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Sergey Brin's Unretirement

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Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#311

Post by LatencyKills »

mettamage wrote: post #290
LatencyKills wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my 50s. About two months into retirement I fell into the deepest depression of my life because I couldn't shake the "who am I without my job?" question. It took almost a year (and therapy) to accept that I still add value without working.

I'm a person that wants to learn anything and everything. So guess what I'd do if I'd retire? Work feels pretty stifling to me.

> I'm a person that wants to learn anything and everything.

That is exactly what I do now. Every question I've ever had I now have the time to devote to answering it. I take classes, I volunteer, I mentor Comp. Sci. students. But, more than anything, I still write code. I spent the last few months creating an LLM from scratch which was incredibly fun.

That said, I have a friend who will probably work until he dies. His only real interest in life is his job. I'm not suggesting that is a bad thing; its more to the point that "retirement" isn't a panacea for everyone.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#312

Post by janandonly »

kshacker wrote: post #300
cuttothechase wrote: post #47

Sergey's challenge looks like is not in retiring early or with non-work. We had a high performing co-worker who was scared witless after a lay-off episode and this was not because he was worried about lacking money or loss of prestige., but because he could not come to terms with the simple fact of facing the 9 am on a Monday morning with absolutely no expectations. It freaked so much to not feel the hustle and the a…

I took a four-year break from work (2009–2013) and moved to India. The reasons were simple: some family health issues required downtime (though probably not as much as I ended up taking), and I could afford to do this in India in a way I couldn’t in the US. This happened to coincide with the market bottom, but I wasn’t laid off—it was entirely voluntary. I didn’t experience an identity crisis for a single day. I didn…

I am 1,5 years into a break. Haven’t had time to feel bored yet. But I do look forward to a 9-5 job again, just for the structure it provides.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#313

Post by glimshe »

CatMustard wrote: post #306
glimshe wrote: post #237

After FIRE I started building my own small to medium projects. Emulators, tools, games, some available to the public. I tell people I'm a full time software developer who does remote consulting gigs (the last not true but justifies my FIRE income)

Would you mind me asking what age you were when you retired? I'm 28 and five years into my boring corpo career and need something to lust after lol

47. I didn't wait for FIRE to plan the projects, I had a notebook of ideas I collected over the years and had studied the necessary skills to put them in action throughout my work life.

Additionally, I could see myself going back to work at a company if I saw a truly exciting project. But that excludes around 98% of the jobs I see out there.

No, the next generation of privacy management experiences that will impact billions of users configuring their privacy settings isn't interesting.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#314

Post by valiant55 »

CatMustard wrote: post #306
glimshe wrote: post #237

After FIRE I started building my own small to medium projects. Emulators, tools, games, some available to the public. I tell people I'm a full time software developer who does remote consulting gigs (the last not true but justifies my FIRE income)

Would you mind me asking what age you were when you retired? I'm 28 and five years into my boring corpo career and need something to lust after lol

I'm not doing FIRE, I have children and just live below my means. I'm hoping to retire around 55 assuming the AI bubble doesn't nuke everyones portfolio.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#315

Post by yesimahuman »

awendt wrote: post #135
senorqa wrote: post #114

> Sergey Brin’s lesson for the rest of us Is it? I know people who are really happy without doing much in their retirement. Probably because they weren't workaholics. To my mind, if one doesn't have hobbies during the working years, then they will struggle to find purpose when they retite.

This! People need to get a life. I wouldn't have any trouble keeping myself busy after retirement. I do not have nearly enough time for the things I really WANT to do beside work.

Yea I've noticed this is the singular difference between those that enjoy early retirement and are successful doing it and those that aren't. Many ambitious people end up wrapping their entire identity up with work and feel completely lost with that gone. It's why so many successful founders throw themselves into new startups right after an exit, despite having way more than enough to retire. Personally, I've taken some time off since selling my startup and I've been so busy learning new things and building new hobbies that I can't imagine going back! Maybe I will one day, but it will likely involve something I've learned from during this time

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#316

Post by cindyllm »

CatMustard wrote: post #306
glimshe wrote: post #237

After FIRE I started building my own small to medium projects. Emulators, tools, games, some available to the public. I tell people I'm a full time software developer who does remote consulting gigs (the last not true but justifies my FIRE income)

Would you mind me asking what age you were when you retired? I'm 28 and five years into my boring corpo career and need something to lust after lol

[dead]

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#317

Post by oefrha »

stavros wrote: post #197
mckn1ght wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found asking “what do you like to do” vs “what do you do” to produce much more interesting conversation.

I really don't like getting asked what I do for a living. I exchange labour for money somewhere out of necessity, what's at all interesting about that? What I do in my free time is who I am, and that's much more interesting to talk about, to me.

I don’t like getting asked what I do for hobbies. The real answer I want to give is “none of your business”, but I’m polite enough to never say that, so it gets awkward.

Getting asked what I do for a living is totally fine. It’s on my website, the whole world can find out if they bother to search. I’ll save you a search.

The point is people are different. Not everyone wants to share their private interests with you, especially if you just met. What you consider interesting conversation, well, for some of us it’s just intrusive. I also don’t care what you like to do 99% of the time. I’ve been socially forced to sit through way too many of these “interesting conversations”.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#318

Post by yesimahuman »

deepvibrations wrote: post #233
throw-qqqqq wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also my sentiment. I am saving up to retire early. If I mention this to friends, most look at me with big eyes and ask “But what will you spend your day on then!?” in a sceptical tone. I imagine they think I want to drink beers and play golf all day every day, or something like that. I’m a bit heart broken, that so many of my friends cannot imagine being masters of their own time, without thinking it would be…

Yes, I have experienced exactly the same with friends and find it bizarre - essentially having total freedom seems to scare some people. Is it because we have been told what to do our whole life and so the thought of having to determine our own destiny each day is too much for some?

I think it's also a uniquely American thing. We are so defined by our work and our careers here. It's kind of sad, in my opinion, but that's the reality.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#319

Post by fuzzy_biscuit »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #251
cuttothechase wrote: post #47

Sergey's challenge looks like is not in retiring early or with non-work. We had a high performing co-worker who was scared witless after a lay-off episode and this was not because he was worried about lacking money or loss of prestige., but because he could not come to terms with the simple fact of facing the 9 am on a Monday morning with absolutely no expectations. It freaked so much to not feel the hustle and the a…

Mental illness. They tied their entire sense of self to some job at some company. Their body belongs in some parking lot on somebody's schedule.

I hear what you're saying, but routines, especially long-lived, are difficult to break/change. It's normal to have phantom limbs when they are cut off.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#320

Post by aatd86 »

vidarh wrote: post #200
tempestn wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That attitude is the weapon of suppression. Yes, it's true that life isn't fair. But it's also true that people have agency and can make material improvements to their own quality of life through smart decisions and dedication. Of course most of us won't start the next Google, but that doesn't mean dreams and hope are bad in general.

We have no evidence that people have meanginful agency, or even agency at all. It is an assumption that to start with requires that the universe is not largely or entirely deterministic beyond what we can measure, but even in the case of some "hidden variable" that provides agency (try to even define it in a way that doesn't make it either deterministic, random, or a combination that implies no actual control) we hav…

If you think you have no agency why do anything at all? You could choose to stop doing anything. Or you could decide that your partial knowledge(unrealised futures) gives you agency.

It's a matter of metacognition. Being able to compute possible futures gives you artificial agency at some level. At a meta level even if that compute can be deterministic at a higher level, but you should not care.

It's a nested universes system just like in type theory. The meta of the meta. Agency is only defined within a single universe at a time.

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