Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

seattle20.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 230 posts

Re: Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

#21

Post by GavinB »

enjo wrote: post #6

Of course it's not ok. At some level getting rich is a life-or-death issue. How do I get enough money to retire? How can I possibly afford health-care? What if I or my lovely wife get cancer? The reality is, the later years of your life are going to be significantly more secure and happier if you make a lot of money.

There's a difference between "getting rich" enough to be able to retire and handle health issues and building an empire.

All of the possibilities you mention are much more likely to be handled by a) Good budgeting b) A solid career as an employee or an independent contractor

The reason to start your own business is because you want the challenge, and the satisfaction of building something important.

If you have a desperate need to have a few million in the bank, your best shot is to to get a good job, learn about investment, and start living cheaply.

Re: Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

#23

Post by [deleted] »

enjo wrote: post #6

Of course it's not ok. At some level getting rich is a life-or-death issue. How do I get enough money to retire? How can I possibly afford health-care? What if I or my lovely wife get cancer? The reality is, the later years of your life are going to be significantly more secure and happier if you make a lot of money.

[deleted]

Re: Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

#24

Post by notahacker »

enjo wrote: post #6

Of course it's not ok. At some level getting rich is a life-or-death issue. How do I get enough money to retire? How can I possibly afford health-care? What if I or my lovely wife get cancer? The reality is, the later years of your life are going to be significantly more secure and happier if you make a lot of money.

Being rich is a sufficient, but not necessary condition for relative economic security in a developed country. It's perfectly OK to pay for your retirement and provide for your lovely wife by taking a standard career path from one salaried job to another.

You don't need to start a company to have enough money to retire. And of course if you choose to start a company you're trading increased likelihood of being severely short of funds at some stage in the short term for the possibility of being rich later in life.

How many founders on here can honestly say their main motivation is maximising their chances of survival in old age?

Re: Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

#25

Post by holdenc »

The path to starting a successful business is littered with advice like this. It's certainly not easy, and the price is typically high (relationships, time, health...) especially when starting from nothing. But from observation, it's obvious that for those who do make it, failure is not "okay."

Re: Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

#26

Post by akkartik »

pg wrote: post #13

In my experience, startup founders who want to get rich want it more in order to have the freedom to work on what they want than to impress people. That could be because we prefer startups whose founders include hackers. On the other hand, we don't just prefer that type because they're more fun to hang around with, but because in our opinion they're more likely to succeed.

On the one hand I don't need that much money to have freedom. I live frugally.

On the other hand I fear that I'm underestimating how much I need. Because the macroeconomy will be more challenging in the future than it has been in the past. And because we're often competing financially with our closest peers. If more people have successful startups in the bay area the price of housing and everything else will go up. National inflation matters less than regional inflation.

We know the rewards of living in a big city. But the cost of living in a big city grows over time, and faster than one thinks. Like the red queen, you end up having to run at some speed just to stay in the same place.

Re: Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

#27

Post by Sukotto »

We need the startup-founder version of this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXf8fr0Kp3Q (Depicts what goes into transforming a woman into a billboard image)

Not to convince us to stop trying... but to convince us to use a more reasonable metric than the one in 10,000,000 founder that makes a ginormous exit.

Re: Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

#28

Post by oconnore »

[deleted] wrote: post #22

[deleted]

You should have read to the 4th paragraph:

"My girlfriends and I are certainly driven to be successful; we want to be high achievers in our fields, and we stress over everything we haven’t yet accomplished, but no one’s especially concerned with getting rich. We hardly ever talk about money."

Re: Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

#29

Post by nickpinkston »

pg wrote: post #13

In my experience, startup founders who want to get rich want it more in order to have the freedom to work on what they want than to impress people. That could be because we prefer startups whose founders include hackers. On the other hand, we don't just prefer that type because they're more fun to hang around with, but because in our opinion they're more likely to succeed.

We just had this discussion yesterday at a StartupDrinks. I think the Darwinian notion says:

1.) We are hardwired to want things to attract mates. 2.) Power, Success, Prestige, Freedom, etc. are attractive. 3.) We want things that are derivative of such things, even if we consciously believe we want to benefit humanity, think it's, fun etc.

Conclusion: The mind has a way of aligning our conscious interests with our subconscious procreative ones. We need to recognize this, but we don't need to embrace the appetitive.

Re: Hey, Guys, It's Totally Okay If You Don't Get Rich

#30

Post by mquander »

oconnore wrote: post #28
[deleted] wrote: post #22

[deleted]

You should have read to the 4th paragraph: "My girlfriends and I are certainly driven to be successful; we want to be high achievers in our fields, and we stress over everything we haven’t yet accomplished, but no one’s especially concerned with getting rich. We hardly ever talk about money."

I agree with you so much that I deleted my original comment, because I unjustly ignored a lot of what the author was saying.
Post reply on HN