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The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

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Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#91

Post by rubidium »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #90
remote_phone wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only question to answer is, “are you happy?” I’m almost 50, I don’t have a high profile job, failed at getting into Google 5 times, but just bought my wife a $20,000 grand piano for our anniversary without thinking about it. My kids make me happy, my house mortgage is less than 1X my household earnings, my work pays well and I have a great Work Life Balance. We all die within 120 years, and if we are cremated, th…

As someone who wants to be financially independent, how did you make so much such that household income > mortgage? Do u just live in a crappy neighborhood? Even on Midwest states tech yearly salary is about half of a decent house?

He’s had 20-30 years to make mortgage payments.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#92

Post by Razengan »

ggambetta wrote: post #12

> Paul was driven by an incredible curiosity his whole life. Even when we were just kids, he seemed to be interested in just about everything. I can identify with this. I've founded a gamedev company, taught Computer Graphics, and worked at Google and Improbable as a SWE; but in the middle of all this I wrote a novel, I recently quit my job to become an actor/filmmaker ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10232800 ), and I…

I can relate to most of that as well.

Often I wonder if I choose the wrong race on character creation or a few eras too early to spawn. Humans are certainly capable of dabbling in many domains simultaneously, but our current social structures (and limited lifespans) generally require us to specialize in basically one or two fields in order to be significantly successful.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#93

Post by jagannathtech »

danielecook wrote: post #83
theunixbeard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine building an online lifestyle business such that after it’s setup you can spend 0 time on it (for the most part) and still earn enough to pay (reasonable) living expenses. That’s what I’m driving towards.

is there a list of these kinds of businesses out there? What is your business gonna be?

There are some passive income subreddits where lot of folks are very into this. You might get an idea there.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#94

Post by magpi3 »

WoodenChair wrote: post #67
joezydeco wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not falling for this post-retirement New Bill Gates either. He screwed countless people and entire companies. You don’t get to repair that karma with some donated vaccinations and mushy blog articles.

> You don’t get to repair that karma with some donated vaccinations and mushy blog articles. I'm sorry, but why don't you? He's literally saving millions of lives through his foundation, and through getting other billionaires to give to charity through the giving pledge. He was the richest man in the world. He could have done anything he wanted to with his life, and he chose to do good things. He deserves some praise…

I agree he and the Gates Foundation do wonderful things, but I will Never be entirely comfortable with one person sitting on that much money. He is worth in the range of 100 billion dollars. 100 billion dollars.

He has promised to give half of it away but as far as I can tell is no closer to doing that since he first made the pledge. I really wonder sometimes if that pledge was just PR for the absurdly wealthy. No need to tax us! We will be giving it away! But when?

He is doing good things but there is no way I can look up to someone who sits on such an obscene amount of wealth.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#95

Post by flensortow »

yo-scot-99 wrote: post #77

> Paul was always good at seeing the big picture. This reminds me of a day at Asymetrix - a startup founded by Mr Allen. Somehow we got a very early incarnation of Mosaic and I remember showing everyone how to bounce over to each lab with just a click and what authoring in HTML meant. Asymetrix's main product at the time was Toolbook, essentially a Hypercard clone -- but this was obviously the future. Paul's reaction…

I interviewed at Asymetrix at one point.

They had the very strange idea they were going to take on Microsoft and Borland with their own C++ development system, which seemed to make no sense to me given the other things they were doing.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#96

Post by mrskitch »

theunixbeard wrote: post #56
danielecook wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the most important thing to optimize for is time. Move closer to work, get a roomba, buy a second monitor, etc. For me anything I can do to get extra time is a huge payoff because I'd rather spend my time learning something new, cooking, traveling, or cycling/running. I recently switched jobs and am moving next month to reduce my commute. I'll have an extra 7 hours a week to do whatever I want and I cannot wa…

Now imagine building an online lifestyle business such that after it’s setup you can spend 0 time on it (for the most part) and still earn enough to pay (reasonable) living expenses. That’s what I’m driving towards.

This is part of the motivation for doing browserless.io for me (though I’m fascinated, still, by the tech and product).

I’ll say that the 0-hour thing is pretty impossible, though you’ll likely not work near 40 hours ever unless you want to. The biggest takeaway I’ve found is that, aside from gaining time, gaining freedom of choice is very liberating. You’ll feel the consequences as well, which I’ve enjoyed overall (even the tedious stuff can pay out in dividends).

It’s definitely worth pursuing, but does come front-loaded with work and a lot of time spent

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#98

Post by [deleted] »

mevile wrote: post #89
nostromo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when Allen was a patent troll? https://www.wired.com/2010/08/paul-allen-patent-lawsuit/ Someone who became one of the world’s richest men for only a few years of work deciding to shake down a huge chunk of the web in a cash grab really isn’t a good look.

> Someone who became one of the world’s richest men for only a few years of work The shorter time it took to make his wealth the better it looks because less time means better efficiency. It's not like you're entitled to wealth because of how long you've worked. This is an idea that has lead few to financial success I imagine. Privileges and salary based on time keeping a seat warm somewhere is a union/government thi…

[deleted]

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#99

Post by jacquesm »

rubidium wrote: post #91
bitcoinmoney wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who wants to be financially independent, how did you make so much such that household income > mortgage? Do u just live in a crappy neighborhood? Even on Midwest states tech yearly salary is about half of a decent house?

He’s had 20-30 years to make mortgage payments.

And has not paid off the mortgage.

Re: The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about

#100

Post by jacquesm »

Razengan wrote: post #92
ggambetta wrote: post #12

> Paul was driven by an incredible curiosity his whole life. Even when we were just kids, he seemed to be interested in just about everything. I can identify with this. I've founded a gamedev company, taught Computer Graphics, and worked at Google and Improbable as a SWE; but in the middle of all this I wrote a novel, I recently quit my job to become an actor/filmmaker ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10232800 ), and I…

I can relate to most of that as well. Often I wonder if I choose the wrong race on character creation or a few eras too early to spawn. Humans are certainly capable of dabbling in many domains simultaneously, but our current social structures (and limited lifespans) generally require us to specialize in basically one or two fields in order to be significantly successful.

Define 'successful':

- rich?

- famous?

- or would you rather be happy and healthy?

Note that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but I know a lot of people and I've yet to see someone that is wealthy or famous that is also really happy but I do know some people that by HN standards would qualify as poor that are super happy, and a good part of that is because they are not chasing the buck or how many people have their autograph.

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