Why Do So Many Rich People Work So Much?

My conjecture is that the article undersells the possibility that rich people derive non-income utility from their jobs. For example, it seems plausible that jobless young men like video games because they revolve around competently meeting and overcoming (artificial) challenges. As far as I know, most people in high-paying jobs at least feel like their work consists of competently meeting and overcoming challenges.

So much condescending presumption in this article.

Calling "wealth accumulation" (Frank's term) "the closest thing they have to fun" betrays his own bias.

It's quite possible that the work is just inherently fun. My work is, to me; sometimes I do it for free.

This reminds me of an article from the NYT probably 25 years ago when the author was astonished to see Mercedes' in the parking lot of Costco. "If you can afford a Mercedes why would you go to Costco?" Perhaps you prefer to shop there and don't give a shit about the old fashioned sumptuary habits.

I’m not a billionaire. I do have financial freedom, and I work 60 hour weeks. This fits my lifestyle because I find joy, fulfillment, and a strong sense of accomplishment in my work. If my work was more mundane, I imagine even 40 hours would be a huge struggle.

Without meaningful work, I imagine the rational thing to do (not necessarily ethical) is to find a job that requires the least amount of effort with the highest pay. And if the government will pay me the same to sit at home, perhaps I’d even do that.

As other comments have noted, one answer is that work is fun for many people. Another is that work gives purpose and structure to life, just like having children does. Another answer is that most rich people are self made and have had to work hard to get where they are. That means more hours at work and more sacrifice of other life experiences. Delayed gratification is a key part of the path to success but it then also becomes its own blessing or curse. On the positive side, it can be like being in love in a happy marriage - you develop deeper and deeper appreciation for your partner, discover greater richness and depth in them, and yes it comes at the exclusion of other things but that’s fine. A more cynical answer is the relentless grit that gets a rich person to that point of wealth is hard to turn off, and having not developed other comparably significant interests in their adult life, it consumes them and becomes the default way to keep occupied.

Yehhh... yehhh.. naaahhh...

Rich people dont work so much... They just make so much money sitting around with other rich people they might as well call it work...

If you work in wall-mart your lunch is not paid. If you are the CEO of wall-mart you can expense a 2000 USD lunch and call it a buissness meeting.

If your job is number collection (realestate, banking, etc ) it is an addiction just like hoarding, the more you do it the more bigger number you want.

We should start shaming people for hoarding money just like we shame the poor for collecting toilet paper.

Working 12 hours as a CEO is not comparable to 12 hours shift in the factory.

Comparable question: why do pro bass fishers go fishing so much?

>The rich were meant to have the most leisure time. The working poor were meant to have the least. The opposite is happening. Why?

For one thing this very premise is plain wrong. Nobody's supposed to be meant to have anything.

>Why Do So Many Rich People Work So Much?

Could maybe be better restated as "Why do people who work more than average sometimes end up more financially prosperous than average?"

Becoming rich doesn't change the way you are wired

This is like asking why Tom Brady keeps training.

Money are not meant to be spent, just like Lombardi Trophies are not meant to be looked at or held more than the 24hrs after winning it. Money , just like Lombardi Trophies or WSOP bracelets are a way to keep the score

These people, they pathologically refuse to eat the marshmallow, they live their whole life eating 1/1000000th of the marshmallow and postponing the optionality to eat the rest in the future.

Then they die.

“Why are people who work so much, so rich?”

Sounds like a stupid question when you put it that way, doesn’t it?

For glory. I want to do the best I can do. I also want to be loved and respected with a lasting legacy. I lived in a hotel travelling the world for 5 years and it's just not as fulfilling as building things.

Because they don't have a boss. They are the master of their domain.

I asked my Dad this once. He said it was because he liked doing it.

Robert Frank is a moderately socialist economics professor at Cornell, so take his quotes with a grain of salt.

The article talks about young men playing video games excessively. A contributing factor is that online dating women are looking for the top 5%-20% or so of men now (combination of appearance and hypergamy), so the bottom 80% to 95% are not dateable online.

(A recent survey said women are only interested in the top 4.9% of men in dating apps, versus the previous estimates of 10%-20%. This is called unrestricted hypergamy and has horrible consequences for both women and society at large, as those 4.9% of men essentially have harems of short-term relationships because they can, and the other men can just play video games.)

I've never heard somebody say, "I want to accumulate the fruits of workers' labor", so I think the understanding of motivation is backwards - it's to create a company or solve a problem, and if workers are needed, you hire them. This is HN, so for most readers should be obvious.

The deeper psychology is that most men need a purpose in life, and a startup is very purposeful. Whether it succeeds or fails is kept by financial score, but it still serves the purpose of getting up daily, focusing on tasks, and trying to "make a dent in the universe." (Richard Cooper)

Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, etc, the workplace provides access to something they can't get anywhere else.

To take a quote out of context: """

As the economist Robert Frank wrote, “building wealth to them is a creative process, and the closest thing they have to fun.”

"""

So the wealthy are accumulating the fruits of workers' labor as a pastime?