Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#1

Post by amin » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

Almost-Billionaires (2014)
lackingambition.com

Re: Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#2

Post by zz865 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:35 AM UTC

Good point. I think though that being a entrepreneur and especially a manager is a lot harder than it looks. There is no real reason why a coder or a comedian would be good at starting a company. Yeah being the boss looks easy until you actually have to do it.

Re: Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#3

Post by pmoriarty » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:42 AM UTC

zz865 wrote: post #2

Good point. I think though that being a entrepreneur and especially a manager is a lot harder than it looks. There is no real reason why a coder or a comedian would be good at starting a company. Yeah being the boss looks easy until you actually have to do it.

It would be very interesting to hear you elaborate on this, as from the outside it really does look pretty easy.

Re: Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#4

Post by ilrwbwrkhv » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:44 AM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #3

zz865 wrote: post #2

Good point. I think though that being a entrepreneur and especially a manager is a lot harder than it looks. There is no real reason why a coder or a comedian would be good at starting a company. Yeah being the boss looks easy until you actually have to do it.

It would be very interesting to hear you elaborate on this, as from the outside it really does look pretty easy.

Maybe a manager would be. But not an entrepreneur.

Re: Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#5

Post by samplatt » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:47 AM UTC

It'd be really nice if "figuring out what you want to do" was a course you could take, external to school. Re-evaluating how to effectively spend your time is really hard to do, especially for those without friends or family to help them.

It'd certainly help those in extreme post- or pre-financial-independence situations find a motivator.

Re: Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#6

Post by cko » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:49 AM UTC

About losing all motivation after financial independence, I've experienced it for myself. I'm not rich but I know how to live simply. What do I do with my time? I spend so many hours consuming random content on the internet nowadays. I feel kind of bad for the girlfriend, who has to listen to me regurgitate the content back to her.

People looking in from the outside scratch their heads. Don't I have hobbies? Passions? I'd do X Y and Z, they often say.

Reminds me of this blog post: https://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/

It's too bad Mike (the lackingambition.com guy) stopped updating his blog.

Re: Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#7

Post by brody_hamer » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:51 AM UTC

I had a dream once that I was hired by a rich man.

I was given the freedom to hire the smartest people I could find and take on something challenging.

It paid only room and board for me and my family, plus a small equity share in whatever we created.

I would give anything for that dream to be a reality.

Please, if you’re reading this and you’re a millionaire, have some fun making someone else’s dreams come true?

Re: Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#8

Post by fauciouchie » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:53 AM UTC

Fauci for prison. Fauci for prison. Fauci for prison.

Re: Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#9

Post by iammisc » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:53 AM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #3

zz865 wrote: post #2

Good point. I think though that being a entrepreneur and especially a manager is a lot harder than it looks. There is no real reason why a coder or a comedian would be good at starting a company. Yeah being the boss looks easy until you actually have to do it.

It would be very interesting to hear you elaborate on this, as from the outside it really does look pretty easy.

Well for me having made the jump from IC to being responsible for my whole team, the issue is that the promises I used to give were based on my ability, whereas now I have to take the whole team into account. And so sometimes, I'm left saying to another team, it's going to take X weeks to do this, even though if I were doing it, I think I could do it in Y Moreover, when I did overpromise, as an IC I would put in the extra hours to deliver, so my estimates always seemed to my superiors to be 'on time'. But now as a manager, I can't force my team to work extra hours (and I don't wanna be that guy), so I have to take that into account when making promises.

Ultimately, it's the difference between being responsible for myself, and now being responsible for others, not only responsible for the tasks they do, but also for being responsible for communicating the ability to do it to other teams.

Re: Almost-Billionaires (2014)

#10

Post by graderjs » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 3:55 AM UTC

I think that some component of challenge is required to live an interesting life, keep you on your toes, and keep you close to living at your edge.

I think some people will invent challenges for themselves, even arbitrary looking ones, if they are otherwise unchallenged at the time, just to keep themselves engaged.

All kinds of things can pose significant challenges: relationships, learning a new language, travel (um, thanks 2020), a sport, yoga...other stuff that pushes you outside your comfortable zone and where you are in the space where you actually have to think, react, decide again, and where you have limited information and don't know.

I don't think you have to do this, but you can try it if you're looking for that "ah i feel bored, or just too comfortable I wanna do something" kind of vibe.

I think an advantage is you don't have to care: is this right for me? Is this what I want to do (bigpicture)? Just pick something you don't know how to do, and try it, and for some of those things you might end up caring about becoming good at it or overcoming the challenges of it. If you can't even care about finding something challenging or that you don't know, you probably have some sort of mental illness or unresolved emotional issues or inner work you need to face and simply are avoiding that or don't know how to deal with that, and then you need to process that yourself or with some counselling to try to sort that out. But sometimes pushing out of the zone, especially doing something physical like sport or yoga, brings that stuff up anyway. So there's many ways to get forward.