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A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

latimes.com

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Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#51

Post by gumby »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #2

I’ve been fortunate enough to know a few older people who really loved their work and were excellent at it. All of them had one thing in common: they didn’t want to retire. Meanwhile all of my peer group is obsessed with FIRE and dream of retiring early. All of us are also involved in pretty meaningless work that has no measurable impact on the world (five lines of code to a million line codebase is hardly world chan…

I retired at 30 and it didn't stick. The real difference is that I only think about working on things I am interested in working on.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#53

Post by lostlogin »

losteric wrote: post #36
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #2

I’ve been fortunate enough to know a few older people who really loved their work and were excellent at it. All of them had one thing in common: they didn’t want to retire. Meanwhile all of my peer group is obsessed with FIRE and dream of retiring early. All of us are also involved in pretty meaningless work that has no measurable impact on the world (five lines of code to a million line codebase is hardly world chan…

The older folks typically also benefited from getting into housing when it was less scarce, riding one or more waves of progress, at a time where healthcare ROI was much higher. My generation faces a different economic situation. I know people in academia that love what they do and dreamed of living a life like Rudy's. In practice, they're stuck - huge debts, dismally low post-grad wages, stuck renting, just hoping f…

Your housing comment is key - the grind of paying for rent or a mortgage with two incomes really stifles and ability people have to try something.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#54

Post by kenjackson »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #46
losteric wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older folks typically also benefited from getting into housing when it was less scarce, riding one or more waves of progress, at a time where healthcare ROI was much higher. My generation faces a different economic situation. I know people in academia that love what they do and dreamed of living a life like Rudy's. In practice, they're stuck - huge debts, dismally low post-grad wages, stuck renting, just hoping f…

All the folks in my peer group who followed their left-leaning parents mantra of doing something interesting, something that you love, got absolutely screwed. As much as I hate big tech, I cannot blame anyone for pursuing it.

How did they get screwed? I feel like I kind of got screwed going into SW. I have friends who make 1/3 the money as athletic trainers, but just seem to love their life so much more. Maybe when we’re 60 things will change, but seems like a bad tradeoff.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#55

Post by foobiekr »

losteric wrote: post #36
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #2

I’ve been fortunate enough to know a few older people who really loved their work and were excellent at it. All of them had one thing in common: they didn’t want to retire. Meanwhile all of my peer group is obsessed with FIRE and dream of retiring early. All of us are also involved in pretty meaningless work that has no measurable impact on the world (five lines of code to a million line codebase is hardly world chan…

The older folks typically also benefited from getting into housing when it was less scarce, riding one or more waves of progress, at a time where healthcare ROI was much higher. My generation faces a different economic situation. I know people in academia that love what they do and dreamed of living a life like Rudy's. In practice, they're stuck - huge debts, dismally low post-grad wages, stuck renting, just hoping f…

Not everything is about housing, in particular someone choosing to work to 100+ doesn't really have anything to do with housing.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#56

Post by pixelatedindex »

rxhernandez wrote: post #50
bombolo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

being a hipster and being a socialist aren't the same.

Kinda hard to be either without being left-leaning

Anecdotally speaking, I don’t ever see myself being right-leaning because really, what do I have to conserve to be conservative?

I don’t have much wealth, I can’t buy a house for the foreseeable future, I will be done paying off literally all my debt including student loan next year, I have a wife and no kids. So yeah… I just want to do what I like and screw making another person or company richer, they’ll be fine.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#57

Post by zw123456 »

Hi there, old person here. Tomorrow is my 65th birthday. I had vowed to myself that I would completely and totally retire, Finally, at 65. But then, this "thing" cropped up and the day after tomorrow, I am pitching my 3rd startup to investors. I wonder, am I crazy. But I feel passion for this project. So, I am throwing myself into the fray again, there is no logical reason to do so. So, Rudy, I understand.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#58

Post by Given_47 »

JamesAdir wrote: post #26
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not a value judgement on my peer group for wanting out of the workplace. Its more of a value judgement on the meaningless of so much of modern work. All the people I mentioned above are involved in work that’s probably more gratifying than making giant corporations richer. One is a playwright, one is a professor, one is a top pulmonologist in the country. I don’t know what their day to day entails, but I can’t im…

This. My friends' father is approaching 92. He worked in his auto repair shop until the age of 89. He was a pillar of the community, known everyone and their cars, and had generations of customer coming with cars to get them serviced. I don't think he became a rich man from this. He had a house, raised his family, and that's all. He just enjoyed fixing cars.

Yea I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I think us fixating so much on monetary richness can b harmful to society and too little is made of general “wealth” (drawing some inspiration from pg’s how to make wealth).

There’s a lot of folks that make more than ur buddy’s dad, but I’m sure a lot of them are miserable in their jobs. In standard jobs u spend the majority of ur non sleeping hours in ur job. Are you rlly more “rich” if u can splurge on a few things on occasion but everything else is a chore compared to someone with an adequate amount to get by but enjoys the work?

Idk I find framing it this way and thinking about the dichotomy between short bursts of gratification and more subdued but consistent well being is interesting

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#59

Post by Kamq »

mrtksn wrote: post #45
Kamq wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what people like Peter Thiel have to say about it The people I know who look down on modern academics, tend to dislike a set of changes that started happening in the mid-late sixties and ramped up through at least the 2010s. I'm not sure that's applicable to someone who got their PhD in 1946.

I am a bit too lazy to go back into Thiel talks and find the relevant quotes, however, if I recall correctly He talks about Einstein and similar physicists on how they were not compensated correctly and not being billionaires despite their huge contributions to the society and how they made wrong life choices.

Fair enough. Einstein definitely pre-dates what I'm talking about, so if he's included, then this guy definitely is.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#60

Post by r3trohack3r »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #2

I’ve been fortunate enough to know a few older people who really loved their work and were excellent at it. All of them had one thing in common: they didn’t want to retire. Meanwhile all of my peer group is obsessed with FIRE and dream of retiring early. All of us are also involved in pretty meaningless work that has no measurable impact on the world (five lines of code to a million line codebase is hardly world chan…

Retirement !== never working.

Personally, I’m pursuing FIRE for the freedom to choose my work regardless of how much (or even if) it pays. Decoupling my work from market incentives.

I don’t consider retirement to be sitting around doing nothing. It’s waking up and choosing my own path. It’s freedom.

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