What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#11

Post by candiddevmike » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:53 PM UTC

smitty1e wrote: post #6

All that wealth is great, and may even make a difference if you catch cancer. Or not. One famous chap who is nailing it is Shatner. Strive to be spreading joy like that guy, whatever your means.

Shatner has always been a jerk, the joy you're seeing is manufactured PR for a man who is worried about his "legacy" like any of the other older rich.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#12

Post by candiddevmike » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:55 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #10

HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I really like this post since it shows how very little there is for the wealthy to buy other than status goods. The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes. We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards statu…

In fact they depend on the upper middle class in order to have those things. I'm thinking about cell phones. Nobody can have a cell phone unless enough people can afford them to create an incentive to build and improve the infrastructure.

Same thing with 401k enrollments at businesses. Management gets way more of a benefit from them than the wage slaves, but needs to maintain a minimum amount of people enrolled.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#13

Post by Immortalin » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:55 PM UTC

HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I really like this post since it shows how very little there is for the wealthy to buy other than status goods. The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes. We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards statu…

> We should have expensive products which actually improve lives.

Maybe the super rich should take up training LLMs as a hobby.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#14

Post by vidarh » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I really like this post since it shows how very little there is for the wealthy to buy other than status goods. The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes. We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards statu…

I clicked through hoping for something interesting and different, and got the same impression.

So... More plus influence.

I think the only thing listed that people with less money don't really "know about" is how much perspective changes with staff. You know people have people, but not necessarily how it changes things.

I'm on the very low end of that - I run a small DevOps consultancy and can, now employ a few people in low cost countries, and though I've managed large teams before, having unilateral ability to set people to work on things because I want them is a game changer, and it's hard to get used to asking for things instead of doing them.

The rest feels like things everyone knows, if not directly then from TV and movies.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#15

Post by azlev » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

With billions, can I be Batman?

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#16

Post by amarcheschi » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I really like this post since it shows how very little there is for the wealthy to buy other than status goods. The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes. We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards statu…

I knew a son of two entrepreneurs with a ~30m yacht, they own a (ex) monastery they use, either for parties, events, or as a residence

They have Miele appliances, but having "same appliances" doesn't make justice to the fact that there are deeper differences. Yes, they're status goods, but I think one's life might greatly improve by being very wealthy - even if your life can still be shitty as a wealthy person

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#17

Post by borski » Sun, May 18, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

throwaway713 wrote: post #3

I saw that Reddit post a while back. It’s interesting, but I wonder how much it really applies to all of the super wealthy. There are certainly billionaires and centimillionaires who reject that lifestyle out of hand (I know I certainly would). The average person doesn’t know their name and they prefer it that way. Even the local billionaire near where I lived for a while was pretty modest, all considered (his kids n…

What wealth buys you is the freedom and opportunity to make that choice. It’s not that you have to use your influence; it’s that if your local billionaire whose name nobody knew decided to make a phone call or two, people would still pick up his call.

That isn’t true for your local plumber.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#18

Post by junon » Sun, May 18, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

rco8786 wrote: post #4

> There is literally nothing you can't buy except. Love. I feel like Elon is finding this part out the hard way lately.

Given what we know about how he goes about making children, I don't really think love is the objective with Elon.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#19

Post by leftcenterright » Sun, May 18, 2025, 5:02 PM UTC

So, no wealthy person is buying a physics lecture or investing in experiments to better understand the nature of this universe we live in? /s

btw does anyone know if places like Fermi lab, CERN receive donations from the super-wealthy?

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#20

Post by kstrauser » Sun, May 18, 2025, 5:02 PM UTC

candiddevmike wrote: post #11

smitty1e wrote: post #6

All that wealth is great, and may even make a difference if you catch cancer. Or not. One famous chap who is nailing it is Shatner. Strive to be spreading joy like that guy, whatever your means.

Shatner has always been a jerk, the joy you're seeing is manufactured PR for a man who is worried about his "legacy" like any of the other older rich.

Does that make a difference to people outside his personal circle, though? An extreme example of this is Bill Gates, spending billions to cure diseases. Maybe he’s only trying to buy his way into heaven, but I bet the people cured by his medicine couldn’t care less about his motivations.