Why Don’t Rich People Just Stop Working? (2019) | Hacker News Reader

Why Don’t Rich People Just Stop Working? (2019)

nytimes.com

15 pointspaulpauper29 comments

Because it isn't work the way you see work. Is it really work if at any moment I can say to myself, "This isn't working for me. I'm outa here." and not just be able to leave but leave with zero consequences. Not the type of, "You're going to have to put me down as a reference" or "don't burn bridges" type consequences. You don't care about bridges. If you needed a bridge you'd buy one. You know all the bullshit you have to deal with because you need healthcare, to pay your mortgage or car payment? Not a problem. You get to speak your mind and if someone doesn't like it, including your boss, too bad.

The funny thing is you're probably not going to be characterized as someone with a bad attitude. Quite the opposite, you're going to be called a "straight shooter", someone who "tells it like it is", "unflappable" and "supremely confident in their abilities".

So ya, you get some social interaction, few if any consequences and people tell you what a great person you are all day. Why not?

Reaching financial independence can ironically help slingshot one's career. It can remove hesitation about how to play different situations, and can allow one to become a "straight shooter" and sometimes get some nice opportunities within the organization or in a new one. Being able to say that you're leaving because the situation isn't working for you is a powerful position to be in (and can add about 10 years of life expectancy back that you may have lost due to stress in the beginning of your career).

Because you don't hear about those who do?

Meet Dale. Back in 1977, Dale was working with Hayes making dial-up modems (as in Hayes of the "AT command set"). At age 35, "Dale decided his privately held Hayes stock was worth enough to retire and live well". Since then he tinkers with electronics, and his robot webpage is a good resource for amateur robogames builders and a very interesting read.

http://robots.wa4dsy.net/home/about

There are many, many people like this... you have probably talked to them or met them but you may not know that they have either already retired or have enough money to retire anytime and just working for fun.

I'm 52 and effectively retired. There's a very small chance I'll do a gig here and there, but only if they are really interesting to me. I was going to retire at 55, but Covid lockdowns sped up my plans a little.

anyone can retire anytime, but it's the financial part that makes the call. I wonder how much is enough to retire at early 50s: typical family still have kids attending college, medicare is not kicked in,etc.

unless I am going to make a fortune somehow, I see no way for me to retire in early 50s, but if I win a lottery, I probably will retire.

You bring up a good point - if I was in the US, medicare would drastically impact my finances, and I'd be back to work asap.

Obamacare, healthcare.gov, is a good option for retiring early, depending on what state you're in. Open enrollment is Nov 1st - Jan 15th.

I mean, once I have enough money to retire, I'll retire, but I'll "keep working". The difference is that I'll be my own boss and manage my own time and lead my own projects. I can't imagine not doing this, since there's so much left to do.

Being your own boss isn't all it's made out to be. You think you will have all the time in the world but in reality you are on call 24/7 so never completely off work.

Not exactly; my work will just be an extension of my existing hobbies (CNC, mathematical explorations, machine learning, etc) and I've learned to scale back my expectations so that there's nothing I have to worry about when I leave the garage at night.

I certainly wouldn't be working to make money or anything. I don't even etsy my CNC stuff (though I could) because I don't want to turn my hobbies into a "job"

Not every industry requires being 24/7 on-call -- just stay away from the web stuff, and regular business hours become much more common. There are still "crunch" time when a customer wants you to work 120 hours a week but this is a question of being able to say "no"... which is much easier if you have enough money in the bank to retire anytime.

Depends on the type of job. Making a new mission critical SaaS app? Sure, you're on call. But if you're making some small websites or blogs, or even outside of the tech space in something like carpentry, you can take all the time you want.

It's really about whether you have customers or not, and what kinds of customers they are.

If you have customers or stakeholders then you are not your own boss.

You can fire customers.. I've done it a few times.

I am my own customer. I don't even etsy my work, though I could.

Another strategy is to get closer to someone that shares your vision for the future but has a lot more resources and let you work on your long term ideas. There is a limit to the set of things you can do alone.

They do sometimes. See the FIRE and fatFIRE communities on reddit (and also leanFIRE but that's not "rich" people).

- https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence

- https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE

- https://www.reddit.com/r/leanFIRE

"Working" means a lot of different things, doesn't it?

I assume most rich people keep "working" at increasing the value of their investments. I mean, capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages, so if you've got the choice, you'd "work" at increasing capital gains, not at getting more wages.

How does one "work" at increasing capital gains? You increase capital gains by increasing how much you have invested. Which requires working a job in order to receive income that can then be invested.

It takes a lot of work to find the right projects to invest money into...or if even less hands off then the right financial advisor to put their money with. Most "rich" people don't just sink their money into a ETF or mutual fund and call it a day.

I believe you can buy and sell stocks at will, unless you're an insider like a CxO or VP or even a director of a company. That's not most people.

So: selling stocks when you think they're near a high in price, and using the proceeds to buy other stocks when you think they're near a low in price. I expect the research to do this is time consuming.

Make money for the business you own, but don’t take it (all) out in salary or distributions.

(2019)

Previous post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21283988

Can't read through the paywall, but I assume many factors ranging from the power, enjoyment of the job and being important, to more mundane matters such as the realization that their lifestyle is unsustainable without large income.

Disable javascript.

https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

Because the attributes that lead you to be rich also make you a workaholic?

This isn't rocket science. Relative wealth is ultimately mainly due to your decisions. That's why most lottery winners end up losing the money. If they had the sense to not lose it they wouldn't need the lottery to make them 'rich'.

That is not true at all. There are also poor workaholics.

It’s the “hustle” and I know so many people, poor, in the middle, or doing quite well who like to talk about the hustle. People take pride being part of some kind of hustle. Not all people of course.

(s)he's saying that being a workaholic is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for becoming that rich.

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