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

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

#51

Post by sreitshamer » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:01 PM UTC

jacksoncarter wrote: post #31

aaronsw wrote: post #6

In the short-term, my life was much worse. I spent a lot of really painful time struggling to come to grips with my situation. After that was over, things went pretty much back to normal. There's now a low-level fear all the time of losing all the money (something PG's written about recently) and I'm constantly worried I've invested it badly. I didn't make any dramatic life changes so people don't really treat me dif…

Did you tend to worry a lot before you had the money? You mention the misery is consistent. Is worry part of that. I think coming into money is pretty much like losing a limb or experiencing a tragedy. After a certain period of time, the person who has experienced the tragedy goes back to where they were, mentally, before the tragedy. Same with lots of money, eventually they return to their norm.

Lots of money brings lots of freedom, which can bring a lot of instability/chaos. You lose all the structure that you had from the constraints of working for a living. If the instability (and resultant stress) is too much, going back to "the way you were" could be a relief.

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

#52

Post by gregwebs » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:06 PM UTC

Elite wrote: post #22

noahlt wrote: post #17

Was the term "FU money" coined by Neal Stephenson, or was it in use before he wrote Cryptonomicon?

I'm pretty sure Nassim Nicholas Taleb wasn't the source, but I first heard the term from him.

His explanation was pretty good, roughly: you can say FU while you are still on the phone with someone instead of after you hang up.

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

#53

Post by lisper » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:07 PM UTC

> Has your life changed in unexpected ways?

Not really. The most unexpected thing is how much the same life is after FU money than before. The main difference is that a lot more people line up to try to take your money from you. One way or another you pretty much have to deal with the same old shit.

> Has there been any change in the way you interact with strangers?

I probably feel a little less insecure, especially when I talk to other people with money. But I don't think anything else has changed, at least I hope not.

> Has the number of things you have to endure increased or decreased?

The number of things I have to endure has definitely decreased. In particular, I don't have to stress out over making the choice between "enduring" a job that I hate or going without a salary. But other problems have arisen to replace those. I call these "nice problems to have", but they are still problems.

> And is "FU money" all its cracked up to be? e.g., is your life an order of magnitude more enjoyable now, or is it pretty much the same etc?

Neither. Life is definitely better with FU money, but it is no panacea. FU money gives you extra options, but the fundamentals have not changed: you are still faced every morning with a choice of what to do with the resources you have at hand. And even FU money has limits. It's amazing how fast you can learn exactly where those limits are.

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

#54

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:10 PM UTC

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.

Spot on. I probably should cross the rivers more often, but hey, two trains. I'm actually not complaining about difficulty getting laid; it's easy enough that it's gotten boring. The real difficulty is finding girls you want to do more than sleep with.

Incidentally, Brooklyn is hardly a panacea. A girl in Brooklyn once kicked me out of her apt at 3AM after, while discussing life I accidentally revealed the size of my savings ("enough to travel around India for a few months"). (This was when I was an academic.) While Brooklyn is certainly better than Hoboken, there is no shortage of "artistic" types hoping to meet a guy with enough money that she can live the "bohemian" life without ever suffering materially or worrying about selling her art (and similar stories).

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

#55

Post by acgourley » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:12 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #42

mattmaroon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not for money, it's for security. It's really no worse than what guys do.

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

#56

Post by lisper » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:23 PM UTC

icey wrote: post #37

kloncks wrote: post #36

Sorry, but what does "FU money" mean?

"Fuck You" money - enough money that you can tell anyone you want to fuck off and not have to worry about not being able to pay your bills as a result.

There's an important thing to realize about FU money: it does not make telling people to fuck off cost-free. Telling someone to fuck off is an indulgence, and it is not free of cost no matter how much money you have. Having FU money simply means you can afford this indulgence. But one of the many problems that comes from having this kind of money is that now you have to make this choice. When you can't afford something, it's a no-brainer. When you can afford it, you actually have to think about it and take responsibility for the result of your decision.

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

#57

Post by orborde » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:25 PM UTC

This is a stupid thread. It's addressing a problem that most HN readers would love to have, but don't, so it's simply a bunch of pleasant daydreaming, not a useful discussion of how to solve a real problem.

I understand that people on HN want to be rich; I'd rather see an HN filled with articles that help materially in getting there, not one talking about how great (or not?) it is to be rich.

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

#58

Post by mattmaroon » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:46 PM UTC

acgourley wrote: post #55

yummyfajitas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not for money, it's for security. It's really no worse than what guys do.

It's really not worse at all, both are just people doing what they evolved to do. Society frowns upon it more so many of them feel they have to be coy about it.

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

#59

Post by ttol » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:46 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #54

starkfist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Spot on. I probably should cross the rivers more often, but hey, two trains. I'm actually not complaining about difficulty getting laid; it's easy enough that it's gotten boring. The real difficulty is finding girls you want to do more than sleep with. Incidentally, Brooklyn is hardly a panacea. A girl in Brooklyn once kicked me out of her apt at 3AM after, while discussing life I accidentally revealed the size of my…

Haha, what did she say to kick you out?

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

#60

Post by brown9-2 » Tue, Jul 13, 2010, 4:46 PM UTC

warfangle wrote: post #32

rdl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?).

That's mainly NJ guido-style greed. There are definitely areas of NYC where the predominant culture is, "are you doing something interesting/neat/cool" instead of, "are you working for Goldman Sachs;" be it art, programming, music, technology, food, whatever. The key, of course, is to make what you do sound sexy ;). In some areas, dropping an employer name like Goldman might even get you scorned.

I think we should probably all abstain from pretending that "dating" in entire cities or states can be summed up so easily, or that it's even a topic that can be distilled into such a short description of general traits. One bad experience certainly doesn't label them all.