Fuck you, Money

I was always someone who made more money than I could figure out how to spend. Even when I was a starving grad student. Then my wife and I grew up, we had kids, and she got injured.

Do you have any idea how much it costs for full-time childcare when you're working and your wife is unable to take care of the kids? (Luckily most of the medical bills were taken care of by worker's comp, and now medical insurance. Not all, but most.)

Family could be a great help in a situation like mine, but you can't choose your family, and in our case that hasn't worked out.

Actually long before the point of becoming a startup founder and possibly making to "fuck you money", you can ask that question.

Other options prior to "fuck you money" that I've considered, and having worked in a startup still might make me enjoy my life more (while working at a good "wage-slave job" 9-5)

1) Building a boat. It wouldn't be worthwhile economically, but it sure would be fun.

2) Dropping out of society and becoming a ski bum, and doing absolutely nothing every single day but ski. (did it, it was really fun, but eventually it becomes boring)

3) Working for a big established company on research that wouldn't be possible at a startup (crazy thought I know, but sometimes the big companies actually have advantages)

4) Going down the ph.D. route and becoming a professor

5) Skipping all of it and being a high school teacher and inspiring youth the way I was inspired, and coding FOSS stuff at nights and during the summer

All of them lead to meaningful and fun lives in the manner that working on stupid web app designed to sell some ad impressions so I can make 8 million bucks of "fuck you money" just doesn't, at least for me.

Now a startup that actually changes the world, well I'd do that for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with "fuck you money".

How about "fuck you living", as in, I get to do what I want and say fuck you to anyone who says otherwise (including this guy), and it has nothing to do with how much money I have in the bank. It all comes down to the decisions you make.

This is clearly written by someone who's never spent time living on less than $5 per day.

There is a "binary phase change" at $1/day and another at $2/day.

Earning less than $1/day, like over 1 BILLION people do, is a constant struggle for survival. The moment you earn over $1 day, the most basic needs of food and water are much more likely to be met.

There's another phase change at $2/day, at which point shelter becomes a real option and survival rates increase significantly.

I know this isn't an article on international development, but don't bring up the Malian subsistence farmer if you think his life is somehow just as easy as that of a $100,000k "wage slave".

My father got sick and died last fall. For that whole time period, my bank account (which had been monotonically increasing since I got my job) just stayed flat and even decreased a bit. Airline tickets are remarkably expensive when you're flying between coasts every couple of weeks and often don't know the days when you'll need to jet out. Plus I wasn't working for much of that period; I'm lucky that my employer has a generous family leave policy that continues to pay, though at a reduced salary.

The point of this thread, though, is that what could've been a financial disaster was merely a financial inconvenience. I was set back by roughly a quarter financially; big whoop. If I'd been living paycheck-to-paycheck, I'd have to dig myself out of debt for a while afterwards, or worse, wouldn't have been able to go home when my family needed me.

That's the type of security I'm talking about here. For many people in America, a family medical emergency means that they're screwed. Their life completely comes apart, and if they ever manage to dig their way out, it can take decades. That's not the case - or shouldn't be the case - for most people working in technology, where most jobs come with health insurance and salaries are well above the median. You can cover the vast majority of emergencies with a few tens of thousands in the bank, and knowing that you have the security of being able to do so is often worth a lot more than other uses for those few tens of thousands.