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Why don't rich people do more awesome things?

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Why don't rich people do more awesome things?

#1

Post by peteforde »

I saw Paul Graham's post today (http://paulgraham.com/saveelan.html) about how someone should buy the building a restaurant he likes is located in. Isn't this sort of like a capable developer complaining to the core team of an open source project that they should implement a new feature. Why the heck doesn't he just buy it?

I don't mean to single out PG, who is a hero of mine. I'm more confused that this kind of thing seems to happen a lot: you'll see prominent, successful people mention that someone needs to raise $25k to X or $100k to Y, and I know that if I owned 5-8% of 300+ startups, I'd be cutting a lot of cheques.

Buying a car or a house in cash is showoff-y, singlehandedly saving a cause makes you a hero. Why doesn't this happen with regularity in SF and beyond?

Re: Why don't rich people do more awesome things?

#2

Post by creativeone »

Spending 25k is a sure thing, and you have insurance in case of an accident or loss. 25k into a startup that can't raise vc or angel money is very risky.

If you can make the individuals popular, let's say by getting a frontpage article of them, or naming your startup after them, the investor would get something besides a ling shot to make money. Don't forget that 9/10 startups don't make it.

Re: Why don't rich people do more awesome things?

#3

Post by printerjam »

I'm not going to defend PG, specifically, but you've got to realize that being a building owner/manager is a specific skill set. It takes a lot of time, too. Why would anyone who isn't passionate about commercial real estate put his money into it? It's kinda the principle of sticking to what one knows and is passionate about running/operating/building. In some way, Paul IS doing something awesome by putting his money where his mouth is AND mentoring entrepreneurs.

Re: Why don't rich people do more awesome things?

#5

Post by idanb »

Truly amazing things take a while to do. I think most people will attest to doing a bunch of experiments to test the waters before they dip into doing something crazy and hard for the long run.

Even that simple example of buying the diner so they add hash browns to the menu is a good example of that. Buying a building, not to mention one already occupied, is not exactly a 5 minute transaction. I think it just comes down to the fact that rich people tend to understand the relationships between time, money and potential returns.

Re: Why don't rich people do more awesome things?

#6

Post by checker »

idanb wrote: post #5

Truly amazing things take a while to do. I think most people will attest to doing a bunch of experiments to test the waters before they dip into doing something crazy and hard for the long run. Even that simple example of buying the diner so they add hash browns to the menu is a good example of that. Buying a building, not to mention one already occupied, is not exactly a 5 minute transaction. I think it just comes d…

Also, the time it takes to keep people accountable. It's very easy to be taken advantage of in any business relationship if there is a lack of oversight. My friend's cousin stole tens of thousands from his business over years before the paper trail caught up to her.

Re: Why don't rich people do more awesome things?

#8

Post by thaumaturgy »

I'm not about to second-guess PG, or any other single person. Maybe the capital they have isn't liquid enough; maybe they have other obligations; who knows?

And it's worth pointing out that doing more awesome things doesn't require wealth. Why don't more poor people clean up their neighborhoods? Why don't more startups choose to solve problems that would really improve peoples' lives?

We should never point our fingers at anyone else before looking hard at ourselves.

All that said, the accumulation of wealth tends to require a mindset change that is not conducive to working on awesome things unless there's a reasonable chance of those awesome things making even more money, in the future if not immediately.

For one example: I recently moved in to a house, which I'm renting, which was a real dump and eyesore in its neighborhood. It was located next door to a nice Victorian bed & breakfast; most of the places in the neighborhood were a lot better by comparison. In the last 7 months I've completely transformed the yards, repaired or replaced plumbing, put interior walls into the garage -- all out of my own pocket -- with the help of my friend & my girlfriend. We often get comments from others in the neighborhood; those with more money tend to ask us if we're planning to buy it, and those with less money tend to just express appreciation that we're doing it.

So there ya go.

Re: Why don't rich people do more awesome things?

#10

Post by kevin_morrill »

1) Merely possessing money does not mean you can necessarily deploy it efficiently to solve a problem. It requires, among other things, skilled human time and energy--a rare resource.

2) In an economy where trade is voluntary, rich people have already done awesome things in the first place to become wealthy. They offered a product, service or some kind of value of enough magnitude to get a lot of money from people.

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