Not all of us will become billionaires by simply making 'the right choices', plenty of people made the choices the right way and ended up average or dirt poor.
Count your wealth in the number of smiles you see when people meet you again after not seeing you for a while.
His implicit point was an average intelligent person with average wealth can be just as satisfied with his/her life as a highly intelligent, highly gifted billionaire provided they both made quality choices about how they lived their life.
Edit: clarified last sentence.
Freedom of choice is for the most part an illusion, it is only true freedom if you determine what's on the menu. To be able to choose 'left' or 'right' when you want 'straight', 'down', 'reverse' and so on as valid choices but you don't have them because of the constraints placed on you by every day life is a false kind of freedom presented in those limited choices.
So, in practice, your average billionaire has more (many more) choices available to him than those lower on the financial ladder. The reason Jeff Bezos had the choice to give that speech or not is not because he's particularly happy, but because he's rich.
I lived and worked for two years in the Philippines amongst some of the poorest people in the world. These people were constrained in many ways as you describe in job choices, educational attainments, opportunity for travel etc. But regardless of how poor they were they still had the choice of to be kind or clever, to forgive or seek revenge, to pursue worthwhile activities or fritter away their time/money on drugs and alcohol, etc. There were many many very happy people I met in the worst of slums.
The most important choices we make in little have absolutely zero to do with how much money we have.
For a more extended essay on the topic, read "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl who survived a Nazi concentration camp.
To pull one quote off its Wikipedia page: "Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."
A key insight in ethics is that truly ethical decisions almost always go against the person making the decision.
A situation such as a concentration camp brings out the worst in some and the best in others in very stark contrast because of the environment, not because of the people in it. In less polarizing circumstances those on opposite ends of the spectrum might very well get along just fine.
A couple of movies and books bring that out really well, 'Der Faelscher' for instance, and the diary portion of the Odessa file as well as plenty of first hand accounts, such as the one you reference but also many others. The scary thing is that such an environment will also bring out the worst in otherwise decent people, and that our society in some ways does the same thing to its inhabitants, even if not on such a drastic scale.
What? Which theory of ethics are you using? I don't agree with this at all.
no, that's genetically predetermined.
I was baffled by this remark; since when being clever or kind are mutually exclusive options? According to the transcript he said "will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?".
Hmm, yes, that's the point of my comment.
I'm actually really curious about your life experiences. I remember arguing with you last time similar to this (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1373349).
You seem to be always against advising people to make bold choices to pursue their dreams.
I grew up in a poor family in the Philippines. I have lived with the poor and I have seen many people rose from poverty because they chose to. My mom who never finished grade school is the best example for that. I have also seen so many people who just never made an effort to rise out of poverty.
I just can't imagine a world full of people with the same views as yours. People who keep telling others that they don't have a choice - "be content to where you are now because that's as far as you can get" or "it may have worked for others but it doesn't mean it's going to work for you".
On the contrary, but there is a right time for everything.
Pretending that a class of graduates has something to learn from a guy that basically is standing before them not because of how ethically he lived his life and how happy he is but because he simply is rich (and therefore successful by our most common yardstick, wealth) is dishonest.
If you'd go out and find someone that has actually managed to achieve such a state of mind from hardship (say Nelson Mandela) then I'd be all for it.
My life experiences are one long series of bold moves, and I wouldn't have it any other way but I'm very careful to tell other people to 'do as I do', everything has its price and you have to make people aware of the price before you tell them to purchase the wares.
I think you are completely misreading me in what I wrote back then, I made it pretty clear in this sentence:
"Yes, so it worked for you. Great. It worked for me too, 23 years ago, one idle day in July. But that does not mean it will work for everyone."
To put out the advice to quit to someone without further knowledge of their situation is short-sighted, at a minimum you should spend a good bit of time to ascertain that that really is what's best for them, off the cuff advice like that can be very harmful.
If you want to know more about my life experiences feel free to read: http://jacquesmattheij.com/ .