Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's a "tech celebrity", or whatever the term is
Influencer? Thought leader? Something along those lines.
Influenza is the correct term in 2019.
Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
51–60 of 79 posts
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#52I enjoyed the clip on taxes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBg7DnQjjcY
Yada Yada Taxes are theft... oh my. Just gotta love how this white, Australian born cis-male was educated in a public school, going there every day over public roads, in a town kept safe by public police, in a house that never burned down because of public firefighters, never fearing saying the wrong thing in a free constitutional democracy protected by judges, politicians and a military — lecturing everyone about th…
> Just gotta love how this white, Australian born cis-male [...]
He didn't bring sex or race into it. His points are just as valid regardless of your sex or race. You're the only one here discriminating based on sex or race.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#53I expected a better article to be honest. Some of the ideas are correct, but I think the perspective is overall wrong. For one he is probably ten times richer than the average tech worker. But you don't want to be rich as much as you want to be wealthy. And that isn't just about money. My friends in other industries didn't make as much in their twenties, but the are relatively wealthy in their thirties. Their career,…
Yes. Being wealthy is a feeling , the feeling of abundance. That feeling can be achieved at many income levels. It depends on the person's character. A person with modest material desires can feel very wealthy with only a modest amount of money. It is more than they ever need to be happy. They may be inspired to donate the excess to help others. Another person can be making silly amounts of money but it is never enou…
Wealth is only a feeling if you don't spend more than you earn. A lot of people who makes millions per year feel poor because with an increased income they exhibit an overly expensive life style. They are still in the same rat race as everyone else and that's why people with a lot of income still take drugs, feel lonely, get divorced and have partners cheating on them and all the other problems that every human being has.
The only thing money can really do is buying opportunity, and it is extremely subjective which opportunity makes one happy. An old person coming from a different time finds the opportunity to drive a loud car which makes a lot of noise and burns a lot of fuel to accelerate quickly from 0 to 100 a "pleasure", whilst other people find the opportunity to drink a Colombian coffee and eating an avocado sandwich a pleasure and someone else finds the opportunity to spend an evening playing board games with their family extremely enjoyable. You only need as much money in life as it requires to get the opportunities which make you happy. Beyond that you are wasting time and energy chasing something which doesn't buy you much. That is the advice we should give young people.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#54Quite a disagreeable post, in my opinion. > Which leads me to the "but money can't buy happiness" position so many people have repeated over the years. Bull. Shit. Anyone who has ever said that simply doesn't know where to shop. If happiness for you is about things you buy in shops, then you are a shallow person, and you are missing out. A lot. In fact you are poor, but in a spiritual sense. The next statement: "mone…
IMO:
Money doesn't lead to happiness, but no money can quickly lead to unhappiness.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#55It's at best just another "solid" save and invest advice, buried under bragging, overused motivational quotes and videos and a huge underestimation of personal luck and purely being a straight white smart male in a market that us is booming for decades...
No other takeaways for the general public here.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Being wealthy is a feeling , the feeling of abundance. That feeling can be achieved at many income levels. It depends on the person's character. A person with modest material desires can feel very wealthy with only a modest amount of money. It is more than they ever need to be happy. They may be inspired to donate the excess to help others. Another person can be making silly amounts of money but it is never enou…
Wealth is only a feeling if you don't spend more than you earn. A lot of people who makes millions per year feel poor because with an increased income they exhibit an overly expensive life style. They are still in the same rat race as everyone else and that's why people with a lot of income still take drugs, feel lonely, get divorced and have partners cheating on them and all the other problems that every human being…
Great advice.
Also, it would make sense to cultivate hobbies and things to be happy with that don't need a lot of money.
Earlier in life is also a great time to experiment with lots of such things, as a parallel with Hunt's article. You can seek out new experiences at any age, but it's just easier when you're young and don't have a lot of responsibilities.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yada Yada Taxes are theft... oh my. Just gotta love how this white, Australian born cis-male was educated in a public school, going there every day over public roads, in a town kept safe by public police, in a house that never burned down because of public firefighters, never fearing saying the wrong thing in a free constitutional democracy protected by judges, politicians and a military — lecturing everyone about th…
> Just gotta love how this white, Australian born cis-male [...] He didn't bring sex or race into it. His points are just as valid regardless of your sex or race. You're the only one here discriminating based on sex or race.
Opportunities to make money vary for the most part according to sex, race, place of origin, etc.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I said, bad debt is a combination of whether you actually need, and can afford the thing, and interest rate. You need a house, so an affordable house would be fine, one that you cant afford isn't. Yes an appreciating asset shifts the balance somewhat, but doesn't inherently make bad debt good. I suppose its best to look at where each outlook ends up? The appreciating asset = good view would suggest you buy the abs…
An appreciating asset bought with leverage provides one of the most readily available means to go from "I am in the bottom quartile of net worth" to "I have at/above the national median net worth". I did buy basically the most expensive house we could afford (slightly less than the most expensive we could qualify for) in 2007 in a desirable city. That decision (vs continuing to rent or buying a $500K condo in that ci…
That's with the benefit of hindsight though.
Were you thinking the same in 2009?
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I respect Troy enormously on the subject of security (and making that subject more accessible) but I saw one of his "Hack your career" talks last year and found it to be much too focused on money, along with a big dollop of survivorship bias.
You need to remember this is an old school guy (late 40s, early 50s?), coming from a time where driving a loud car is seen as a "cool" thing to do and a way of measuring your dick size. Troy is a great speaker and he certainly makes a good career out of it (and selling stolen passwords to companies), but he also loves to show off his wealth which is a bit old school and weird nowadays. From my experience, the happies…
I'm not too far from his age range. The "blatant brag" kind of plays out by your late 20s. At least it should, IMO. It's mostly just signalling to females, anyway.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
An appreciating asset bought with leverage provides one of the most readily available means to go from "I am in the bottom quartile of net worth" to "I have at/above the national median net worth". I did buy basically the most expensive house we could afford (slightly less than the most expensive we could qualify for) in 2007 in a desirable city. That decision (vs continuing to rent or buying a $500K condo in that ci…
That's with the benefit of hindsight though. Were you thinking the same in 2009?
For us? Yes. We were still thinking that this is a good place to live and raise a family (that we just started that year).
On the money side, I continued to believe throughout the GFC that Cambridge, MA was going to continue to be a desirable place to live and work. I don't think the Zillow guesstimate on our house ever fell more than 5% below our purchase price, which was vastly better than our 401(k)s and brokerage accounts. (I changed my personal finance tracking spreadsheet in 2013, so I don't have records of house price estimates prior to then to confirm and Zillow only seems to go back 10 years.)