Do you really want to be rich? | Hacker News Reader

Do you really want to be rich?

blog.cubeofm.com

103 pointsmaxklein79 comments

I hate this article.

I hate anything that says "There are two types of people in the world, those that x, and those that y".

I hate it because either:

1) The statements x and y are opposites and combine to be a truism. Truisms are not interesting. (from the 2nd and 3rd matrix) "Some things change, and others don't".

2) The generalization is demonstrably false or unknowable.

In this article in partiular, I found a sort of weird mesh. The second and third category are clear opposites of each other. They are a truism in that you can say "A rich person either will keep on trying to get rich, or will stop after a while." This is roughly equivalent to what these categories represent.

The first category is sort of contained in the second category. Or, more accurately, if someone is going to stop trying to make money after a while, they will either stop because they are comfortable or because they are being looked up to. Not exactly mind blowing information.

I feel that broad categorization of people is useless. People are not either one thing or another. People have features in quantities. Fuzzy logic rules over binary in the world of humans. It would be nice and easy if humans were so simple, but they are not.

Although I don't disagree with any of your assertions, I think TFA is interesting because it observes that all the people who want to be rich don't actually want to be rich.

The first group considers money the solution to insecurity. Money is not what they want, they want to be confident and date models. The second group doesn't want money (they just want some money) and the third group is playing a game. They want to win, and the metric is money.

People state the desire to be rich often enough, but there are only very few people who really want to be rich. I think the blog pointed that out pretty well.

I hate anything that says "There are two types of people in the world, those that x, and those that y".
I hate it because either:
1) ... 2) ...

Irony :)

I'm pretty sure he didn't rail against generalization in general, only for people in particular ;)

Do those two options seem exhaustive to you? If so, could you explain how?

Yes, of course I do, and the generalizations here are gross and condescending. You will not convince me that I do not want this.

I lean towards the Comfort angle, but I also start tinkering and producing when I am bored, so I could hardly be considered to walk the lazy path. I look for freedom from lower-level concerns so as to begin address higher-level needs. Money provides a layer of abstraction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

I am sure someone can link to the study that refuted the "money can't buy happiness" claim.

If you're talking about the same study I'm thinking of then its conclusion was that "money can buy happiness but usually doesn't" because you need to spend the money on experiences rather than things, and spending money on things is vastly easier.

I was going to reply myself, but you've basically said exactly what I was thinking.

Some of us enjoy what we do, but would rather have a self-sustaining lifestyle that lets us do what we enjoy doing not because we have to, but because we want to.

"Money provides a layer of abstraction."

Wonderful way of saying it. Maybe it doesn't quite make sense, but I'm a sucker for applying technical concepts to more domestic concerns ;-)

It seems to make perfect sense. Its like storing and retrieving objects in a database. You can do it by hand, but its more of a pain -- better to leave it to something else and use the abstraction: storeData(key,value), retreiveData(key). We can directly map this to nice shirts. Normally one has to buy and iron shirts, which is a pain. (assuming you don't like buying or ironing). Now if you have a lot of money, you can pay someone to abstract that all away. You just look in your closet and grab whatever shirt you want. At the end of the day you just put it in the dirty clothes bin, and poof magically it will appear clean and ironed again in the closet. Money provides the person who abstracts the mechanisms that allow the shirt to exist. We could even do this experiment to harvesting the cotton, producing the shirt etc, which is abstracted away using money as trade for the various levels in the manufacturing.. mmm.

I don't think you could ever have an amount of money you couldn't do anything with. Even if you had $100 billion, as Bill Gates shows their is plenty you can do with it.

I think I would head down the spaceX path if I even became mega rich. If government no longer wish to fund space exploration it would be great to take up that role and push humanity forward. You could never have enough money with a pursuit like this.

"Money provides a layer of abstraction"

This is so true.

For those who say that getting money for the sake of getting money is a useless pursuit, no, it isn't. No one who isn't already rich is getting money strictly for the sake of getting money. They are doing it for an infinite number of reasons. Caricaturing them into rat-racey participants of Lifestyles Of The Rich and Famous, simply because they want to be rich, is despicable. Money is like energy. Just because I'm interested in acquiring a gigawatt of energy doesn't mean I want to use it for smelting aluminium. I can use energy for an infinite number of activities. That's why I want to be rich. It allows me to easily pick and choose what I want to do, without specializing in doing just that.

Pedantry: a gigawatt is a unit of power, not energy. Perhaps you meant a gigawatt-hour? :)

People here are showing a lot of dislike for the third category, those who want to make money. I think that's because of how the author describes them, not how they actually are.

People who want to make money for money's sake love building things. They can't stand to sit still. They understand long-term relationships, and the smart ones learn that trust and inspiring leaders within your own and other organizations is the only way to keep building.

They love competing, and they love winning. But that doesn't mean they lack integrity, or think lying or cheating is the way to win. They understand that at best that gets you a win in the very short run.

They are the tinkerers of capitalism. And that's why they don't fail you once they can afford a Porsche, why they don't constantly try to impress people because of their insecurities, and why they don't stop thinking about improving their business once they "have enough". Not everyone is like that, but that's not a reason to disrespect those who are.

"I'm reasonably happy, but the money's not the point. It's an indication that I've succeeded in the grand adventure of understanding reality." -George Soros

The way I look at it, making money is a great competition because it has the largest and most talented pool of competitors you will ever find. You get to measure yourself against the world, give or take a few people.

That's an interesting take. At least in the case of Buffett, I think he really likes what he does (I mean, the man still lives in a normal family house).

To me there is a distinction between people who want to make more money and people who want to build things. The former is in it for power, whilst the latter is in it for recognition.

I realize how simplistic that sounds. But many of our current problems came about because people don't care about what's behind the money. We need less indirection in the financial world. If I invest in something, I should give some kind of damn about it.

I disagree. I think that there are not enough categories.

For example, I've got a comfortable lifestyle, I earn a decent passive income (~18k a month) and it affords me time to work on the stuff that I want to work on.

I'm working on something now because I look at the industry that I'm targeting and I all I see is flaws. The products don't match the consumers wants. I want to fix that and I see a big opportunity eventually.

So I don't match the "don't want to be poor" crowd, because I'm not poor (I'm not rich either) and yet I'm still working on making more.

I don't really care if anyone knows my name. I'm not that vain.

Lastly, while I like the idea of making more money - that in itself is not the big motivator for what I'm doing. I want to build something that changes the game, not because of any external factor other than a personal goal.

Maybe I'm just an edge case, but I don't think you can quite classify everyone into 3 categories.

For most people, an 18K monthly income ($216K annualized) that is passive is most definitely considered "being rich".

Except that given it could potentially end tomorrow, I am motivated to work on something different.

Sure I have a comfortable position at the moment, but resting on my laurels could be a costly mistake. I am just using this breathing room to work on something that has more potential rather than having to hustle for income... basically forgoing short term gains for long term ones.

Fair enough, nothing wrong with that and I agree with your first comment too, just wanted to introduce perspective, because sometimes we all get caught up in where we are and forget that a lot of people are still where we were. :-)

That's a fair point too. I often think of where I was a couple years ago (very broke) and it puts everything into perspective for me too.

Indeed. For me, 6 thousand monthly is "being rich". And so far, I have not been willing to do what it takes to get there (emigrate). I'm definitely a Category 2 guy so far :(

Why would you have to move?

I'm guessing you're thinking along the lines of a funded startup, and access to capital and "deals" versus bootstrapping it yourself, but my guess is froo's startup is closer to the latter.

When you bootstrap it, you call the shots and there's little reason you can't do just as well living wherever you are!

Go for it.

That's the second choice, and far more appealing (don't have to uproot). Reading HN does keep that option front and center!

I'm still searching for what to sell - I have access to a relatively cheap and talented labor pool, and to some nice technology not used in the US (the Genexus codegen tool), but I don't know what niche I should target.

It's easy to get hung up on finding "the right (perfect) idea", but the highest probability for a new business to succeed is to do something that is already being done by others, who are making a living at it. Add to it, change it, innovate on it, but start with something that's already a proven model in the world.

In other words, pick something (a piece of software?) you care about, that others are making a living with, do a knock off of it and then innovate.

People think the challenge is succeeding, but the more important challenge is starting at all.

oh come on froo, you can't drop "I'm making 18k/month passively" and not give at least a tickle as to what your doing ;).

Well I can, simply because there are a lot of people here that would be able to emulate exactly what I'm doing.

Like I posted just before I went to bed, what I'm doing isn't concrete, it could end tomorrow and so, in that respect, I'm going to keep my mouth shut for as long as possible to reap the rewards.

Sorry, I hope you can understand.

I'm sensing a theme from this blog: admiration of narcissists.

There are successful people I admire and emulate, and they are nothing like the "successful" people heaped praise upon by this blog.

Yikes. If there's anything I've learned, it's to avoid people in the third category at all costs. These are the guys who see every transaction as a zero-sum game, and the people who will stick a knife in you the moment an opportunity presents itself.

Not true. Warren Buffett fits in that category. Many people in that third category care about making money in an abstract sense -- it's a game, but it can be a long-term game. They don't care about the cars or the status symbols. They love building wealth, but not for wealth's sake.

People who don't understand long-term relationships are not actually in the long-term game to make money. Usually they just lack some emotional intelligence. People who 'get it' develop good, long-term business relationships, because they know that to be a successful businessperson and make lots of money you can't just rely on short-term contract-type thinking. You rely on relationships.

Treating finance as a game is only an option for those who are already wealthy enough to never worry about being comfortable.

Plus, I sincerely doubt Warren Buffet is likely to give up finance in favor of Chess anytime soon, even if he came to the conclusion it was more interesting (not saying it is, just drawing a comparison.)

I'll never do business with someone who doesn't know when enough is enough. This post is saying to do business with greedy people. Kind of sad really, but I'm glad I'm the kind of person the author doesn't want to do business with.

I look on people like this with pity. For them, money is an addiction. They'll do anything for their fix. They'll lie, cheat, steal. Those aren't the kinds of people to do business with, because eventually they'll look to get their fix from you.

You do business with the people that will bring you a profit. In theory, it doesn't matter what personal views the person across the table has if they adequately provide the services you need. Learn to identify the wants/needs of those people that operate around you and plan accordingly.

Business is about profit, not feeling good about the people you buy/sell services from/to.

Defend yourself if you see a need. Don't avoid people just because you don't get a warm feeling when you exchange services with them.

I'm of the opposite opinion. I have the freedom to choose who I work with, who I buy products from, and who I sell my products to. There is a lot of room in the world to do business with people who are considerate, responsible, and of a mindset that I think makes the world a better place.

I've refused to create accounts for other types of individuals on more than one occasion. If they want to use a competing product, that's okay with me. I don't mind losing business from customers I don't appreciate. If someone is a nasty person I don't want them to benefit from the use of my product. Check out some of the firing bad clients threads. Best just not to do business with them in the first place.

It's my little way to shape my world and surround myself with people I appreciate -- that's more important to me than money.

This article getting to the front page is either an indication of the weaknesses of HN algorithms or the drop of quality of HN users who voted it up.

maxklein has admitted in the past to psychologically gaming HN.

Why do you think that the article's popularity reflects badly on HN or HN's current users?

Sure it's provocative (maybe deliberately so, maybe not), but it's also well-written and engaging. I won't argue about the writing, but engaging should be pretty obvious: almost everyone involved in this thread disagrees with the author, but they're all clearly involved in the debate, right?

So if I write an article about how to torture a dog for fun making most to engage in the conversation to voice their disagreement,does this article become a worthy one?is this article suited for this audience?do people gain any insights ?

I don't think that your analogy is fair. The blog post talks about different approaches to "getting rich." A lot of people here are interested in this issue. So, the article gets voted up.

For whatever it's worth, I'm have zero interest in getting rich. I wish HN were more about tech & code and less about the money and success. But that isn't a decision I get to make. Having said that, the article engaged me because it made me think about the psychology of people who do care that much about wealth.

I got really angry when I first read this blog post (see my other comment here) and I was thrilled that most people here are as annoyed.

I read maxklein's other story (about how programming is procrastination).

I'm going to give him the benefit of doubt now. To be blunt, he needs to work on how he communicates.

But, I think the gist of what he's trying to say is: there are certain things you need to do if you want to succeed well in business. You have to want to do business (the making money part), but that includes things far beyond programming (for example).

I think I see what he means about working with people who want to make money: they have to be in it for the long haul. But even people who would lose interest when they're rich have a long way to go while they're still (relatively speaking) poor.

You don't want to discount the Woz's of the world just because their hearts are in the tech. If you do, you lose.

It's a lesson that some people will understand, and some won't ever.

I'm curious about this: does anyone who doesn't want to be rich - at all, or not in the correct third way - fall into the group of "those who don't understand"?

I think I understand that if I had a desire to be rich - endlessly, endlessly rich - and not for the things it brought me or for comfort, then I might prefer to work with other people with the same attitude. But is it necessarily the case that if you understand this lesson, then your desires fall into line?

Socrates thought this about being good: if you understand what goodness really is, then you immediately have the appropriate desires. I don't think desire and understanding work this way, generally speaking.

I certainly don't see any attraction in "being rich" as described in the piece, but I don't think that means I failed to understand something.

I know several people in the 5 to 100 million range and I don't really want to be that rich. A close friend growing up had 6-7 million in trust fund + a lot more on the way and it was a lot harder than you might think. You don't have enough to "change the world" but working is almost pointless etc. So he took a lot of stupid risks to feel alive and died at 30.

I have that type of personality and while I like taking 6 months off, it gets old and I want something meaningful to do.

A close friend growing up had 6-7 million in trust fund + a lot more on the way and it was a lot harder than you might think. You don't have enough to "change the world" but working is almost pointless etc.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, but if you ask me, the "almost pointless" excuse is pretty pathetic.

All else equal, being rich gives you strictly more options, and therefore the means to make work more meaningful. At $6m net worth, you own your own time and can work or play at will, in pretty much any industry you desire. Also, your career is going to be much better if you're rich because 1) upper management assumes you work hard because you actually want to do so rather than have to, 2) you get better jobs and projects because people want to buy your family's connections, and 3) most importantly, you don't have the "fear of the boss" that middle-class people do, so upper management sees you as more independent and confident. I've worked on Wall Street at desks that send more money across the table every day than most rich kids' trust funds, and even there, rich kids advance faster, primarily for reason #3.

In the for-profit sector, working is actually pointless for 90+% of people in it, who will never appreciably advance and only go to work because they have to. Being unusually talented or wealthy gives one a chance to not be caught in that trap and to do "pointful" work. So I don't buy into the bullshit excuse that his trust fund made working "almost pointless". Not in the least.

I am not saying he made good choices but it's hard to picture all that many well balanced people working when they don't need to.

Let's say you are 18 and make 20k / month and that's the tip of the iceberg you are going to get another 50+ million by the time your 40 even if you do absolutely nothing. Do you really think you would aim for an office job? What's your ROI for "wasting" one of the few thing you can't buy time? Are you going to do a startup when you already have more income than your lifestyle requires?

PS: As soon as you realize you don't need to live in an expensive area and most expensive items are more about status than quality you realize money quickly has significant diminishing returns.

I wouldn't aim for a traditional office job with that kind of money, but I'd want to be doing something. He could go to graduate school, write a novel, start (or at least join) a non-profit.

With a trust fund that can support him indefinitely, he certainly has nothing to lose in taking a job. If it turns out to be a hideous waste of time, he can quit.

One of the intractable unfairnesses of the work world is that those who need or rely on their jobs are destined (all else being equal) to be less successful in their careers, because they can be trapped into a dead-end and because they do have a reason to fear the boss. Your friend, on the other hand, didn't have that problem. He can take a job and, if it turns out to be a waste of his time, quit^ and do something else.

(^ I am not, of course, suggesting that he ought to quit just because a job gets difficult. What I'm saying is that the biggest danger of the career minefield is stagnation and unrecognized toil, in which case one really is wasting one's time in going to work, and your friend had an inexhaustible "get out of jail free" card.)

This is really saying: "partner with people whose interests are aligned with yours". Doesn't matter whether it's about making money, intellectual development or playing on a sports team. The same principle applies.

The post from a litle over a month ago is worth a re-read in light of this:

http://blog.cubeofm.com/programming-is-a-way-to-procrastinat...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1124953

What does this paragraph intend to say:

"For these men we sat with, I spent over 10.000 yuan on the program this evening. I took us to an expensive hotel, I paid the tips for all the girls, I ordered really expensive food. But when we spoke to these men, they never mentioned how much money they had. They never tried to impress me, in spite of me doing all this."

That (and the dog meat) bit seem like total non sequiturs to me.

I'm not convinced there's a significant difference between the first and third categories. Both are means to gaining status- the difference is just in the audience (the people they're trying to impress) and in the sophistication of how the status is expressed.

Sophistication is significant.

I really like Max's posts but I wish he would elaborate on the 3 types a little further. It seems hard to pigeon-hole every type of entrepreneur/potential partner within these 3 categories (at least as he has described them).

I think I "get" what he's saying (and I definitely concur on type 1–seen plenty of those in my day) but I think it would benefit from more details/examples.

Yes, yes I do, but it is really not for the reasons given. I want to control my own schedule. My brother pointed this one out to me, and it makes perfect sense. Having a lot of money, but being bound to the clock doesn't quite sound as fun.

You should read "Enough" by John Bogle, founder and former CEO of the Vanguard Group.

How strange: the post does not actually give a reason for only wanting to go into business with people that chase money for the purpose of chasing money. It does not explain why the reason that people want money matters. It states a preference of the author, without a single justification.

I thought the justification was obvious - you don't want to build a relationship with a partner who will drop out for personal reasons.

That is far from obvious, because a partner that's only in it for the money will drop out as soon as he spots a more lucrative opportunity. They are just as much a liability as the other categories: they don't give a shit about you or your goals.

I don't like any of those categories.

1st group: starfucker douchebags, properly characterized by the OP. Prone to serve the "high-status" set they want to join as soon as they have access to those people, and therefore a liability to anyone who wants .

2nd group: contains a lot of clock-punching mediocrities, also correctly portrayed by OP.

3rd group: driven by empty ambition, likely psychopaths. These people are responsible for the "next quarter" mentality that has ruined the US and shaken the world economy.

What unifies types I and III is the narcissistic character of a toxic and dangerous personality. What differentiates them is low (I) vs. high (III) self-image. The stronger self-image of the third set makes these people more dangerous, IMO.

What about?

Group 2+: Those who want to be comfortable, so they can spend their mental energy on things that are actually interesting and useful. These are people who wouldn't mind getting rich, but are more interested in solving interesting problems and making the world a better place than in having toy X at age Y.

I think the advice about Group 2+ would be "don't partner with them either. They've got priorities other than making money, and making money is hard enough you can't do it accidentally."

Not necessarily, a couple of the web's biggest properties came to be from it's founders other priorities.

Google (backrub) started as a research project.

Craigslist started out as a way for Craig Newmark to not feel so isolated.

Wikipedia... the list goes on.

How does Wikipedia relate to this at all? It's a non-profit.

It may be a non-profit but it does still have people on the payroll, people who get paid to do what they love...

And could be raking in millions in advertising dollars, like the non-profit Mozilla, if it chose to.

The Mozilla situation is rather different. It’s actually two entities: the non-profit Mozilla Foundation ( http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/ ) and the for-profit Mozilla Corporation ( http://www.mozilla.com/ ). MoFo shepherd the code, but MoCo do a lot of the business arrangements.

I think it's more MoFo sets the direction, MoCo pays the tax.

"The creation of the Mozilla Corporation should eliminate some of the thorny legal and tax issues that have been caused by the revenue-generating potential of Firefox and Thunderbird. The Mozilla Corporation will now handle all relationships with commercial companies and its status should allow more flexibility in this area. It is hoped that the income from the Mozilla Corporation will help the Mozilla project (including both the Foundation and the Corporation) to be more self-supporting, though donations will still be welcome."

http://web.archive.org/web/20060907025204/http://www.mozilla...

That all depends on what your goals are though, doesn't it?

If you are a VC or investor, this advice is true. If you however are an entrepreneur and share their interests and passion, this advice is horribly inaccurate.

Explain. Do you really think the Google founders set out to be billionaires?

I think that most of the interesting and decent rich people had no idea they'd be so successful. They put one foot in front of the other until they had something of great value.

For the record, they also didn't set out to compete with any of the existing search engines, rather their interest was to prove the viability of their linux cluster and an internet of data was a good theater for that.

Right. In terms of intellectual and creative advancement, the overwhelming majority of it comes from people who were both uninterested in monetarily capturing the value of it, and also bad at doing so. Most people with the talent for making money are people with few other talents (just because of the general rarity of talent; when the correlation is zero, people with talent X are very unlikely to have talent Y).

Interesting take. I see so many "business types" looking for developers to help them build their great idea. But developers aren't interested in building someone else's idea, so it may be the opposite approach which is mo' betta.

Business people should be looking for existing technical products to sell, rather than trying to think of ideas themselves.

The issue is that our society worships the hell out of money and the making thereof, at the expense of all else, creating an environment where the business people become "high priests" and get orders of magnitude more compensation, influence, and power than equally qualified and responsible people in other industries.

Large companies also use the creative, interesting work as a reward for doing well at the upper-grunt (middle management) level, so it goes to the most loyal, and those best at playing the "business game", rather than the most qualified.

The current arrangement makes as much sense as for particle physicists to tell Michael Jordan how to play basketball.

Exactly. Group 2+ is also the most valuable to the world in the long run, if only because people's mental health will be much better.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the members of Group 2+ generally hate the control that the typical manager exerts.

The Group 2+ is the group that society ought to strive to empower. They are the ones from whom real progress is made. Almost all of the truly great discoveries and inventions come from this group.

Right! There are two kinds of wealth: Monetary wealth and time wealth.

>Mark 8:36 (The Message) What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

There is wealth in being able to be yourself (which might be an abstraction of your 2 wealths?). Also, to love and be loved.

The thing is that "the boss" in that story is putting himself in group 3. As such he probably sees anybody in group 2+ as useless and mediocre as people in group 2.

Group #1: Social Media Scene people. You'd meet them at any networking event in San Francisco, like tonight's SF Beta

Group #2: These are your friends who work at Facebook or Google.

Group #3 ???

Wall Street.

exactly... i think he has to come up with another group to describe the personality he really means...

in for money but ethical?

YES!

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