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Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

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Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#41

Post by missedthecue »

xwolfi wrote: post #24

> Being a tech worker is not like banking, where you know you’re not doing good for society I... I work in banking and I think I'm doing good for society :D It's weird how deep this belief banks are an artificial parasite that built itself on top of normal people became. If people don't like banks and think they're really bad, they could really try removing them... it's not like I'd disobey a law or anything that say…

I've long wished for a short film that would depict a world without big banks.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#42

Post by tyleo »

BurningFrog wrote: post #39
ReggieCommaRose wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine a big part of lottery winners going bankrupt are due to lack of education and/or comfort in having that much money at once (after all, the vast vast vast majority of lottery players are lower middle class to poor). It sounds like the writer (somewhat ironically) came from money so she'll probably be aight.

Smart people don't play the lottery.

I used to believe this but I’m not so sure it’s true. Gambling is addictive and I think that things which are addictive can overcome reason.

I know a lot of smart developers who buy loot boxes in games, for example.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#43

Post by supportlocal4h »

Pelic4n wrote: post #20
Cu3PO42 wrote: post #2

One thing that immediately stood out to me was the following quote at the beginning of the article: > You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing I'm happy for the author that $200,000 isn't and wasn't a life-changing amount of money for her, but to so many people it would be incredibly life-changing. I could very comfortably live off that amount of money for 10 years. As an alternative view, that's m…

The worldwide median anual household income per capita is about $3000: https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househo... Which means most humans won't make $200K in their entire lives. Considering that it's not a life changing amount of money just shows how the 1% has lost touch with reality.

Whether you are a 1%er or an 80%er, there is some amount of money that wouldn't mean much to you but would mean a lot to somebody else. If it rubs you that wealthier people aren't more gracious with their wealth, please try to make a point of being gracious with your wealth. Figure out how to use $100 to change somebody else's life in a positive way. I think you'll find it is life changing for you after all. If $100 seems steep, try it with $20. Your life will get better quickly.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#44

Post by throwaway0a5e »

harryf wrote: post #32
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That in turn effectively triggers an existential crisis - what do with all this extra time? Give your money to me. I have a million things I want/need to do. So many things to do in the world. How can you possibly get bored?

That's exactly the right perspective but if you've spent the last 20 years doing some job purely for the money, it's not an easy mental state to transition to and whether you're able will likely have a large part to do with your education and upbringing. For example your social network may be largely people you work with - if you stop working, you lose those connections. And lockdown has shown what impact social isol…

You'll never find them on HN and Reddit but there are tons of people in their 40s-60s who despite working 40hr/wk for the last 20yr have all manner of projects and hobbies they would simply spend their time on if they suddenly didn't have to work, no change of mind required.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#45

Post by williamtwild »

> You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing.

So it sounds like this person had assets or capital before the IPO. $200,000 post tax is certainly enough to pay off either a large potion of a mortgage if not all of it for a large majority of people . Hell where I live it can get you a very nice house in a good neighborhood ( I live outside of Philly ).

That is certainly life changing,

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#46

Post by kova12 »

That's because humans were designed to start adult life with becoming parents, then do the rest of life chores. That's the only thing that matters really. Life is short, and once you are dead, money don't matter. Procreating is how you outlive yourself. Go get kids, and your boredom will evaporate. No matter how much money you got, you will never have time for middle age crises

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#47

Post by throwaway0a5e »

philangist wrote: post #27
amelius wrote: post #18

> I’ve been obsessed with men who are smarter than me. (Even when I was younger, at sleepaway camp, I was fixated on the boys who went to the magnet public schools, because I knew they were hard to get into.) Part of it comes from an obsession that my kid has to be intelligent, but part of it is about earning potential, because smart men tend to earn a lot of money. Ugh.

Said with zero self-awareness several paragraphs after humblebragging about how frugal and low maintenance of a person she is. The entire article is so myopic but I think her transactional view of relationships, and framing of them entirely in terms of competition and power dynamics was the saddest part. > My mom has gotten bitter. She said, “You’re going to have more money than your dad and I combined, and we’ve wor…

The average apple rarely falls far from the tree. It can happen, but it certainly isn't the typical case.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#48

Post by arbol »

throwawaaays wrote: post #21

I'm in a similar situation, but it's like 1/3 of what she'll make. And I have literally no idea what to do now. I have a good feeling for how to manage it. But not a good feeling about what it means for my life. In the SF area, it's not enough to live with a family. Where my wife and I are from, it's enough to early-retire with average incomes (4% of 2M$ ~= 80k$/y, 40k$/y median income). But do I want to do this? Or…

I took two years off after a big windfall. It's fine to stay out of work permanently but those two years taught me that you need to to have a group of people to work with and bounce ideas off. Trying to sit and do things on your own is way less productive and not good mentally.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#49

Post by jl2718 »

The woman in this essay is having her moment of peripeteia.

It’s just bits in a database. From an alien looking down on earth, there is no difference between the people with big numbers and the people with small numbers. They all spend their entire lives under the same set of beliefs, namely:

1. Any decrease in my number would be horrible. The best part of my life was when my number was zero, and other people are happier with lower numbers, but that is irrelevant. I need a big number or else I will suffer immensely.

2. People with bigger numbers than me are more important than anybody else in my life. I worship them, or I hate them, but either way, I think about them all the time.

3. I must commit my entire life to increasing this number. I am willing to do things I hate, or stupid risky things for no other reason.

Note that I’m not claiming to be any exception. It really is stupid though. Even people that hate the fiat system still worship it. Maybe it’s necessary for our civilization to follow these rules, but it seems to me that a fiat system would work best if people were thinking least about the ‘meta’ aspects of money, such as investments. It seems to me that, historically, public frenzy over financial topics has been a reliable predictor of collapse, and generally this starts with an attempt to use the financial system for some social engineering purpose other than the three primary purposes: store of value, unit of account, medium of exchange.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#50

Post by arbol »

kova12 wrote: post #46

That's because humans were designed to start adult life with becoming parents, then do the rest of life chores. That's the only thing that matters really. Life is short, and once you are dead, money don't matter. Procreating is how you outlive yourself. Go get kids, and your boredom will evaporate. No matter how much money you got, you will never have time for middle age crises

You never have time for anything really...
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