lottery they make you sit down and talk with
an investment banker...

