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Gates to students: Don’t try to be a billionaire, it’s overrated

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Re: Gates to students: Don’t try to be a billionaire, it’s overrated

#11

Post by alexhaefner »

breckinloggins wrote: post #3

This was an important thing for me to read. For the past several years I have been trying hard to deprogram myself of the "richer is better" mindset. Part of my problem has been the assumption that richer people believe themselves to be better than those less rich, to the point that someone like Bill Gates would think less of someone who "only" had a couple million dollars. I'm slowly weaning myself off of this damag…

I find it increasingly bizarre, day by day, that people are so fixated on money and not value, or meaningfulness.

There's something about the way that money is discussed on HN that I find odd, but I haven't quite put my finger on it yet. Maybe it's that there can sometimes feel like a larger emphasis on politics or money than the things people have actually created... maybe. I'm not sure. I'm still working on figuring it out. Anyways, cheers to you!

Re: Gates to students: Don’t try to be a billionaire, it’s overrated

#12

Post by robryan »

pacaro wrote: post #8
hansy wrote: post #5

A million dollars isn't cool, you know what's cool? Not a billion dollars. But yeah I always wondered what the threshold of wealth is when you literally can do anything you want without any thought to how much.

Without trying to be fatuous, this depends on what "anything you want" means.... If you want to go to the bar and have a beer, you might already be rich. If you want to go to Mars, you might never be wealthy.

Yeah, there is definitely a limit to how much you can gain which is useful to spend purely on your own confort and entertainment. When you think of worthy projects you could contribute funds to though I don't think there is any limit to the amount of money that would be useful.

Re: Gates to students: Don’t try to be a billionaire, it’s overrated

#13

Post by davidjohnstone »

breckinloggins wrote: post #3

This was an important thing for me to read. For the past several years I have been trying hard to deprogram myself of the "richer is better" mindset. Part of my problem has been the assumption that richer people believe themselves to be better than those less rich, to the point that someone like Bill Gates would think less of someone who "only" had a couple million dollars. I'm slowly weaning myself off of this damag…

I found it interesting that Steve Jobs was worth "only" about $6B when he died, and more of that wealth came from Pixar than Apple. But, the driving force behind wealthy and successful people is very rarely money.

Re: Gates to students: Don’t try to be a billionaire, it’s overrated

#16

Post by qq66 »

davidjohnstone wrote: post #4

I'm not speaking from experience, but based on what I've read, this makes perfect sense. Happiness/life satisfaction doesn't improve with more money. You need enough money to be comfortable (i.e., a roof over your head and food on the table), but after that it has no effect. With $5M you buy an excellent house anywhere, send your kids to the best schools, drive a very nice car and have plenty of money left over for t…

What $5B gives you isn't more cars, it's the ability to finance anything that you find meaningful to you (public health for Bill Gates, movies with a message for Jeff Skoll, other startups for Reid Hoffman).

Re: Gates to students: Don’t try to be a billionaire, it’s overrated

#19

Post by toxic_madness »

Permit wrote: post #6

Anyone know if there's a recorded version of the talk I could watch? It sounded like an interesting event.

I am a UW student who went to this talk. It was an interesting event. I think Gates' response to the student who asked how to be rich was the most memorable part for me.

At the department website it says the talk will be archived, but the link doesn't seem to be active:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/events/billg_oct27_2011/

Re: Gates to students: Don’t try to be a billionaire, it’s overrated

#20

Post by bfe »

Billionaire-scale conspicuous consumption is certainly overrated. But Gates's own example shows how wonderfully useful and fulfilling it can be to have tens of billions of dollars to mobilize in a really heroic cause, like working to eradicate various infectious diseases from the human experience.

Just to get started, as long as we don't have clean water, plenty of food, proper healthcare, good education, meaningful personal freedom, and a well-functioning legal system for every human being in the world, cheap carbon-neutral energy, strong environmental protection and sustainable ecosystem conservation throughout the world, a cure for cancer, a complete genome and proteome and extended phenotype encyclopedia for all life on Earth, telescopes that can image Earthlike planets in other galaxies and the first stars to ignite in the extremely early Universe, robots crawling around under the surfaces of Europa and Enceladus and screaming through interstellar space toward Alpha Centauri and Epsilon Eridani, and human colonies on Mars and the asteroids and in the clouds of Venus, there will be plenty of interesting and valuable things to do for someone with tens of billions of dollars to throw at an ambitious project.

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