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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>Basically at 25 he started running as fast as he could and it must seem to him that he hasn't stopped to catch his breath since. Every day new shit happens in the Google empire that only the CEO can deal with, and he, as CEO, has to deal with it. If he goes on vacation for even a week, a whole week's backlog of shit accumulates.

With the difference that unlike a poor single working mother, or some 40-something factory worker, etc., he can quit anytime, and has billions in the bank to show for it...

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The thesis was "some aspects of Larry Page's life are unenviable." Not "Larry Page's life is as hard as a poor single working mother."

If you dismiss difficult aspects of a person's life because somebody else has it worse, then nobody actually has a hard life except for starving children in Africa. Maybe not even them: captives who suffer regular torture and indignity probably have it worse. Or modern-day slaves.

Even if "some aspects of Larry Page's life are unenviable", what part of "he can quit anytime" doesn't still hold?

Some parts of everyone's life are unenviable.

That said, I don't think it makes much sense to comparmentalize working lives into "enviable" and "unenviable" parts.

The end result is what matters, and the bottom line is that he has billions to show for it, can work as little or as much as he wants (the other stuff, that he's somehow "forced" is BS, he could take a decorative role in the company if he wished to), and he can retire at any time.

So what part should I show sympathy for? That, despite all these facts, he works e.g. 15-hour days? Well, so do tons of double-shifting dirt poor people, immigrants etc. Without the good parts, and despite their inclinations.

>If you dismiss difficult aspects of a person's life because somebody else has it worse, then nobody actually has a hard life

Not just "somebody else" -- 99.999% of the population. He has it better than statistically almost everyone on the planet. There are maybe 1000 or 10000 people in his position (net worth, age, etc.).

haberman's point still holds: nothing's really stopping a poor single working mom from being a starving woman in Africa, or a captive suffering torture and indignity. There are plenty of starving people elsewhere in the world who literally risk their lives to be a poor single working person in America.

My wife sometimes provides medical care to "undocumented workers". She tells me stories of folks working 3 jobs, bosses who refuse to pay (illegals can't call the cops), working through hernias and other ailments, and all the while happy to be sending money back to their families elsewhere.

It's mind-boggling how bad it must be in some places. And yet, I'm sure that most residents of these "bad" places are probably happy day-to-day, hanging out with friends and family.

>haberman's point still holds: nothing's really stopping a poor single working mom from being a starving woman in Africa, or a captive suffering torture and indignity. There are plenty of starving people elsewhere in the world who literally risk their lives to be a poor single working person in America.

That's not much of a point though.

Sure, it's a spectrum instead of being a binary "has it good/has it bad". Nobody said otherwise.

But spectrum or not, Page is on the very very very top end of the spectrum. He is in the very end of the "has it good" category, with miles to spare from the rest 99.999% of the population.

That doesn't change because an American 2-shift working 20K/year single mom has it better than an African modern-day-slave.

The point is "has it good" isn't something that can be distilled into a score, as in Larry Page's 99.999 compared to starving child #42's 1.001. Many people would rather live as a poor child on a relaxed island rather than have the life of Larry Page. One of the great things about modern life is that you don't need to be a billionaire to have the things most people want: modern medicine, meaningful work, endless entertainment, access to a supportive community. You can buy jets and eat endangered sharks, but how much does that really improve your life? The tradeoff of endless stress is only something certain people are willing to accept.

Except that if you are Larry Page but you would rather live as a poor islander you can do that, but if you are a poor islander and you would rather live as Larry Page you are still forced to live as a poor islander.

This is nowhere close to difficult to score. Larry Page 1, poor islander 0, won in regulation.

This. It's the choice part that matters. He has basically 100% control over what he does any day. He doesn't really have to do anything he doesn't want to. If he does something he hates every day, that's his choice, and he's probably very aware of this fact.

Objectively, he could drop out whenever he wants, but choice isn't always that easy. People get accustomed to their lifestyle, whether it's forced or not, enjoyable or stressful. He's connected to people who have expectations, there's social pressure, internal pressure, pressure from his employees. Many people in positions like that do drop out, but do they always make a clean break? I think the point was that it isn't only the choice that matters, the power and freedom that comes with money doesn't trump everything else that goes into a person's life. While they might bring a lot of benefits, it's not all good, and the side effects of being in a position of power often make a person more powerless than ever. Once you're playing on a higher level, the competition is fierce and the expectations are sky high. That can trap a person into a certain path, even if they seem to have the resources to do whatever they want. It often seems like the people at the highest levels of power are the least free.

Notch took all his money and quit, only to feel lonely and isolated: http://mashable.com/2015/08/29/markus-person-twitter-billion...

Money isn't everything. Even if you have it, some things about life can be difficult.

Whether or not you feel sympathy for it, the difficulty still exists.

Also, he has the choice, which can be very empowering. The poor don't have that choice. If they stop working, they get evicted and starve, and maybe their wife and children do as well. I have less than zero sympathy for billionaires because most of their problems at that point are problems they choose instead of problems they must face.

Hate your day job? Don't do it. Take the money and do something you'd rather be doing. Sail all day. Start a weird Russian nesting doll collecting hobby. Start a band and pay professional musicians to play with you. Whatever. Hate cleaning? Hire staff. Hate child care? Hire a nanny. Hate your wife? Get a divorce and hire / find a new one.

Most people don't have any of these options. They have the option to keep the short-term highest-paying job they can sustain in order to e.g. Pay for a mortgage and food.

At that point, you could literally do almost whatever you want (except e.g. buy true love, fulfillment, etc). If working all day makes someone feel fulfilled, maybe do that, but billionaires all have the luxury of being able to not do that, or not do anything if they don't want, and be 100% fine.

> get less than zero sympathy if they talk about having difficult lives

You just proved this part.

coldtea's point is that "difficult" when you can walk away from it and never have to work another day in your life, and "difficult" when getting it wrong means that your life and your childrens' lives are ruined for years, live in two entirely different strata of meaning.

+++

Think about this way. Imagine if you could spend the next year absolutely any way you want to (within bounds of laws and human possibility and decency).

Larry Page chooses to do his job instead of doing that. I can't imagine the unenviable parts of his job adds up to anything beyond a rounding error.

The one part I can have some sympathy for is the lack of any sort of privacy (and the accompanying inability to go for a walk in the park by yourself), but those aren't the points mentioned here, and are worse for your regular TV/Hollywood types, who have less privacy as they are more recognizable, and much less money.

Let's be honest, a billionaire could walk away and their next several hundred generations wouldn't ever have to work and they'd all live very comfortable lives.

Are you also suggesting that they should get some sympathy? Why?

Because sympathy invokes inclusion and empathy. And reciprocity is human nature.

This assumes said CEO is mindful and doesn't suffer from a mental disorder, like narcissism.

Because they are a human being, and because wealth is not equal to happiness. It seems to correlate with happiness, but probably because wealthier people have less stress, and that's certainly not true for a CEO.

I think everyone deserves sympathy, because everyone is a human being. Larry Page's life as a CEO is surely stressful and he deserves sympathy for it. But I bet there are plenty of "poor single mother"s and "40-something factory worker"s with very stressful lives too, in many cases even more stressful than any billionaire CEO's. That can't be denied.

But think about the sort of pressure that would be on Larry's shoulders. If he quits, or makes the wrong decision, that potentially affects thousands of his employees, and their families.

For a poor single mother or 40 something factory worker, their stress is more localised to their own family's well-being.

I think the problem here is that people try to compare or value stress on a scale of entitlement. I don't think it's that simple. I agree everyone deserves sympathy, because at the end of the day, we all experience stress on some level. One person's experience of stress is never more valid than another's.

>But think about the sort of pressure that would be on Larry's shoulders. If he quits, or makes the wrong decision, that potentially affects thousands of his employees, and their families.

And yet, a vast majority of CEOs don't give a fuck about all this, and can destroy companies happily, and fly to another on their golden parachutes.

> If he quits, or makes the wrong decision, that potentially affects thousands of his employees, and their families.

He is remarkable in every way possible, but I doubt this is true. World won't end, if he quits. Google and everyone in there will be just fine. Look at Jobs (and many other "irreplaceable" people), for example.

"If he quits, or makes the wrong decision, that potentially affects thousands of his employees, and their families."

Do you really think CEO's care about the help? Watch what happens if Google gets broken up, or takes a nose dive like so many companies. That Playland campus will just be a story we reminisce about. Larry Page, nor any of the others won't be crying in their wine.

They will take their safe money and do something else. Bill Gates had the hubris to think he could solve the worlds problems with his wealth. I always felt it was our wealth? He practically "strong armed" every pc user.

"Oh he's being negative! Let's get him with our finger." I don't think I'm being negative, just a realist. I have seen too many CEO's decimate companies when the wind starts to blow in another direction. They always fatten their stake.

I think people are selfish by nature. When they become wealthy, and the one in charge; they just get worse. I really can't think of an exception?

Personal anecdote: I've experienced worrying about finishing project so that my two employees would still have a job next month and so that people who invested their personal savings in the project would get at least most of it back. I have also experienced worrying about getting next check as a freelancer supporting a family.

The latter was far worse – even though I knew we had a family safety-net.

I think it's reasonable to have more sympathy to problems of people struggling for well-being of their own family than "it's lonely at the top" kinds of problems.

"I have fired people. It is brutal. I have been fired. It's worse. So managers, please: Never solicit sympathy for the pain of firing people." – Reginald Braithwaite.

But nobody is forcing him to do it. If it doesn't make him happy, he can change it, unlike many people.

It's more than difficult to just drop a company that you can lead with the best direction when you have so many people close to you that depend on its success. So yes he can leave, but there is more than just his paycheck on the line if he quits.

Nobody is irreplaceable. And he doesn't do such a good job in the first place.

When you put that much work in, you just don't quit. There are huge ramifications to stepping down. And I'm sure, even if he does step down, he'll be involved for the rest of his life

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