They do.
The three faces in the picture at the top of the article are famous billionaire outliers. Plenty of modestly wealthy people (say net worth of >$5M) lead lives of complete leisure.
Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
31–40 of 152 posts
Re: Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
#32Because it's not working that sucks. It's having to work that sucks.
Nicely summed up.
Re: Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
#33rich people get rich from other people's work. so if the rich "work" it's to pretend that that isn't the arrangement; to maintain the illusion that they work for their money rather that owning the surplus value created by their workers.
This reads like rich people fan fiction. Is there any evidence backing this?
Re: Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
#34LeBron has plenty of money. Why is he still playing basketball? :)
Maybe he enjoys playing basketball.
Re: Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
#35Because being somewhat of a workaholic or craving power / money / achievement is how they got to be wealthy in the first place. This is roughly akin to asking "why don't strong and fit people stop going to the gym?"
But unlike going to the gym, acquiring a certain level of wealth gives you the means to continue to accumulate wealth. At the point that you're worth $10MM, you could live an upper middle class existence indefinitely with even a fairly pedestrian set of investments.
Sure, you could, but the point is that they have a worldview which prioritizes work and achievement which is why they keep pushing. The work / achievement / resource obtainment is the goal itself, not quality of life as others would define it.
Re: Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
#36It will never cease to amaze me how much people project their own feelings about work and life onto others.
Just because ~you~ hate ~your~ work and can't see value in it beyond [money, status, narcissism, power, etc] doesn't mean that's how everyone else values work and the other parts of life. Sheesh.
Re: Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
#37Because they've had it too good for too long and then it's rather hard to imagine what life would be after moving to the middle of nowhere, to have to cook yourself, to drive a boring car, to cut social connections with interesting and influential people and stay encapsulated in your family instead, etc.
Re: Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
#38The answer is always classes, folks. Because once you become a millionaire for the first time, you leave the middle class and realize that you are actually quite poor amongst the millionaire class , so you have to keep working to climb through the ranks of millionaires. It's a recursive algorithm, you see.
That answer seems to fail when you look at 2/3 examples just from the masthead (Musk and Zuckerberg). It's possible you could look at your ability to buy literally anything on the planet and feel jealous someone else's infinity is higher than yours, but that seems unlikely.
Musk isn't really limiting himself to buying things just on this planet.
Re: Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
#39I remember when I visited the CEO's office at my first "real" job. I was sitting with my boss waiting for the CEO to show up to his massive (quiet) office with comfortable furnature, secretary who was busy organizing his personal and professional life (she asked us about gifts for his grand kids since we "knew computers"), drinks and food at the ready nearby...
I said something like "Man I would find work pretty dang nice if I was up here".
My boss said something like "Yeah but these guys work all the time."
I couldn't help but think... yeah it would still be pretty easy to work all the time in this environment.
That's not to say they're not stressed or etc, but if you have the option to work comfortably ... I can see why you might continue to work if your conditions are good.
Meanwhile I go back to my cube with constant noise, folks looking over my shoulder, planning business my trip in regular people class (not 1st) and so on.
These folks aren't "just working" they didn't take up a job at McDonald's... they choose to work in a different world too I suspect.
Re: Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?
#40The answer is always classes, folks. Because once you become a millionaire for the first time, you leave the middle class and realize that you are actually quite poor amongst the millionaire class , so you have to keep working to climb through the ranks of millionaires. It's a recursive algorithm, you see.
Maybe that is a motivation for some of them, but not all of them.
It's certainly not a motivation for billionaires like Elon Musk, who seemed singularly driven by his life mission.