Ask HN: Any rich programmers that don't have to work but coding for fun? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Any rich programmers that don't have to work but coding for fun?

39 pointsertucetin35 comments

Are there any rich programmers that don't have to work for a company just writing code that what they want to write?

(created throwaway for this)

Thank fucking GOD I find myself in this position right now! Through some random luck and the sell of an old startup I am now able to take a few years off and just like think and sleep all day and have inappropriately long lunches.

At present I am writing crypto currency trading shit just for fun, having a blast, and most importantly, not having to worry about any meetings or struggling for progress on the HUGE PILE OF UNIMPORTANT BULLSHIT THAT WAS MY TODO LIST.

A forgot password form? Gimme a fuckin break. A build script??? HAHA.

I recommend it highly.

You don't really have to be rich (> millionare) to do that. I currently work at a company that was once a freelance project, bought by some huge tech company and I was lucky to be one of the first few developers who joined before it was bought and enjoy every minute of writing code and I still have the energy to work on my own projects every day (I'm quite young, that might explain). It depends how lucky you are and the paths you've taken to be happy and make you not give a fuck.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply I was rich. Just that I was able to work for code without needing to worry about money, or what that code has to do for cash, for the time being. I think having nothing to do all day is the ultimate wealth - the richness of leisure.

Wish I had known this years ago and just focused on building my own shit rather than making the already rich slightly richer

"I think having nothing to do all day is the ultimate wealth - the richness of leisure." I can bet that after a week of doing nothing you'll get back to your daily stuff. It's like nicotine, once you are used to work all day you can't just stop. Even if it's not something you're used to do, something else might interest you. Our brain needs new stuff all the time, can't just put it to sleep inside a lambo.

Since you've made a throwaway for this, I figured I'd ask more intimate details: How much money did you make off of that sale that you consider it good enough to take a few years off but not retire completely? $1 mil, $2 mil, more, less?

I ask since amount of money needed to live without work for a few years in silicon valley/bay area (assuming you're in it) is typically enough money to retire forever in a place like Thailand/Chiang Mai, and so would follow up and ask why won't you do that :)

About 2-3 times my yearly salary (which was pretty comfortable as it was). I have a lot of room to slash my expenses. I'm just looking for some breathing room to get back to what I love about computer science.. I don't mind working again in a few years! :)

Notch. Made a shit ton of money selling Mojang/Minecraft to Microsoft. Now basically spends his life partying, playing games and coding games for fun. Oh, and shitposting on Twitter. Ofcourse.

He does a bit better than shitposting sometimes.

My company pays for my rent and living expenses which allows me to save roughly 50k a year working remotely. I tried working less hours but found myself bored with going to the gym 3 hours a day and working by the pool. I'd rather be in stinky room surrounded by white boards and joking around with other devs. I found that 5-6 solid hours of productivity is better than 8-9 hours 5 days a week.

Non-rich programmer: works on CRUD apps to feed the family.

Rich programmer: works on compilers, OS dev, DB internals, in-house 3D engines/games, AI, etc... to have fun :)

In a team lead role for a big telco, (build my wealth trough stock trading robots, can retire anytime) and every year cannot get myself to leave and retire early...

Too much fun, interesting projects and great team to lead (also working from home helps a lot)...

Maybe next year :-)

I need a job and can contribute to your team. Please assist

did you build your own robot or used some existing ones?

Yes, I did... But, I didn't wake up one day with the idea of building killer Wall Street robots, all came together as natural progression:

First I wrote some programs to back test different trading ideas, then I used the best ideas to create sort of stock scanner to give me the best possibilities for a trade, then I wrote an alert system to alert me what to buy, then with the APIs being available from different brokers, I started automating the entries and the last step was to develop sort of monitoring to monitor and exit my trades...

All hosted on few VPS around the world, so I can be truly location independent and I don't have to have internet all the time ...

that's very helpful and practical advice, i am a software engineer, but very interested in quantitative trading. If possible, can we connect by email? I want to ask some suggestion, like how to start in this path, my email is in my profile, thanks!

I"m curious, whats the amount you are investing, what's the profit, and what's the risk? I've always been a little bit suspicious of day trading as a way of making money considering the type of ads I see, the fact that I'm an unsophisticated investing unable to access the advantages professionals have (like fast trade execution and much cheaper trading costs), and that slippage means I won't be able to set a hard limit on how much I am willing to risk. How do you deal with those things?

The amounts are 6 and more digit accounts, average profit per year double digits (last year was the first with tipple digits return, manly because of one trade, probably won't repeat itself)... The miracle of compounding is that what is working for you in the long run...

EDIT: I do have losing days, weeks, months and years as well, it's not a smooth sailing by any stretch of the imagination...

I am not day trading, you cannot win against HFT shops, and forget about the ads for trading gurus, coaches and mentors, no one will sell you a winning trading strategy, because the more money/people are trading it, the less effective is going to be and eventually will be arbitraged away...

If you trade high quality/high volume stocks, there is basically no slippage (few cents at most), so you can easily calculate the risk for your strategy using tools like Kelly criterion - half Kelly is a good start and you go from there...

Throwaway for this. I'm virtually there, although not quite: I will inherit ~$1M cash, arguably within the next 1-3 years.

I never thought too much about it and did what I thought would interest me anyway; I thought I had to get a sense of what a modern capitalist society really is. I ended up starting a somewhat successful career in CS (I’m in my late 20s), did the 9-5 thing for a few years… but I got to the point where I simply don’t care much anymore. Call it a quiet burn out if you want. Sure, coding can be fun, but I don’t see how “becoming a better programmer” will eventually make me happy. It will at best keep me busy - and most likely won't make me contribute with anything too positive for the world at large.

I’m not ruling out the fact that I’ll keep writing code in my life for one reason or another; I’m simply not interested in having a career anymore. I feel incredibly lucky to have a safety net that will allow me to decide how to best spend the rest of my life. I also feel the responsibility to do something truly positive with it, and not just for me.

Typical programmer in Valley will make much more then $1M in cash, so it's not enough to not care about money

Really - what's that got to do with anything?! I don't see any connection between the two halves of that sentence. Except I guess it's true for you.

You can retire for life with under half a million in lots of places if you're willing to live (very) frugally (and single/have no dependents).

Im not rich, but my company affords me this luxury - my basic income is taken care of, and I'm free to work on what I want to - https://ramm.science/

Justin Frankel comes to mind. Though REAPER might be profitable, not sure.

I don't know about rich but I code for my few side-business projects and I decide when to take on more work or when I want to do a project for myself that intrigues me.

For sure.

I'm far from rich, but I'm comfortable enough that I can afford to stop caring about my employer's bottom line at quitting time.

I nevertheless spend a lot of my free time coding, and enjoying the freedom of not having to worry about anything I make being profitable. (If you've never written a big complex project alone for your own enjoyment rather than for someone else / as a resume padder, I highly recommend it. It's freeing to write code that you wouldn't want to put on a resume and couldn't sell.)

I don't know if I'm rich (actually decidedly not), but I freelance and save a large proportion of my income, and when I'm not working on client projects I just work on my own, which can be for weeks at a time. My day pretty much looks the same whether I'm working for a client or myself, but with way less emails/Slack/whatever taking me out of flow.

It's a very enjoyable way to pass the time.

A friend's friend. Working in Amazon for 15-16 years (still not manager). His stock would easily make him a millionaire. He puts minimal effort just enough not to get fired, doesn't care about promotions, works 6-7 hour days and has a good life. My friend asked him why doesn't he quit? He said this job gives him something to do.

I have never been in that situation so maybe I can't judge. But it makes me sad that people when given freedom to do whatever they want to do, need some corporation to tell them what to do. Again, maybe I would be the same if I was in that situation.

Yes, and it's far more enjoyable now but it's harder too.

With clients I had deadlines that forced decisions. With only artificial motivators I've found it too easy to follow my passion rather than launching something.

But, I do get to explore what I want to now.

Can I ask how you made your money?

I ran a website design company in Silicon Valley.

Did this for a year. Saved £30k - enough to go to Asia, but not live like a backpacker, actually live in places and spend roughly working hours on my own projects.

Just need to win the lottery now and do it full time.

My friend worked as a teacher of computer science to a guy who is a local bank owner(over 30mil$ fortune) retired at his 70th and studying software development as a hobby. He payed not much btw

Are you assuming only rich people do that, or only interested in rich programmers? (Whatever 'rich' means exactly. Whatever definition you have in mind, I mean.)

I don't believe that you have to be rich for that. But I get your point. It is not my case unfortunately, but I believe that some can be doing just that.

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