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Comment by MuffinFlavored | Hacker News Reader

> If somebody can make a nice living with their business, isn't that good enough?

I think the allure of being a billionaire is it's "one and done". As in, once you achieve it, you can live the craziest life possible filled with lots of grandeur and not need to run any kind of business whatsoever after.

It's mainly a fantasy for people who are tired, overworked, underpaid, under-appreciated (which is like 85% of America I'm guessing).

"Wouldn't it be nice..."

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The thing is, this is achievable even at 10M.

Hell, one can support the median household income at a reasonable SWR on ~ 2M.

Underlying all of this seems to be paulg's assertion that billionaire founders 'deserve' their wealth and therefore our inequality and their relatively small contribution to the public purse is justified.

I have no problem with founders being rich, but once you're earning 1%er income? You should be paying a hefty amount of taxes to support social spending. Think ~ 2/3rds, like it used to be before the regans and thatchers of the world gutted the social contract in the 80s.

> The thing is, this is achievable even at 10M.

$10M does get you a nice time, and you would never have to say no to any reasonable expense, but it's also definitely possible to overspend. There's some higher threshold where you really can be 'wild and crazy' and the only way to run out of money would be through bad investments.

There's a difference between always flying first class, always flying on a jetshare, and always having your plane fueled up and ready to go. Also, between driving yourself to the airport, taking a car service, having your driver take you, or having your helicopter pick you up.

10M would give you a safe withdrawal rate somewhere between 300-400k a year. A fairly common household income for people on HN. It affords a very nice quality of life but you're certainly not living the lifestyle that most people think of as "rich."

That's the average? There's no way to measure it, but that's around five times the US median household income, at a percentile of 97%. It could not be close to the median for HN just by probability, and it's a rich man's income.

I never said average. I said it's a fairly common household income on HN– which is true.

>It affords a very nice quality of life but you're certainly not living the lifestyle that most people think of as "rich."

I think maybe you're missing the perspectives of ...almost everyone outside of a very select few in VHCOL locations.

It’s the other way around. Most people think of it as rich.

Tech workers in SF don’t.

I have to remind myself that there are people comfortable with such a 'wild and crazy' lifestyle.

While I wouldn't mind being very well off, I have a visceral gut reaction to any of the sort of flashy spending that draws attention to myself. I also find that it isolates you from the experience of the common man, and life is lonely enough as it is.

it's interesting that it's very common to have a disdain / discomfort with showing that you have that money, but no such corresponding problem with just having it. if you're not going to give the money away, i don't see how there's any benefit to not spending. you're still way richer.

Because it changes your experience in such a way that you will not fit in as well with your fellow humans, something many of us conscipusly enjoy and most of us somewhat need.

Eh, any money you have invested generates income. That income can be used for your expenses or given to charity, depending on what your needs are for a given year.

After I hit my 'retirement number', if I can find a job that will give me the flexibility I want in retirement, I plan on continuing to work 2-3 days a week and donating half my salary to charity.

God knows local charities can use my money far more than they can use me as a volunteer. I like coding, and if I get paid and do good in the world, so much the better.

> SWR

for anybody not familiar

safe-withdrawl rate

typically 1% of portfolio value a quarter = 4% a year i am guessing?

theory is if your portfolio is invested in funds (mutual or ETF) tracking a broad-market index (S&P500) aka equities, and these equities go up 8-10% a year (return before inflation) on average over the long term

and if you have a $2m portfolio basically 100% in equities

sell off 4% = $80k/yr worth pre-tax (only taxes would be... long-term capital gains?)

because your portfolio is appreciating 8-10% a year, it'll stay at $2m despite you sell off $80k/year because it's tracking the US stock market/"economy" which is supposed to be growing 8-10% a year and they "offset each other"

with $10m this becomes $10m * 0.04 = $400k/yr pre-tax

i too would like to have $10m so that I could live off $400k/yr and not need to work :)

heck, i might even settle for $5m!

I am very far from being a billionaire, but as soon as I made it to upper-middle-class, I realized that the hedonistic treadmill would never end, even if I was a billionaire. It's a never ending fantasy world where everyone looks up and wants to be as rich as the next tier, even though that's rarely possible, and just like the scene in WarGames, "the only winning move is not to play".

While there is some of that, eventually you reach a point where you don't really know what to do with more money. That is you fly first class, and you see no reason to upgrade to the next level (shared jet, owned jet). Maybe you try a cruise and decide an inside cabin is just as good as the largest balcony room (or something inbetween) and are not interested in owning your own ship at all - perhaps a cruise isn't for you and you still prefer primitive camping in the backwoods with the minimum you can take with you.

Of course you can always spend more money. However I have known rich people who decided their mansion was too large and so they downsized (their master bedroom after the downsize was the size of my whole house!) Eventually what you need is time to enjoy what you have not more luxury. Fly coach or have a private jet on call - end the end you get there, and the jet only saves you a bit of time at the airport.

You can do that with $10m or less. 4% safe withdrawal rate, $400k a year is a hell of a lifestyle in the vast majority of locations.

or if you have something, the response is "must be nice"

I feel like this accelerates class segregation. like, going from talking about the new condo in a nice neighborhood changes from "must be nice" to "my friend lives there and says the Tesla charging stations are broken but I'll talk to the leasing office about it tomorrow", just immediately more depth that some groups of people can't contribute to and are dismissive about.

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