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Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

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Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#41

Post by mcantelon »

prog wrote: post #12

I won't say I am in the big league but I have enough to last me a couple of years if I stay comfortably. It is invested well so I am hoping that it will last longer. I also don't have any major outgoings like mortgages or rent. > * Has your life changed in unexpected ways? One change has been that I haven't worked for the last 2 years and don't plan to in the near future. I love programming so just spent my day worki…

>Social interaction is one thing I miss about having a job.

If you're in an urban center you might want to try a co-working space if one exists.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#42

Post by yummyfajitas »

mattmaroon wrote: post #23
kristiandupont wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been in NYC for the last two and a half months. Granted, that is not a long time, but I have met a lot of girls - even around the financial district - and I have not had similar experiences. No doubt these girls exist but I everywhere I have been there has always been plenty of sweet and genuine girls.

There's this sort of black-and-white distinction between "good girls" and "gold diggers" and it's entirely imaginary. I'll spare you the evolutionary psychology behind it (which is easy to find if you're interested) but all women care about a man's success (of which money is merely the most frequent, but not only, indicator) to a large degree. Saying a girl doesn't care about money is like saying a guy doesn't care a…

The difference between the two is honesty. A guy will tell a girl "I thought you were beautiful, and wanted to meet you". A girl will rarely say "I thought you were rich, and wanted to meet you."

For whatever reason, the vast majority of golddiggers are utterly dishonest about what they are really seeking. This leads men to get into bad relationships (which they would have avoided if the woman were honest), and they often lose big when their career doesn't turn out the way they hoped or when they want to downsize their job (e.g., quit the $300k/year corporate law job for an $85k/year public defender job).

I've got no problem with that rare girl who openly admits her desire to trade sex for money. I don't want a relationship with her, but I won't condemn her.

[edit: I'll similarly condemn a guy who lies to honest women to get them into bed. I'll giggle when a guy lies about money to sleep with dishonest golddiggers.]

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#44

Post by ttol »

manmanic wrote: post #38

I think about this all the time. I didn't make "FU money" from an exit, but rather from the ongoing success of a couple of online businesses, which have been earning me far more than I know how to spend. When this started happening, my initial reaction was to be perplexed, because I no longer had a financial motivation to get up in the morning and work. Money had been the most salient part of my motivation for as lon…

Where did you end up living? I'm facing a similar situation regarding my living situation. I live in the heart of Boston, but most of my close friends do not, and this does have an alienating effect. I've contemplated moving up north to andover (a rural town -- opposite of boston) to position myself closer to friends/family, but would have to give up the city life. This is one of my current issues that I'm mulling over... thoughts?

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#45

Post by zackola »

tsycho wrote: post #13

Eventually, it didn't change me much, but I do spend a bit more on cheap frivolous stuff (like http://store.xkcd.com/xkcd/#Sudo ). But then I have been through the cycle twice. Initially I was broke. When I got my first real job (after undergrad in India), I felt like I had all the money in the world. In the first few months, I bought myself a nice camera, motorbike, smartphone, gifts for family and my girlfriend, st…

This is not FU money. FU money is not worrying about having to work.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#46

Post by starkfist »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #8
jeb wrote: post #2

Pretty much the same life, the toys are just a bit bigger. One thing I've found though - girls don't care about the money in the bank. Maybe they care about if you drive a big car or something, but just spending a lot does not seem to result in the ladies being significantly more impressed. Interaction with other people is more of a i-don't-give-a-shit-who-you-are anymore. Take it or leave it is much easier. Life is…

One thing I've found though - girls don't care about the money in the bank. Wherever you are meeting girls, I want to go there. My experience in an NJ bar a week or two ago: I was talking with a coder friend of mine about my job. This was a geeky conversation with words like "latency", "queues" and "atomic operations", as well as "lost $BIGNUM in half a second", rather than a manly conversation about "parachuting int…

You went to a bar in... let me guess... Hoboken? That's where all the junior bankers and golddiggers live and hang out. In Brooklyn, nobody cares and you'll get laid LESS if you're a typical finance dildo. There are so many single women in NYC only complete losers and trolls cannot pull trim.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#47

Post by jaxn »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #26

The more I think about this -- really think about it -- the more I become convinced that anonymity and a small amount of recurring income, along with a reasonably-frugal life, is probably the best outcome in life. EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying to be poor. I'm saying that the more your income becomes visible -- past just having a low-key life -- the more it gets in the way of things, both for you and your fami…

As long as you are content there forever. Like the research says, once you take the worry about money out of the equation, money no longer becomes much of a motivator.

Kind of makes it hard to work or do other ventures.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#48

Post by starkfist »

rdl wrote: post #9
yummyfajitas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've found though - girls don't care about the money in the bank. Wherever you are meeting girls, I want to go there. My experience in an NJ bar a week or two ago: I was talking with a coder friend of mine about my job. This was a geeky conversation with words like "latency", "queues" and "atomic operations", as well as "lost $BIGNUM in half a second", rather than a manly conversation about "parachuting int…

This is a great point against living in NYC metro area. I doubt you'd suffer this in Boston (Academia seems to be the dominant life form), SFBA (tech; a trader would be a lot less sexy than the founder of a tech startup even pre-fu money), or Seattle or Portland (environmentalism? art? food?).

Uh, it's more of a great point against living in Hoboken. For dating purposes, NYC is the best place in the USA for a single man to live right now, regardless of social status.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#49

Post by YuriNiyazov »

starkfist wrote: post #46
yummyfajitas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've found though - girls don't care about the money in the bank. Wherever you are meeting girls, I want to go there. My experience in an NJ bar a week or two ago: I was talking with a coder friend of mine about my job. This was a geeky conversation with words like "latency", "queues" and "atomic operations", as well as "lost $BIGNUM in half a second", rather than a manly conversation about "parachuting int…

You went to a bar in... let me guess... Hoboken? That's where all the junior bankers and golddiggers live and hang out. In Brooklyn, nobody cares and you'll get laid LESS if you're a typical finance dildo. There are so many single women in NYC only complete losers and trolls cannot pull trim.

I must be doing something wrong. I moved to the Bay Area from Brooklyn and my success rate skyrocketed.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#50

Post by ahk »

prog wrote: post #12

I won't say I am in the big league but I have enough to last me a couple of years if I stay comfortably. It is invested well so I am hoping that it will last longer. I also don't have any major outgoings like mortgages or rent. > * Has your life changed in unexpected ways? One change has been that I haven't worked for the last 2 years and don't plan to in the near future. I love programming so just spent my day worki…

I'm pretty much in the same boat. Not really set up for life, just the next decade or so. It's been more than a year since I last faced the usual "office" issues. HN, reddit, slashdot, zerohedge, my twitter feed, stocks and my hobbies keep me occupied.

In any case, it's enabled me to step out of a regimented life, I'm going back to school for a masters in an interesting field and my hopes of making a significant contribution to the world have not died down yet :). I'm on track to accomplishing some life goals. Social interaction-wise, I've taken up a few language courses and find the people I meet there a lot more interesting than those from my previous life.

All in all, I'd say not having to worrying about money ( although I didn't worry much, earlier either) or the future is very nice and definitely very good health-wise.

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