The thing tied to the dictionary shared by the people here - SAFEs, pre-seeds, Sand Hill Road - has shifted.
~Ten years ago SF and the Valley represented the opportunity to meet quirky people, have smart fun, build something and maybe get an order or two magnitudes richer than your parents.
Now Paul Graham is lecturing Oxford students about how you can become a billionaire in 9 months.
It's all gotten insane.
I used to respect him, have his book in print and now I feel like everything he and his world represents is shifting further and further away from what I consider a disciplined, virtuous life.
I no longer want to play their game.
Having a YC badge on my front page has turned from something I longed for to an idea that's oddly cringe now.
You didn’t answer my other question, but I still wanted to return to this point.
Consider two scenarios:
1. Chimp A does a task, gets a token, gives the token to a human, and gets cucumber in return.
2. Chimp A does a task, gets a token, gives the token to a human, and gets cucumber in return. Chimp B does the same thing but gets a grape instead.
In which scenario is Chimp A better off? Answer: neither. He gains the same amount in each case.
Now consider your future:
1. You start a company, sell things people want, profit, sell the company for $2½ million after taxes, and retire with financial security (assuming you have some financial discipline).
2. You start a company, sell things people want, profit, sell the company for $2½ million after taxes, and retire with financial security (assuming you have some financial discipline) and Elon Musk has a net worth (on paper) of a trillion dollars?
See how in both cases you have gained the same thing? Don’t let your envy of Elon Musk cause you to lose out on something that would be good for you. The chimp loses his head and throws the cucumber at the researcher who was unfair to him, but you can be better than that.
The way I see it, you have five basic options:
1. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you work for someone else, earn a salary, live paycheck to paycheck, and retire penniless.
2. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you work for someone else, earn a salary, save ~50% of your income, and retire with millions (exact figure depends on your age, your exact savings rate, and how many kids you send to college).
3. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you start a company, work hard for a few years, go bankrupt, then start over.
4. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you start a company, work hard for a few years, succeed, sell it, and then retire with millions.
5. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you start a company, work hard for years, never quite have enough yearly revenue to sell the company, but still manage to pay yourself a salary and save for retirement, and then retire with millions.
Just to belabor the point, Elon Musk’s net worth doesn’t really affect the outcome you get.
1.) You are average, get exploited and retire penniless.
2.) You are in the small minority whose knowledge is valued highly enough by the market that they're not predestined to become part of the precariat and might have some pennies by the end of their lives.
3.) You are part of the small circle that has the resources to start over.
4.) You win at capitalism.
5.) You provide a service, live a normal life, enjoy the fruits of it.
I am lucky enough to not be option 1. Most (most!) people aren't.
Elon's wealth doesn't affect my wallet directly. However, % of total wealth owned by his caste obviously does affect the % remaining to the ~8 billion people not in hist caste.
I have friends who are great at their trade, but it's somehow not marketable, and mine or yours might as well not be, nobody really knows what's happening to our industry in the next few years. I don't consider myself one bit more valuable than my poet friend whose yearly revenue is about the same as the monthly salary I can get today.
And I find it bizarre that #4 is somehow considered a better goal than #5. The dream is to build something that gets sold to someone with more capital, thus concentrating their power even more? We celebrate stories where a trillionaire behemoth buys up your startup? Are we really only building stuff where we want an exit?
What about finding an entrance to something that's enriching in a way that's worth doing long time? Finding some kind of meaning? The way great writers often publish their best work after they're 70?
I do want financial freedom, but financial freedom is also tied to being able to do something meaningful, about serving my community, not about sipping mai tais while the rest of the world is drinking polluted water.
> 2.) You are in the small minority whose knowledge is valued highly enough by the market that they're not predestined to become part of the precariat and might have some pennies by the end of their lives.
No, I think most wage–earners save far less than they could, as a percentage of their salary. They spend too much on commuting, on short–term pleasures like sweets or drinks, unproductive expenses like new cars, etc, etc. I count myself in this category, because I had long ago planned to retire last year in 2025 (or to be financially able to retire, even if I didn’t actually retire). Now that 2025 is here and gone I find that I’m not quite there yet, and probably need another four or five years to realistically retire. I had a plan, but didn’t follow it well enough. Most people don’t even have the plan.
> 3.) You are part of the small circle that has the resources to start over.
I think this is far easier in most cases than you realize, even outside the USA. Starting over might just mean getting a normal job and executing option #2. Even if you have to fully declare bankruptcy (which with proper planning you should not have to do even if your company fails), you can still just get a job and save your money.
> Elon's wealth doesn't affect my wallet directly. However, % of total wealth owned by his caste obviously does affect the % remaining to the ~8 billion people not in hist caste.
This is the wrong way to look at it! Elon Musk, or really SpaceX, created that wealth out of thin air! He didn’t gain a paper net–worth of a trillion dollars by subtracting money from everybody else, but by creating it. The pie got bigger, and our shares of it are the same size they always were. The SpaceX IPO involved selling stock in exchange for $75 billion in cash, all given to them voluntarily by people who want a piece of SpaceX’s future earnings. It’s only worth a trillion dollars to Elon Musk because he owns a lot of SpaceX stock, and we are assuming that he could somehow sell it all at the same price. We all know that ultimately he couldn’t really do that, right? Most of that trillion is imaginary money. If SpaceX does really well over the next decade or two then it will gradually become real money.
> And I find it bizarre that #4 is somehow considered a better goal than #5. The dream is to build something that gets sold to someone with more capital, thus concentrating their power even more? We celebrate stories where a trillionaire behemoth buys up your startup? Are we really only building stuff where we want an exit?
Sure, you’re not the only one who gets annoyed at that. That’s _why_ I put option #5 in there. You can have a completely successful company that you simply run for the rest of your life, rather than selling and getting the money as a lump sum.
But you have to admit that lots of people like the idea of retiring early, and selling a company is one way to do that.
> What about finding an entrance to something that's enriching in a way that's worth doing long time? Finding some kind of meaning? The way great writers often publish their best work after they're 70?
Keep in mind that what has meaning might not be a 9–5 job, even at a company you personally run. Running the company might be a life–long job and still only be a means to an end that has more meaning. Option #5 might be satisfying, but might not be the place you find meaning in life. Option #4 might realistically provide a better chance at giving you that meaning simply by giving you more time to accomplish something meaningful. The writer who publishes his best work after 70 did not start writing at 70 years old. They started _much_ earlier.
> not about sipping mai tais while the rest of the world is drinking polluted water.
It’s also a mistake to equate retiring early with ultra–wealth. For most people, retiring early means saving up enough money that your investments consistently bring in enough money that the interest is enough to pay you the same salary you had while you were working. For example, you might earn $100k/year and save half of it, aiming to retire when the interest can bring in at least the same $50k that you actually lived on before your retirement (adjusted for inflation, of course). If you want to spend more during your retirement years then you’ll have to work longer. To get ultra–wealth you’ll have to create that wealth, and creating a huge company is the best way to do it. Creating one that merely pays you a salary isn’t going to do it. My barber is a nice guy and has built a reasonably successful business, but I don’t think he’s going to retire to a beach resort.
The thing tied to the dictionary shared by the people here - SAFEs, pre-seeds, Sand Hill Road - has shifted.
~Ten years ago SF and the Valley represented the opportunity to meet quirky people, have smart fun, build something and maybe get an order or two magnitudes richer than your parents.
Now Paul Graham is lecturing Oxford students about how you can become a billionaire in 9 months.
It's all gotten insane.
I used to respect him, have his book in print and now I feel like everything he and his world represents is shifting further and further away from what I consider a disciplined, virtuous life.
I no longer want to play their game.
Having a YC badge on my front page has turned from something I longed for to an idea that's oddly cringe now.