Real Wealth Is Owning Your Time: Why I Walked Away from Half a Million | Hacker News Reader

Real Wealth Is Owning Your Time: Why I Walked Away from Half a Million

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51 pointstuckerp65 comments

As others have noted, the title is not the best. Only someone with lots of money would say that time is the "real wealth" (ask a poor unemployed person if they agree).

Perhaps a more accurate summary of the post would be "real wealth is having enough wealth that you can make money via passive income and thereby manage your time". But that's basically saying that real wealth is having tons of wealth.

I'm going to offer a defense of his definition, then cast it aside and offer a better definition.

If you're poor, you spend a lot of time doing tasks yourself that other people would outsource. (Food preparation, home repairs, etc.)

If you are employed, you probably invest a lot of time working relative to the returns you get. You probably spend a lot of additional time commuting, or doing other tasks adjacent to your job.

If you are unemployed, you're almost definitely going to spend a lot of time scrambling for some sort of income.

This is less tangible, but you also spend a lot of time worrying. True poverty means never getting to relax, because any number of small problems could turn into financial disaster.

Which brings us to the definition I'm going to offer: Wealth is security. It's knowing that you can quit your job at any time, and have enough in the bank to tide you over until you land another. It's knowing that if your car breaks down, you can afford to get it repaired, and afford to rent another or take Uber in the meantime. It means being able to focus on getting emergency medical care for a loved one without worrying whether you will still be able to make rent.

This was very apt and insightful. I’ve been on the less financially secure side and spent too much time worrying.

I think a lot of issues would be solved, or would be put on the way to a solution, if the government found a way to provide that security to individuals regardless of who they are or were.

I think your definition is better but not quite complete. You could be able to do those things before you have become wealthy. If you have 100k in the bank, you are starting to be well-off and can afford to do those things, but you are still one bad accident or one bad year away from having to start all over again. So what I would add to your definition of wealth is how much of those things you can afford.

Meaning, being wealthy means being able to cover emergency medical care for your family with cash and never even noticing that the cash is gone.

or you could be someone who is very confident about the future, (and maybe trusts in god if you like)

you could also live in a country with universal healthcare and a social support net, so that, even if you don't have/earn enough, you never have to worry about food, a place to sleep and your health.

to worry is more of an attitude problem than it is a wealth problem

Only someone with lots of money would say that time is the "real wealth" (ask a poor unemployed person if they agree).

I wouldn't agree there. I don't have lots of money, and the main reason for that is that I've focused on maximizing the personal utility of my own time. To me, that means doing work that I find personally and professionally rewarding, even if it's not the most financially-rewarding use of my time. I'm OK with the results, at least so far.

Professionally, I do contract and original development work from a home office, and have for >10 years. There's rarely a day when I don't open HN or another tech site and count my blessings. I'm thankful that I don't work for a company that sells tools and data for corrupting the democratic process, or that sells their users out to advertisers while engaging in numerous dark patterns to retain and addict those users. Or where the UX that I work on is not geared towards user-friendly content discovery, but rather to keep subscribers from realizing just how little content my company offers.

It's awesome that I don't work for a company where innovation means removing headphone jacks from portable audio devices and calling it "courage." Or for a company where I might be required to work on a new DRM scheme to lock users out of content they've paid for, to "disappear" books from their personal libraries, or to deny them access to hardware they own.

I also don't have to work on force-feeding unwanted, barely-tested OS updates using tactics indistinguishable from malware, or to spend any time considering how the Chinese government (or for that matter my own) might react to a new feature.

And I don't have to knife my own engineering sensibilities in the back by shipping trivial applications to locked-in users that waste memory by the exabyte and CPU power by the gigawatt.

In short, I don't have to wonder if the users I do have are really better off because they've done business with me. I'm pretty sure they are. Frankly, it's never been more rewarding to not sell out to a FAANG.

It doesn’t sound like you’re remotely poor.

It's not about being poor or not, or what I may or may not have given up in pursuit of self-actualization or whatever. The point of the comment was to refute the notion that "Only someone with lots of money would say that time is the (most valuable form of) wealth."

I say it is, for me at least, and I definitely would not be described as "someone with lots of money."

If nothing else, the OP should talk to some terminal cancer patients before making statements like that.

You are missing the "wealth" vs. "riches" relationship.

I am not rich by NYC standards, but working remote has made me "wealthier" because I have control over my time. I've often described it as I feel like a billionaire because I can go anyywhere, any time, as long as I handle my tasks.

More riches may allow you more time, but also, you can get more "valuable" time, when you have the authority to "own" your time (aka schedule.)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an engineer in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of blog post hits.

Especially if they worked at Amazon, I believe this is the second or third person to "walk away from a lot of money at Amazon" for the same reasons and now needs to tell the world about it.

Maybe there's a I-Left-Amazon-To-Become-An-Influencer-SaaS somewhere that produces these posts.

That and others from FANG. Before they start YouTube channels and courses on how you can get a job with them too.

techlead, joma, Clement, the list goes on and on and on and on...

I genuinely cringe when their content pops up on YouTube. Suggesting anyone can get a $200k job if you memorise enough algorithms through their courses is just sad - especially around the state of the industry at the moment.

tbh, I'm sick of working with leetcode engineers. Typically they're not actually very good engineers since an actual career in software very seldom involves those type of skills.

lol this is so true...

> Take big swings and bet on yourself.

Oh please. It's easy to take big swings from the comfort of your $600k house.

Everything is conditional in life. Yes time is important, but only when you have enough money.

Of course. But many people who have "enough" money nonetheless continue to take more money from the relatively sure thing even if they don't really like it and/or don't have enough time to do things they'd really be preferring to do.

Look man, it’s easy to take risks when you got nothing to lose.

If the bet on himself fails do you think he’s finished? Lol no, he’s got savings and will just go crawling back to a FAANG.

The guy who is taking real risk is the poor entrepreneur from south side Chicago betting his entire life savings and going into some debt for one last startup idea. If he fails he has no future.

Unvested RSUs aren't half a million it's just stock-based compensation. Stupid clickbait title.

More accurately: "How I walked away from $200k-300k/year to go into Private Equity"

> However, if 95% of businesses fail within their first 5 years, was that the best risk/reward tradeoff? What if I could just buy something already successful? I started researching buying internet businesses because they could be run from any location. I was shocked when I found out they average 30% returns every year across the industry.

> I made four investments in 2019 and will double that in 2020.

As a person who has been running an online business for the past 7 years, I couldn't disagree more. Business is always about doing something better than your competition. Small business isn't about having more capital, or a better PR team. It's purely about efficiently aligning your own strengths with the market demands. Being able to understand the market and its changes, knowing how to sell to your niche audience, being able to successfully execute many things at once, since you niche size very much limits what can be hired out.

When you sell a small business to a random "investor", all of this is lost. Sure, you will still have the market share for a couple of years, but unless you already know how to run that kind of business, you will lose to the competitors very quickly. It's like buying a trunk of a tree. You'll get the lumber, but it won't grow anymore.

There's also a question on why would the founder want to sell a successful business that gives a 30% return. They could very well remortgage their house, or scale down and take a part-time job to survive the rough times. If they didn't, perhaps it's because they understand something about the market the the buyer doesn't.

Or they took a second mortgage on their house in order to start the business, have been doing contracting on the side to pay the bills, and are simply burnt out. Or, they don't own a home to start with. (or worse, it's still underwater from 2008's GFC!)

Small business isn't about having more capital, but businesses fail because they don't have enough capital.

It is entirely possible that there is lurking issue in the market that the seller hopes the buyer is naive of, but it's also possible the seller, as a human being, and not a perfectly rational economic automaton, has their own reasons for getting out that means it's a good deal for the buyer.

I quit reading the post after halfway through it. When I saw the headline, I thought, "when you have enough money in your hands, you can walk away from anything", and the article just confirmed that. I don't need any of this dude's life advice.

Man, lots of critics here. I think this is great and even with the security of owning a home, it's still a big leap to go your own way.

Where are you finding businesses to buy? I've been considering something similar and have been keeping an eye on Quiet Light Brokerage, which has some interesting ones. Also, are you looking at Amazon FBA or doing your own selling/logistics? How much time are you putting into the businesses? I have lots of questions about how one does this effectively :)

That's fine--all of the criticisms were predictable. I never expected this to be for everyone.

Quiet Light is great--there's a number of other brokers out there too, Empire Flippers and FEInternational are two other major players. I use those + sourcing off market deals which are generally the most advantageous to acquire. Off market takes a ton of time to source until you have a big enough reputation that people know you and just bring opportunities to you. Those happen occasionally for me, but still represents a small percentage of the deals I assess.

Part of my screening criteria is to only acquire businesses with high automation in place, or high potential to automate.

Shoot me a DM if you want to keep chatting!

Just curious why is this getting downvoted, are those some scammy websites? It honestly looks like a benign comment to me, maybe I'm missing something.

Awesome, thanks - just sent you a DM on Twitter.

> I made four investments in 2019 and will double that in 2020. I’m targeting replacing my prior income by 2023. I think the rise of micro private equity investing is just beginning, and this is the perfect time to take advantage of the opportunity.

Take big swings and bet on yourself.

So is he investing in others or betting on himself?

He's betting on himself towards having an investor career.

> Thursday, September 12th, 2020

I think you meant 2019. This coming Sept 12 will be a Saturday.

Also it hasn't happened yet.

> Also it hasn't happened yet.

Or maybe that's the twist.

Thanks for sharing your story, it reminds me of the 'golden handcuffs' phenomenon. You wrote about how true wealth comes from relationships with others. Are you going to try to reconnect with the folks from your past, or maintaining the relationships you already have? Are you going to try and build new relationships through entrepreneurship? All of the above?

A combo of the above. I have several close friends who were also colleagues at one point and have since left to pursue their own entrepreneurial paths as well.

This is why I like the Tech Lead on Youtube. He's now retired but he encapsulated the typical engineer playbook we are all striving for, get highly educated, get a good job, be happy. From examining his outlook we can see that there rarely is satisfaction at these high stress jobs, and that there are other goals in life that are far more wholesome.

How come I’ve only heard negative things about tech lead? I always assumed based on that. Especially from people I’d normally trust. That he’s a charlatan not being honest.

Watch his videos of don't. Make up your own mind.

techlead is a scam artist brother

Caveat emptor

There have been a few of these articles lately, about leaving a high paying job to pursue something more risky but more fulfilling. They've all contained bits about leaving behind hundreds of thousands in RSUs to do so. I wonder though where the cut off is. If it was a couple of million in RSUs, would folks still do it?

Depends on circumstances like everything else I assume.

If someone has six figures of low seven figures in the bank and holding out for a couple years in a not-horrible situation will likely result in a couple of million, then it probably makes sense to hold on. After all, they could not unreasonably retire after that.

If they already have FU money (however you define same) and they really hate their current situation and are maybe older, then, yeah, maybe.

I'm genuinely intrigued about what this article is attempting to achieve? Is this like brand building? No offence, but it's quite low effort - a graph of Compensation vs Desire to own my time? Not a completely uninteresting topic, but then just x=y? It's very vague on what he actually does, but is this brand building for deal flow for his investments? Maybe there is some alpha in this small scale investing, but in my experience small businesses aren't just about who puts the money in - they're almost always full time jobs for the founder, and that stops when they sell, making the business much less attractive.

Time is subjectively more important to me than money right now because I have enough money to meet my needs and not enough free time to explore my interests. But I'd add that if you don't have your health, you have nothing.

>if you don't have your health, you have nothing

But everybody loses their health eventually, so that means nobody has anything. On the other hand, if you can't have anything, then you can't lose anything.

Again, people spreading false statistics, maybe to serve the "hero/risk taker" narrative? Yawn.

About 50% of businesses close their door in the first 5 years, not 95%. [1]

When someone makes such a common huge mistake, I am thinking that either they are not the slightest competent, or that they have an agenda that cannot be justified with realistic/honest numbers.

[1] BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/bdm/entrepreneurship/entrepreneurship.ht...

Interesting blog post! not sure I agree with the premise though, you can have autonomy and good work life balance without working for yourself.

I agree--in my experience though it was fleeting and not a long term guarantee.

"I was shocked when I found out they average 30% returns every year across the industry"

Amazing. There are some real gems here but this...I thought I was reading Reddit. Very nice.

"I made nearly $400k in my final year. I was respected by my peers and superiors and had a path to Director. I bought a damn $600k house with a movie theater when I was 26!"

5000 dollar suit...COME ON!!!

A great man for sure! Worked hard for everything he did. Keeps his head down and just works.

Pretty rich how many of this FIRE fellas are pretty well off to begin with.

And here I am, in my mid 30s, with a mid level programmer job, no career progression and spending a significant chunk of my income in rent. I would love to have more free time but hey, I got bills to pay.

They seem to have too much free time on their hand to be brag about it. 99% of us just keep working quietly.

Whoa he became a manager straight out of college? How does that happen outside of a startup?

Amazon hires very inexperienced managers. This is unusual among top-tier companies.

OP can maybe comment or correct (btw Congrats on making the jump, OP!) but given the business/operations language this might be the Ops Manager ladder, on which there is an entry-level manager position. IMO interesting, and cool if it works out for everyone.

https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/899809/amazon-operations-are...

(trivia, Amazon is listed as having 840k employees, I knew it was high of course, but wow)

This is very interesting! So by getting the job you get the valuable experience of managing 50+ people, but the trade-off is that you are expected to works shifts, stay on your feet for more than 12h, if needed to physical work, and be willing to relocate.

I understand why they will have a hard time finding experienced managers for this, but it is also a great opportunity for newly graduated young people who are serious about getting in to management.

I don't understand the chart. Typically the X axis is the independent variable, and the Y axis is the dependent variable. Is he saying that as his desire to own his time gets larger, his compensation goes up? Or are the axes flipped?

Many are downplaying this and saying that it’s is easy to hold that position while you’re rich. At the same I agree with the notion that working towards financial independence is worthwhile. This can be achieved by an austere lifestyle.

>This can be achieved by an austere lifestyle.

There are also degrees of everything. Some make a good salary and do fairly well with RSUs/other investments and make lifestyle choices that don't revolve around maximizing wealth without living "austerely." There's a big space between never going out for a nice meal or spending money on other "unnecessary" expenses like foreign travel and buying the most expensive house you can't afford in a high CoL area and generally spending extravagantly.

Most financially independent early retirement (FIRE) types don’t preach “micro private equity”... especially in a time when leveraged people are getting margin called with Covid. good luck to OP.

Most people would still argue money is a big part of wealth.

Yeah, it's not like he walked from half a million and had nothing. He walked from having half a million more. (In RSUs, subject to vesting, not including salary).

Yes, money is a way to buy others’ time so you don’t have to use your own. So we can talk about independence all we want, but we must factor in standard of living.

I imagine that’s precisely the crowd this is aimed at.

This post reeks a bit of #firstworldproblems.

This is a non-article. Not worth the time.

click bait for him to get deal flow as an investor. Kinda sad to see it upvoted on HN and you be downvoted for pointing it out. EDIT: and now we've gone full blown meta as I'm getting downvoted ha ha...

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