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I am rich and have no idea what to do
561–570 of 1001 posts
Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do
#562Been there, done that. General comments: - Most people who make a lot of money all at once blow it within seven years. Check out what happens to lottery winners, jocks, and rappers. As a rule of thumb, you can safely spend 4% of your net worth per year. Pay yourself some fixed amount each quarter. - You don't have to get into complex investments. Half in some bond funds, half in some diversified stock funds will work…
One did a lot of reasonable little stuff but never did anything with much impact again This always stymies me. If I were to make it big, I’d want to go on to do other very useful things. But so commonly that doesn’t happen. Is it because they lost the fire? Because they were really lucky exactly once? Or perhaps their talents were suited only to that one thing?
Skill, luck, timing.
Few people achieve something big. Even fewer can achieve another big thing. Even less can continue achieving.
Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do
#563[deleted]
Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do
#564I think that a lot of people with money need to be reminded that having wealth is a social responsibility in itself. If you can live just from passive income maybe you should just gift interesting people the excess money and have them accomplish their goals. Talk to a bunch of people and realize what you want to support. If some of them need 10k to start a business just give it to them. Or, if you want some equity, p…
> having wealth is a social responsibility in itself We even have a word for this, noblesse oblige . It used to refer to the aristocracy, but I don't see much difference between the aristocracy of old and the moneyed classes of today.
What about being smart?
If you're smart you regularly walk through life seeing people hurt each other by letting screwed-up systems fester.
Even if you're really callous and rational about opportunity cost, you can only walk by so many systemic-equivalents of burning buildings before you're eventually like, "damn it, okay I'm going to save this kid but just this once".
Being smart and systems-aware in today's world is like walking by a burning building every day with very long, fireproof arms. "Noblesse" is the wrong word but something like this is a thing. Mathiness oblige?
Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do
#565Shit. At the very least. Just travel. Via hostels or a PJ. Take pretty pictures. Make people smile or spark their imagination. Easy.
Can get rich but can suss this out. More common than not
Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do
#566Great example of tech bros getting way to much compensation for not much ... and also not knowing how to live a basic human life. I would like to see their wealth taxed to the hilt so they can go back to work and stfu.
Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do
#567The author thinks this is a novel or rare position (†) to be in, however it's actually fairly common and most people resolve it relatively easily by being with other people. The point is integration, not separation.
Those chasing prestige, and programmed to chase prestige from childhood, often do not know that prestige is a form of separation. They think that once their respect with their peers rises they will feel more connected, or more connected with better people. This is all wrong – connection is fostered by humility. (Hiking large, easy mountains might look impressive yet it is not an antidote to loneliness and isolation.) Prestige is like a drug: attaining it often makes a person hungrier for more. Prestige, at its best, is a tool to accomplish good things, and nothing more.
I suggest the author find hyper-local challenges with direct and obvious impact... maybe volunteering with the mentally ill, or cooking for large groups, or tutoring in math/physics. Of course these aren't prestigious, and I sadly doubt the author will be interested (and hope to be proven wrong).
A note regarding "purpose": I believe purpose is a misleading solution. Most of us can conjure purpose – the key is to close the feedback loop by acting on it in a way that draws one closer to community.
(† Footnote: The author may think their wealth is a distinctive quirk of their predicament; it is not. The defining characteristic is freedom and space, and a lot of people are in this position, regardless of net-worth. I hope the author looks beyond other rich people to find solutions.)
Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do
#568Been there, done that. General comments: - Most people who make a lot of money all at once blow it within seven years. Check out what happens to lottery winners, jocks, and rappers. As a rule of thumb, you can safely spend 4% of your net worth per year. Pay yourself some fixed amount each quarter. - You don't have to get into complex investments. Half in some bond funds, half in some diversified stock funds will work…
One did a lot of reasonable little stuff but never did anything with much impact again This always stymies me. If I were to make it big, I’d want to go on to do other very useful things. But so commonly that doesn’t happen. Is it because they lost the fire? Because they were really lucky exactly once? Or perhaps their talents were suited only to that one thing?
That's always a good question. Were you smart, or were you lucky?
This is most often a problem with traders and investors who made a good bet. Less so with something that took a lot of effort to make work.
I know a married couple who blew through an amount in eight figures and had to get low level jobs. Lost their house.
Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do
#569I think that a lot of people with money need to be reminded that having wealth is a social responsibility in itself. If you can live just from passive income maybe you should just gift interesting people the excess money and have them accomplish their goals. Talk to a bunch of people and realize what you want to support. If some of them need 10k to start a business just give it to them. Or, if you want some equity, p…
> Humans need activities that produce meaningful outcomes, they don't need careers or work. Human needs purpose in life, does not matter whether it activities for meaningful outcomes, careers, work, family or God, it's in our very nature. The blog post appeared to me of someone who have achieved mostly what they have aspired to become (rich and freedom from jobs) and at their top apex from their own perspective, howe…
Why do we need purpose beyond existence? We're here to experience a unique life that nobody else will experience, no matter how many commonalities are shared. Yet people are never content with that, and feel they must have a "greater" purpose, when reality is that there is no greater purpose than mere existence.
Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do
#570I was in a somewhat similar position as the OP, having had a successful exit many years ago and trying to figure things out. I was lucky that I still had a faculty position at a top university, young kids, and a good family to help ground me and guide me.
My general take on things is this: money is one of the closest things we have to a superpower in this world. With enough money, you can build new things, make steps toward solving hard problems, and influence people and organizations to do things you want.
Given all this, what kind of world would you want to live in? And with your newfound superpower, what kind of steps can you take that might get us closer to that world?
Now, of course, this path is fraught with many challenges and dangers (especially as evidenced by so many superpowered billionaires around the world that want us to live in an oligarchy, but that's a rant for another day). Instead, I'll end by sharing a few things that have helped shape my thinking about how I spend my time and what kind of positive impact I want to make on the world:
- https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/wealth.html
- John Rawls on the Veil of Ignorance and the original position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position
- Prof. Michael Sandel (Harvard) on Justice: What's the Right Thing to do? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY&list=PL30C13C91C...
- Prof. Robert Reich's course on Wealth and Poverty (former US Sec of Labor) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f2blKai7HA&list=PLOLArO56vj...
There's also an interview with a sci-fi author (Ted Chiang I believe, but I can't find it to confirm), that also posed an interesting question: what is your ideal world, and what steps are you taking to help us get closer to that world? For me, it's Star Trek, not the space exploration part (though that's cool), but the idea that Earth has become a planet where things like war, poverty, hunger, racism, and xenophobia are things in the far past, and every person can achieve their full potential. I know cynics will scoff, but that's a world I'd like to live in, and one I'm trying to use my superpowers to get to.