> now living in New Zealand Derek does not live in New Zealand anymore. He moved to England some time ago (perhaps 1 or 1.5 years ago?)
According to his website he moved back to New Zealand this year.
Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
61–70 of 84 posts
Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
#62Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
#63Derek and his writing used to be a frequent top page link on HN. When I first started reading them I found them inspirational. As I read more of his writing I got the impression that most of the things he did were presented in the light of “I’m just a simple person that doesn’t need a lot” type of minimalism. However if you look at his “charity” he seems to have just figured out a way to avoid taxation and keep most…
“I don’t need a lot” isn’t mutually exclusive with “I don’t want to pay a lot in taxes”. Besides that, he lives in New Zealand where everything costs twice as much. Sounds like your crediting his success solely on being at the right place at the right time. I got news for you - that’s pretty much all success or a component of it. Not to mention, he did build a sustainable business that gave independent artists an out…
When I emailed him in March he said that he left Singapore for England because he wanted his son to grow up near nature.
Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
#64Derek's writing influenced me quite a bit in the early 2000s. I bootstrapped a software business from zero to near $10m in annualized revenue, and sold it almost half a decade ago. I contributed 100% of my equity into a charitable remainder trust because I learned about that idea from his website. Since then, I've done a lot of "puttering". I'm teaching myself jazz guitar, and I'm currently enrolled in law school. I…
> I would abolish charitable remainder trusts from the tax code. They've been reducing the scope of new trusts over time. When I looked into it around 2014, a young person couldn't actually make a lifetime income CRUT because the requirement for 5% distribution, and the low interest rates at the time made the actuarial calculations show a zero balance for the charity at the end, but you need to show at least 10% for…
They reduced the scope of new ones but leave old ones alone? Seems like it should apply to all or none.
Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Different advice for different circumstances. Do you get upset when elite athletes talk about the importance of avoiding overtraining, when they have already become elite?
Apples and oranges my friend. Being elite and overtraining are orthogonal. By definition, overtraining is pushing your body too far too fast. No one can train for a 100 mile race by doing 3 50 mile training runs in a week. That's not how physiology works. Discipline and lots of hard work can help you be elite, but overtraining is never good. Never.
True, but a lot of novices use overtraining as an excuse to just not train. Actual overtraining is pretty hard to do for a typical weekend warrior.
Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if, learning to be happy with "enough", is how people get filthy rich? https://sivers.org/richand
So what's the path from living with 4 other people working 40 hours a week at McDonald's to filthy rich? Haven't gone to college, don't have a skill that sets you apart (music/art/etc), and aren't particularly intelligent or scrappy. Seems to me there's literally no path from A to B.
Well for McD's it's getting into management and going to McD school and then getting a franchise. McD's likes to promote from within. There are quite a few millionaires who have done this. I mean I am sure you have to work hard to do this and it isn't guaranteed either. I think a lot of franchised businesses can work this way.
Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikipedia disagrees: >Derek Sivers transferred ownership of his company to a charitable remainder unitrust for music education, and had the trust sell it to Disc Makers. This agreement requires the trust to pay Sivers 5% of the trust's value annually (hypothetically $1,100,000 pretax, based on a sale price of $22 million as reported by Sivers)[4] until death, while upon death the remainder will ultimately go to chari…
He also acquired a second nationality, renounced US citizenship, and moved to a country that doesn't tax foreign sourced passive income. It's the most extreme example I've seen of planning your whole life around tax optimization. Understandable though if you've read his book because he's had big problems with the IRS in the past and probably really wanted to show them his "FU money."
I was under the impression that the US does not allow you to revoke your citizenship purely for tax reasons.
Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if the reality is in the middle, the likely difference between 1k a month claimed and 90k a month claimed surely puts him in the very wealthy category. I agree with other posters, it’s a little annoying to have wildly successful people talk about “being happy with what you have” and “money isn’t that important” and “enough” etc. While the concept is absolutely correct, and I believe “if you weren’t happy before…
On the other hand, there are many wealthy people who are unhappy, with their wealth or otherwise. I had the honor (but not the pleasure) of working closely with a guy whose personal wealth was estimated at half a billion or so, all self made. There was nothing he wanted he couldn’t afford. And yet he was incredibly unhappy almost all the time - I caught an occasional glimpse of happiness from him after he would come…
This falls in line with studies that show when most people hit the upper middle class, more money doesn’t automatically equate to happier. And if someone doesn’t have a purpose beyond money, I could see more money making them less happy. “What do I do now?”
Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would abolish charitable remainder trusts from the tax code. They've been reducing the scope of new trusts over time. When I looked into it around 2014, a young person couldn't actually make a lifetime income CRUT because the requirement for 5% distribution, and the low interest rates at the time made the actuarial calculations show a zero balance for the charity at the end, but you need to show at least 10% for…
They reduced the scope of new ones but leave old ones alone? Seems like it should apply to all or none.
These things are grandfathered in.
Re: Derek Sivers and the Art of Enough
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would abolish charitable remainder trusts from the tax code. They've been reducing the scope of new trusts over time. When I looked into it around 2014, a young person couldn't actually make a lifetime income CRUT because the requirement for 5% distribution, and the low interest rates at the time made the actuarial calculations show a zero balance for the charity at the end, but you need to show at least 10% for…
They reduced the scope of new ones but leave old ones alone? Seems like it should apply to all or none.
Charitable remainder trusts are setup as irrevocable, if properly drafted. It would be difficult to equitably unwind them after the fact.
Changing how CRUTs are treated ex-post facto would also raise doubts about how Roth IRAs will be treated. There's already people who don't trust that the federal government will keep those tax free.