Jupiter CEO Quits $68B Firm to Sit at the Beach and ‘Do Nothing’
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Isn't this the end goal for the vast majority of us? What's the point of having a bajillion dollars if you can't go do the things you want to do in life? Why are we all spending 80 hours a week grinding away at a startup or busting our asses in the corporate world if not to elevate ourselves beyond the need for money?
"The guy then asked the tycoon, whose net worth was 300 million dollars, 'Why do it? Why work so hard to get 300 million dollars? Why not just stop when you get to $30 million or something?' To which the tycoon replied 'And that is why you'll never have 3 million dollars'"
Point being, the type of folks who want to work super hard to become uber rich are generally not the type of folks that pine to lie on the beach. This is, of course, a bit of an exaggeration (I mean, Jeff Bezos seems to be "living his best lift" right now), but I think there are some kernels of truth in the type of hyper-driven personality that causes one to become super rich in the first place. If you're just concerned about becoming "moderately wealthy" so you can relax, there are a lot easier ways to do it.
Yes, when you get up to the level of Bezos, Musk, Gates, and so on, they're both very lucky and very hyper-driven. But when you're talking about the "mere" 10-30 millionaires, I'm not convinced it's much more than good luck and connections. When I think back to the few VPs and SVPs and whatnot I've encountered in my own work life, I don't recall many that seemed to have that driven "Bezos/Musk" personality. They were bored in meetings, golfing, and occasionally sending E-mail announcement to the division. They were not writing code until 10PM and waking up at 5AM to do a code review with the offshore developer team, all while watching their checking account and wondering whether the whole division would be laid off next month.
Doubt. Working to provide doesn't automatically make you "hyper-driven".
I'm planning to retire soon and I won't stop working, I'll just stop working for idiots and start working more on my own ideas.
Etc. etc.
Most of us will never have the resources to actually do it so when someone does I'm truly happy for them. This guy really is living the dream.
(edited "FIRE" to "FI")
How can it be viewed as anything else?
Clients have pulled cash from Jupiter for four years in a row and the firm has failed to stem the outflows this year. In the first three months of the year, investors yanked another £1.6 billion, according to its latest earnings report.
> Most of us will never have the resources to actually do it
I've done it via funemployment and it gets boring after a while... I needed to recover from a decade of grinding and get finally get some much needed medical procedures done (in the US no less), and the biggest hurdle was my inability to actually 'unplug,' it took nearly a year. I had mild to severe anxiety for no explicable reason other than not being used to being 'calm,' and I would be on edge thinking the worst was was about to occur and I started to just look for fires to put out.
It was incredibly unsettling but therapeutic in a way; luckily I'm better now, and I feel like I'm capable of getting back to things that require more effort than what I've been doing as of late. I got back into to school in that time and started to venture outside of Fintech, which is the only domain of tech that I know.
Mehhhh. Unless you get married before you have a job (and women usually are careful to prevent that) or are very loose with your money I don't think this is really true in our industry.
Like I have five video games still pretty much in prototype form I keep having ideas for but no time or energy to implement, so I can't do much more than write them down on paper and maybe put a few hours into them a week when I'm not feeling so run down from my day job/maintaining the home/cooking.
I don't really want to work on yet another enterprise-level healthcare/finance/insurance system. I'd consider switching back to the game industry full time but it still sounds like it's a shit show for how it treats its employees (some video game company employees are forming unions recently, though, which is a much overdue change), and would almost certainly be a significant pay cut, also I've been out of it long enough it'll probably be difficult to find a company that would hire me again.
Also I'd still have the problem of working on games that aren't my own ideas, plus it could be a contractual conflict of interest if I ever did release my own games as it would be the same industry then.
The workaholics are running things and they can't believe everyone else doesn't want to be like them, which is why I'm spending 40 hours a week at a job where I do actual work maybe 3 hours a week.
Last week, we finally went for the first time this year, and were rained out one day, and then it was overcast, windy, cold, and no swimming because of intense waves the other day (we still went, but it was less than ideal).
If we're lucky we might go one more time this year, although that's mostly because last week wasn't great. We usually only make the trip once a year.
I did used to live in an apartment that had a nice outdoor pool on the premises, and I'm seriously missing that now that I live in a house. I used to spend an hour out there about 3 or 4 days a week each summer.
“I just want to go sit at the beach and do nothing,” he said in the interview. “I’m not thinking about anything else.”
"Clients have pulled cash from Jupiter for four years in a row and the firm has failed to stem the outflows this year. In the first three months of the year, investors yanked another £1.6 billion, according to its latest earnings report."
-- Blaise Pascal
I sincerely wish we collectively would spend more time doing nothing.
> “I just want to go sit at the beach and do nothing,” he said in the interview. “I’m not thinking about anything else.”
Slightly misleading / clickbaity title. It sounds like it was his response to "what's next" and he wants to enjoy some downtime. Not that he never plans to do anything else but sit on the beach and do nothing.
Not criticizing them, just can't relate.
I for one have plenty of ways I would rather spend my day.
There are some countries where you can live under $500/month [1].
At a 4% withdrawal rate, $150k would take care of your needs for a very long time.
[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cheapest-...
After you're super duper high level, you just do it to see the numbers go up and you enjoy working.
It's your employees who have their souls sucked off from working for you earning a fixed amount every month.
Yes, I have. I still remember some girl I dragged into my student slum shared house widening her eyes and asking "Do you have an older brother or something? Why is your library a bunch of Nine Inch Nails or whatever? That's a very old album." and I immediately shot back something to the effect of "I pirate everything because I'm not some rich bitch from Fox Chapel -- I just look at what's well seeded, those weird Russian pill vendors have good taste in EDM, and your stupid CD store got too good at spotting shoplifters."
(Yeah, that also has nothing to do with this, but HN needs to have more creative nonfiction and less "Uh sir, this comment is not appropriate for LinkedIn" energy.)
So …
“Sandstorm was fucking inescapable in the SoCal rave scene in the late nineties, to the point that it became sort of a joke. Even if you went to an event where you could be reasonably confident that it wouldn't be played (a jungle or gabber event, for instance), you'd still hear some asshole blasting it from his car while you were in line.”
”I heard it being played from art cars twice at Burning Man this year. I'm choosing to believe that the perpetrators were doing so ironically, because the alternative is to despise/pity them.“
https://www.metafilter.com/145171/Ubiquitous-Sandstorm
// Welcome to MF.
I don't think he was in the SoCal rave scene, but he was a huge gearhead. Big fan of his "vee dub".
(I never could grok anything mechanical, and never really had stable housing, so I turned into a weird little cyberpunk so I could keep everything on a laptop or hard drive I carry with me)
(It was a joke from a place of love, since unlike Mark Zuckerberg, who we'd joke is literally a spy for the Chinese, Tom seems just want folks to use his website and have a fun time, versus feeling entitled interaction or observation.)
Also, I seriously doubt this Jupiter CEO is "doing nothing". He's probably reading novels, maybe doing some swimming, or mindfully consuming so kind of coconut based beverage? Who knows -- it's not my business, and at least I'll be honest that I'm jealous I don't have the economic security to do the same -- authenticity is rare these days.
Jupiter has beaches?
I must have had a few too many.
Anyway, I give him two weeks before he stands back up and buys a big boat to do nothing around the world with influent friends and hookers and blow.
Maybe I'm just projecting.
Their peers won't tolerate that sort of behavior.
They brought in a new CEO, the company went public years later and is doing splendid, but it was contentious for awhile.
About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working harder to make a living for himself and his family. “You aren’t going to catch many fish that way,” said the businessman. “You should be working rather than lying on the beach!”
The fisherman looked up at the businessman, smiled and replied, “And what will my reward be?”
“Well, you can get bigger nets and catch more fish!” was the businessman’s answer.
“And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman, still smiling.
The businessman replied, “You will make money and you’ll be able to buy a boat, which will then result in larger catches of fish!”
“And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman again.
The businessman was beginning to get a little irritated with the fisherman’s questions. “You can buy a bigger boat, and hire some people to work for you!” he said.
“And then what will my reward be?” repeated the fisherman.
The businessman was getting angry. “Don’t you understand? You can build up a fleet of fishing boats, sail all over the world, and let all your employees catch fish for you!”
Once again the fisherman asked, “And then what will my reward be?”
The businessman was red with rage and shouted at the fisherman, “Don’t you understand that you can become so rich that you will never have to work for your living again! You can spend all the rest of your days sitting on this beach, looking at the sunset. You won’t have a care in the world!”
The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”
Oddly enough people mentioning that parable never actually spend their days lazily on the beach. People who don't put their money where their mouth is always rouse my inner cynic
One never quite values money until they can't afford to pay for the roof above their heads or the meds that keeps them alive
I work from home for a small company with people I like, I get to spend my day with my partner and dog, get out walking every day, have time (and money) for the hobbies and activities that I and we want to do. I don't need to climb and push harder to achieve the life that I want, because I'm content with what I have and where I'm going.
If might sound dumb to work hard to achieve but those people at the top have very little trouble finding jobs, ie they are not as dependent on a specific company to make a living.
> you don’t push hard to achieve then when you try to look for new jobs you find you are outcompeted or your skills outdated.
Who said I don't work hard, or that my skills are outdated? I can work hard and keep up to date without chasing the next step and forgetting about what I already have. It doesn't really matter what jobs there are in the future if I get too burned out on my current job, for example.
You're the businessman after succeeding with his plan, not the fisherman
The businessman does too.
Having said that I have had a close friend get his career badly derailed by health problems. That really sucked, but after some tough years he's back rebuilding his career and loving it. He's in the film and TV production industry and just loves what he does.
I think the moral is, do what you love and be good at it. I honestly have no idea what I'd do if I wasn't in IT, but I love the tech and I'm decently well paid, so it's all good. Not everyone is so lucky, for sure.
Not everybody did this, of course. I had some friends who worked their hours, and put their effort to it, but the culture was definitely messed up.
I agree with you that almost everyone in my life who told me "Hey, money isn't everything" was already very wealthy.
That's a very generous interpretation of the story that ignores the adjectives used to describe the businessman and the fisherman
It’s not cynical to admit that your situation is absurd without changing it, especially since our society punishes anyone who doesn’t go with the absurdity.
Together with millions of other highly specialized and trained people that effectively pay for the social safety net?
I can only speak for my own country - but becoming a doctor is highly attractive here in spite of it being hard work.
Nurses, not that attractive, but they are paid a decent middle class salary as compensation for the hard work.
I see the tax I pay as an investment in the people and society. Society helped me get good health care and take a good education, even though I come from what would be a lower class home in much of the world. I pay that gift forward to someone else - very likely to be people in my own family.
Also, there's good stress and bad stress. Treating someone with an acute cardiac arrest is probably quite stressful, but also very meaningful. Dealing with your boss having an 'episode' and needs some slide set reworked by 12 o'clock is stressful but also pretty devoid of any larger meaningful purpose.
[0]: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...
Also, regarding healthcare system quality, one of related statistics from this article are in favor of US: "30-day mortality for heart attacks and strokes is lower in the U.S. than in comparable countries". Same with ischemic stroke(and it's better in US by quiet much, 4.1 vs 6.1 30-day mortality rate per 100 patients in other countries).
I guess it depends where and what and how but me and my friends experiences are very different from what you say, especially after having had experiences with private healthcare in other countries with colleagues where I was present.
CT scan (ct), RMI scan (rmi), endoscopy/colonoscopy/etc (scopes), radiography scan (radio)
This is typical of how the US does things: other countries don't have a perfect solution, therefore we will stick with our much worse solution.
But what "inadequate care" are you talking about?
Do doctors sometimes not give patients what they demand? Absolutely. But that's the way it's supposed to be - it's hard to make rational decisions when your own health, or that of a loved one, is on the line. That's why doctors consult doctors too.
If you lived in EU you would know you can't really trust public healthcare.
It's the same story everywhere: they introduce it, it works ok for a couple of years, it's a socialist success, yay... then it experiences a very sharp decline, but the government doesn't care
It just seized a good portion of private economy and they're the good guys because they pay your plasters with your tax money, no matter how shitty the service is.
Universal healthcare systems, at the moment, have very bad supply/demand problem, especially in developed countries, where population getting extremely old. And it's unclear how it can be solved.
Before you misunderstand, I am totally in favour of universal healthcare, my country (India) has it. Pretty sure if we can afford it with a population of our size, the wealthy nations sure can.
Maybe that would be better, but I doubt it.
Looking at the Jupiter CEO, his retirement sounds dull, although spending time with parents before they go sounds good.
Still, I'd need to do more than sit on a beach.
It's not really about the "stuff" accumulated, it's the reward of work itself. Mainly, a sense of meaning and social validation. You can quibble over the possibility of being "productive" without a job, but most people don't want to be fucking artisans - they want to get things done and feel useful. We're not all wired to be painters, make pointless software or boutique furniture out of our own volition. If you tell us someone needs to cut these pieces of wood and nail them, someone needs to teach, someone needs to clean, someone needs to fix this bug and ship this software, and banter all the while, and you get paid for the privilege, that's easily more motivating for most people.
Rich CEO meets young sexy tattooed gen-X intern, they date, she takes him to a rave, the smoke weed after and listen to jazz. They fall in love. He quits... now fade out.
I am not sure I care what the real story is.
What gen is it then?
Gen Z ?
And would also likely be the interns you described
They would be the same age
And with that level of inequality it would be much less interesting to elope with someone that age.
Some people think “I like relatable people and I cant relate to people under a certain age, what do you talk about” which simply means they tried the hot younger person first/eventually like everyone else and if they had any game or tolerance they would be with that younger sexier person
sexier by the definition of improved utility of sex henceforth making them more sexually attractive at all
and she laughs at the absurdity because she’s actually “taking a break from her communications major this semester” (for the past 5 years)
or loves how progressive I am to accurately assume she navigates the Western STEM world while being visually appealing
Only upside so far
Just nod, play along
:)
just kidding, all in good fun.
If you substitute "musician" for "intern", this is basically Elon Musk and Grimes.
A re-imagining seems a good compromise.
Elon Musk did this (and left a few babies along the way) but didn't retire.