spend time with my wife. walk the dog. go for hikes / ski / see the outdoors. read books on philosophy. generally, lead a life of quiet contemplation
> spend time with my wife
Trying to off-load your wife on other people? tsk, tsk
Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
141–150 of 157 posts
Re: Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, yes and no. Mathematicians for example are notorious for burning out young.
This is more of a popular myth than reality. It's more common in math than in other fields, and mathematicians peak earlier than, say, writers (35, as opposed to 55, would be my guesses) but it's not actually the norm for a mathematician to do his best work in his 20s. Those stories are cases of the exception proving the rule.
Maybe not in eir early- or mid- 20s, since nowadays at that age it is hard to even have enough familiarity to be able to define the major open problems (most of my colleagues focus a lot on devouring book to try to get ahead of this curve). Still, major work is generally done by one in eir late 20s or early 30s. It has long been the case, and still continues to be (Green and Tao proved their famous theorem at the age of 29). Hardy lamented that math is a young person's game. The book "A Beautiful Mind" discusses how Nash's 30th birthday was a gloomy one, since it generally means the end of one's major contributions to the field. You can't even win the Fields medal unless you're under 40.
Now, of course there will be counter-examples, but these are not the majority, and generally come in those fields where you have to digest a great amount of material and push your way through for long stretches of time (grad students and post-docs also tend to figure prominently in these cases)
Re: Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
#143Grow my hair long (again) and get someone good to make it look stylish and neat. Buy some nice clothes, such that I don't have to worry about not having any sense of clothes. No office dress code, woohoo. Do some startup funding on useful wearable keyboards, better software for small helpdesks/teams (I have plenty of ideas), better software/user interfaces for virtual desktops, but with grouped applications by user t…
You're in Dallas, too?
Re: Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
#144Re: Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
brilliant. reminds me of the missive: if you are the type of person who would stop working once you obtained a fortune, then you are never going to get a fortune...
Define work? Hopefully I'll get to the point where I can live comfortably off the wealth generated by work I've already completed. If I do, at that point, I won't stop using the computer. I won't stop writing software. I will stop setting the alarm clock though, and I'll stop saying "I have to work" to my wife when I'd rather be spending time with her, and I'll stop working with hard deadlines. I won't sit on a beach…
There are a lot of insightful comments in this thread, but I think this one sums up best (and most succinctly) how I feel.
Re: Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
#1461) Kick myself for not selling six months ago when valuations would have been stupidly higher (relatively speaking). :) I think this is the grown up version of "I'd wish for a million wishes!" 2) If the money is larger than just being comfortably set, I'd split it into two pieces -- one being a charitable giving platform modelled after the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation ( http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grantseeker…
check out http://www.givewell.net and you can see which charitable causes actually have GOOD OUTCOMES
Re: Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
#147Duty: * Make sure that if I do nothing else, and barring a collapse of society, I don't have to work for anyone else again. * Make sure my wife can stop working for others, too. * Make sure my daughter can afford to go anywhere for higher-education. If she doesn't want to go to school, provide her the ability to try startup ideas. * Make sure my parents and parents-in-law are looked after. * Keep my relatives provisi…
... learn how to format HN posts ...
lol at least you can do that one for free...
Having said that, I saved some money and took two years off to pursue all of my life-interests (mine, in fact, are quite similar to yours) but when it came down to it, I surfed the web, played games, did a small amount of programming and just doddled around all day for the majority of my time off. Then I went back to work.
To me it comes down to one thing: purpose. If you have no specific purpose, you just get caught-up in day-to-day living. The main thing I learned in my two years off is that I can accomplish 99% of what I want to do with my life whether I have a job or not.
Re: Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
BTW that NYTimes article you cite is boom-town trash. Published in 2007, just before things started going in the shitter. The mentality of the past 5 years was "more, more more" and it's almost sickening to read this account of how greedy these millionaires are/were. They all chose to live in Silicon Valley and continued to aspire to be hundred-millionares instead of enjoying what they have. Some people don't deserve…
They all chose to live in Silicon Valley and continued to aspire to be hundred-millionares instead of enjoying what they have. Some people don't deserve their wealth. So you're saying it's bad if rich people continue to build things instead of switching to being mere consumers?
I completely understand what you're saying, and I hope to always pursue my passions and the things that I care about, but I agree with the sentiment of the person you're responding to. The people in the article do not sound like they're happy and building things because they love to or because they want to make a difference. They all sound stressed and miserable because they're continually comparing their standard of living to the next guy, who is a little bit higher. Perhaps it's just the tone of the article, but they all sounded out of touch and ungrateful.
Re: Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
#149Re: Ask HN: you're rich, now what?
#150Join Esther Dyson in funding Fluidinfo.
Your comment caught my attention (I studied logic with Esther's mother years ago) so I looked up Fluidinfo. This is impressive stuff, and Terry Jones is a singularly impressive, engaging, understated guy. After browsing his blog for a while and watching part of some videos, I'm sure I want to see more. I'm curious how you found out about this, and what you think of it?
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=386811
See my comment there: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=388401