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

Post by mistermann » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 6:11 AM UTC

mattm wrote: post #54

alexhaefner wrote: post #11

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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 figurin…

> I find it increasingly bizarre, day by day, that people are so fixated on money and not value, or meaningfulness. ...or happiness. I recently read "Stumbling on Happiness" which had an interesting discussion on the fact that there are several studies that show that pay raises up to around $45k per year result in an increase in happiness. But after that, an increases in salary brings only a marginal increase in happ…

Post by jholman » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 6:29 AM UTC

sayemm wrote: post #44

"Many systems in society are basically poorly designed algorithms." - awesome quote

Post by hansy » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 6:34 AM UTC

robryan wrote: post #12

pacaro wrote: post #8

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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.

Post by femto » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 6:47 AM UTC

ehsanu1 wrote: post #34

hugh3 wrote: post #25

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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. Maybe. But it doesn't particularly make me want to be a billionaire. If the main satisfaction you get out of having $100 billion dollars is giving it all away again, I'd rather let someon…

The point of making the billion dollars yourself is having a say in where it gets spent, not in "giving it all away" indiscriminately. Indeed, someone else might choose to just keep their billions in the family, for the sake of obnoxious levels of luxury. I'm sure there are some billionaires exactly like that. Anyways, the whole problem with trying to become a billionaire is that it's really a lottery. Sure, someone…

Post by chad_oliver » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 7:04 AM UTC

femto wrote: post #67

ehsanu1 wrote: post #34

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The point of making the billion dollars yourself is having a say in where it gets spent, not in "giving it all away" indiscriminately. Indeed, someone else might choose to just keep their billions in the family, for the sake of obnoxious levels of luxury. I'm sure there are some billionaires exactly like that. Anyways, the whole problem with trying to become a billionaire is that it's really a lottery. Sure, someone…

An interesting point. Is it more interesting to do the work, or to pay for the work? I'd come down on the of doing the work, though I guess if you pay for the work, you can be present for the fun bits and absent for the hard slog (the majority). The problem with doing is that it can be hard to make end meet while doing interesting work with long term payoffs. The options I can think of are: 1) Get an interesting job.…