How I got wealthy without working too hard • Hacker News Board

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#171

Post by philipswood » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #111

go_elmo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats just being humble. Most successful people think its that way because they are special and worked hard. Wrong. Most people work hard, its the LUCK many underestimate. Being aware of this is healthy in so many ways, especially socially.

There are many other things you need other then hard work or luck. For example if you work very hard as an elementary school teacher no amount of luck will make you a millionaire. I think there is a lot of skill involved in getting into spots where you are even exposed to the opportunity and then you need luck but maybe less then you think as there are so many opportunities around it would be just very unlucky to not…

"Hard working elementary school teacher inherits millions from inspired student who became a billionaire and dies young."

Maybe some amount of good luck could do the trick...

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#172

Post by Apocryphon » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

hsn915 wrote: post #88

As far as I can tell, the suggested way of working would be incredibly stressful for someone like me. First, I have to learn stuff I hate just because the market currently demands it. I can't really bring myself to do that. With everyone jumping on AWS and the latest JS frameworks, I stick to programming in Go and deploying static binaries to a single/cheap VPS. I basically only have one library in my 'npm' depdenden…

He talks about getting contracts through agencies that exist for remote jobs. Not anyone has to self-promote their brand like he has.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#173

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

guico wrote: post #56

TL;DR: Be a parasite and use the economic opportunity others create. Works well if only a few of us do it. But someone needs to start and run the companies where you get those contracts. Or?

[deleted]

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#174

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #140

Grustaf wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your friend can reliably generate 10% (not just in the current insane bull market) he should open a hedge fund.

He had it for about 4 years I think. Also he does not manage the money. Somebody else does it for him.

[deleted]

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#175

Post by Glyptodon » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

> Take a $ 500-1000 / day, full-remote job > Take 2 months for holidays in-between contracts > Do this for 7 years while investing most of your salary in a diversified portfolio. Working $1000/day contracts for 5 days per week, 10 months per year is equivalent to $217K of contractor income per year. But contractor income is not comparable to normal career income because you have to handle additional taxes and health…

Getting to a bare million with that level of saving seems possible over the last 7 years mostly because returns on stock and crypto have been quite high.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#176

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

> Take a $ 500-1000 / day, full-remote job > Take 2 months for holidays in-between contracts > Do this for 7 years while investing most of your salary in a diversified portfolio. Working $1000/day contracts for 5 days per week, 10 months per year is equivalent to $217K of contractor income per year. But contractor income is not comparable to normal career income because you have to handle additional taxes and health…

Note that the author lives in Europe (Italy), where there is a robust social safety net and typical programmer salaries are about $45-60K/year. It doesn't take nearly as much to be "wealthy" relative to those conditions.

Author is basically engaging in a form of geographic arbitrage by working remote from Europe. They get to enjoy wages comparable to U.S. programmers, but get the European social safety net, and since they're not living in a big city, rural cost of living. It's not unlike U.S. tech workers who choose to live in a remote rural village, or Californians who retire to Boise at age 30, or Canadians who come to Silicon Valley to work for a FANG and found a startup and then retire to Canada after doing that for 7-10 years. (The latter is my favorite, because Canada allows citizens a step up in capital gains basis upon moving back to Canada, so you can make literally millions in Silicon Valley stock over a few years and pay zero tax on it, then enjoy the Canadian social safety net for retirement.)

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#177

Post by jaywalk » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #148

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s quite a cop-out for a blog post that contains a lot of specific, actionable steps.

Most people reading this paragraph start with the same luck coefficient. (Not all, so no need to add your personal story here. But most.)

I feel like there was more to his luck than simply being born in Italy.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#178

Post by bcrosby95 » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #140

Grustaf wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your friend can reliably generate 10% (not just in the current insane bull market) he should open a hedge fund.

He had it for about 4 years I think. Also he does not manage the money. Somebody else does it for him.

Markets have been amazing the last 4 years. You can't use that short of a timeline to predict the next 40.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#179

Post by good8675309 » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

jcroll wrote: post #2

> Work and self-actualisation can be rewarding and meaningful, but looking at the sea from an hammock and drinking too much beer with friends three times a week is also a completely respectable way of waiting for the gravitational swallowing of the planet. Part of wants to accept this from the author and the other part of me is wary. I didn't have a child because I wanted to be happy, I did it because I wanted a more…

I wasn't going to have kids for the same reasons. My son wasn't planned but he and his siblings are the best thing that ever happened to me and not having kids would have been the greatest mistake I would have ever made. Guess you never know until you know.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#180

Post by philipswood » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

tonystubblebine wrote: post #167

Do people here like working? That's a thing that often seems missing from these wealth optimization conversations. I love working. I don't love working all day. But I got into programming because I love programming and then I found that I also love what I can build through programming and what people do with the things I build. I spent a lot of my career leveling up my situation so that it was more of doing those thi…

I love working.

If I was wealthy enough to not to have to work I'd maybe even pay for the privilege.

But,

I would love the luxury of having total freedom in choosing what work I'm doing.

If I account for my time over the years corporations have paid me, but ultimately wasted a significant amount of my time.

If I wanted to design an alternative CPU architecture or fiddle with an approach to 3D printing metal, I'd love to have the freedom to do so - even if the expected ROI is maybe 0.