And surely not 100x more than the average consumer.
You think Linus goes on reading blogs and watching movies all day?
Steve Jobs was quite a miimalist in how he lived. He even debated for months what furniture to buy -- and he lived for a while in an unfurnished apartment.
A huge lot of musicians when asked in interviews say the don't listen to much music besides what they work on.
Etc...
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Gates fan, I love Apple, I have 9 apple computers at home.
Before 90s he was a cool geek, famous millionaire guy, consuming too much clothes. He had always trendy fashion look. He bought one of most expensive cars when he was in his 20s. A Porsche then Mercedes. In his dashing days at Apple and NeXT, he weared the most expensive Brioni suits. He had a Plane. A super expensive plane. Do you know why? He said: "What I really need is a plane where I can take my family to Hawaii on vacation, go to the East Coast." He loved to stay in expensive resort hotels. Consumed too much there. Sorry but for me staying in a resort hotel doing nothing but looking to the sea 20 days is one of last things what would I do before I die.
What are you aiming for here? Has Steve been happier in this part of his life? Why has he changed his life style? To get unhappier?
>Steve Jobs was quite a miimalist in how he lived. He even debated for months what furniture to buy -- and he lived for a while in an unfurnished apartment.
...is factually incorrect.
Sorry, but I have a pretty good idea. I've also read the book. I think it's you that you didn't understand what is being a "consumer" IN THE CONTEXT of this discussion.
It has nothing to do with buying expensive cars, suits, lear jets and stuff. It has nothing to do even with buying lots and lots of them. Even if Jobs had a garage with 1,000 luxury cars and a walk in closet with 10,000 designer suits it wouldn't matter at all in the discussion we're having.
I might have muddled the waters a little with the "no-furniture room" example, but the discussion we're having (and the original article on reddit too), is about producing vs consuming as a life balance. Not about having less. As for my "no furniture" argument, that was not meant to imply that not buying stuff matters, just that consuming was not his goal, whereas building products (and companies) was.
Nobody would argue that Job's life was much more about producing than consuming stuff. He din't spend his hours in luxury car shows, nor in fashion boutiques, he spend them thinking about business and products. And I'd say he even did so while staying in "expensive resort hotels". The main criterion is if the items consumed are the GOAL of your life or just DECORATION. To put it in other words, Jobs was no Paris Hilton, nor "Hoarders" material.