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

91–100 of 230 posts

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

#91

Post by clistctrl »

seldo wrote: post #80
clistctrl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak to myself, but I want to get rich not for a Lamborghini, but so I can start another company to truly make a difference. Personally I think the Gates foundation is going to have a longer lasting impact on the world then Microsoft has. Yes I realize how huge of an impact Microsoft has had.

Call me cynical, but I don't think 18-year-old Bill Gates had the Gates Foundation in mind when he started trampling over the competition in his rise to the top. He wanted to be rich and powerful (because frankly, with the looks and alleged personality of Bill Gates, how else was he going to get a date?). The Gates Foundation, worthy as it is, was something he only realized he wanted after he had achieved everything…

I agree this is probably true. However I think it still makes a great example.

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

#92

Post by raghava »

ttol wrote: post #20

An interesting article that talks about an entire nation's views on marriage, status, and success is: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2010-06/25/content_1001855... It is so ingrained that one of the women described her marital vision: "I'd rather be miserable sitting in a BMW than be happy riding a bicycle." It's no surprise that an extension of this is that the most desirable man, and bachelor, in China is the fou…

A similar story: http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-china-bache...

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

#93

Post by forgot_password »

I feel as if this problem is exacerbated in the tech community because your credibility comes from having a big exit. For example, Chris Dixon is definitely an insightful guy but would he be as widely consumed if he hadn't sold a company for millions of dollars?

The commenters seem to agree that freedom and independence are the only things worth coveting. In VC-talk a tech founder can usually get financial independence for life with a "double" However, its the guys who hit the home runs that are respected and looked up to, and I imagine that drives a lot of tech founders.

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

#94

Post by jimbokun »

kscaldef wrote: post #41
HockeyPlayer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be silly. She wrote that her friend, "could easily bring in a low six-figure income" If you save wisely, you can retire just fine after a career at a tech company making 2-3x the US median salary. And most companies have good health coverage for the cancer. She is talking about the pressure to make $10M or more through a startup, not getting the money to retire comfortably.

> And most companies have good health coverage for the cancer. Well... kinda. One of the dirty little secrets of employer-provided group health care is that when you have one person whose health care costs vastly exceed the average, there's enormous pressure to get that person out of the "group". I've know companies where someone got cancer and the premiums for the whole company doubled the next year.

This is a good economic explanation for why national health care systems should outperform employer based (or any other) systems. You can't get a larger pool of people to spread risk around, under a single legal framework, than an entire nation state.

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

#95

Post by sosuke »

zackattack wrote: post #90
sosuke wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Darn it you changed your reply after I replied, this still kind of applies. Edit again, you're reply is practically evolving every time I hit update. Being free and being broke is what I think his direct route is. You can say that the pan handlers have more or less freedom than a business owner, depends on how you define the words.

Yeah but very few people can successfully pull this off. The vast majority of broke people are still harboring some sort of grudge against society or someone from their past - it's like they have 99% of the inconveniences of abandoning materialism, but none of the benefit because they refuse to "go all the way" with it. In many ways intellectual freedom can only be found once material mastery has been achieved. There…

Way to much you, your and you're in that last sentence zachattack, I felt like you think I personally believe that is freedom. I don't believe in that codswallop at all I was just offering an interpretation of what he might have meant, much like his interpretation of freedom. Money is my means to the end and I won't stop till I've got enough.

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

#96

Post by jimbokun »

tansey wrote: post #74

Imagine you're in a big slot machine tournament with 150 competitors. Each player gets to pull one of two machines. One machine pays $1 every time. The other machine pays an average of $0 but has a variance of $50. Everyone gets 1 pull, the scores are tallied, and the bottom half of the players are out, and a new group is brought in to replace them. Which machine would you pull? The evidence[1] is pretty clear that i…

Except, today, high levels of wealth is inversely correlated with the number of offspring.

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

#97

Post by hyperbovine »

pg wrote: post #62
hyperbovine wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Mexican fisherman story. Sacrifice your freedom and happiness so that you can get rich so that you can have freedom and happiness. Why not just take the direct route?

Are you saying that there is some more direct route to working on what one wants? Or that the direct route to happiness is to give up such aspirations?

If your aspiration is simply to code interesting software projects all day long, I see no reason why being rich should be a prerequisite. Your expenses are minimal; you have no need of an office and can live anywhere. Will you require some money? Yes, and acquiring that will distract you slightly from the things you'd rather be doing. But that is a much better proposition, to me, than gambling away a decade or two of my best years on the remote chance to become wealthy and "completely" free.

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

#98

Post by xyzzyb »

iamwil wrote: post #38
plainOldText wrote: post #16

If this would be OK then HN would lose most of its users. :)))

Hardly, if HN attracts its intended audience--people that are intellectually curious about everything.

I'm not sure that's the HN audience. I came here looking to get away from the childishness of reddit, yet have found a new (and, hitherto to me, unknown) brand of childishness: the entitled startup programmer. Reddit was primarily populated by high school/college kids, but it definitely had a significant population besides that.

As far as I can tell, HN is much more of an extreme monoculture; and one I have to confess I'm rather disappointed in. Instead of thoughtful discourses and commentary from those looking to expand their worldview, it's a strong current of close-mindedness and superiority.

I'm sure that my brief glimpse into the culture of HN is woefully inaccurate and I may certainly have just unluckily gotten the wrong impression from the threads I've read; but I doubt it.

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

#99

Post by tedkimble »

pedalpete wrote: post #79
hyperbovine wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Mexican fisherman story. Sacrifice your freedom and happiness so that you can get rich so that you can have freedom and happiness. Why not just take the direct route?

I'm not familiar with the Mexican fisherman story (search didn't return anything). Was the Mexican fisherman toiling away on a fishing boat so he could become rich so he could have the freedom to spend his days fishing?

I believe your search required "jimmy johns" where the story is often on the wall.

http://pitchfevermusicacademy.blogspot.com/2008/06/great-sto...

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

#100

Post by krobertson »

pedalpete wrote: post #79
hyperbovine wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Mexican fisherman story. Sacrifice your freedom and happiness so that you can get rich so that you can have freedom and happiness. Why not just take the direct route?

I'm not familiar with the Mexican fisherman story (search didn't return anything). Was the Mexican fisherman toiling away on a fishing boat so he could become rich so he could have the freedom to spend his days fishing?

This was one reference to the story I'd found: http://bluehaert.wordpress.com/2006/05/02/story-the-business...

Basically, a businessman runs into a fisherman by the beach and is telling him how he should get a boat, a fleet, put in hard work to make a lot of money and then he can retire, take it easy, go fishing for a couple hours each day, etc. Then the fisherman says "Isn't that what I'm doing now?"

Being successful is vague. If your goal is to be happy rather than rich, your requirements are much simpler.

Post reply on HN