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Comment by jonathanstrange | Hacker News Reader

This might rub some people on HN the wrong way but what these people call "work" isn't really work in the sense of what most people consider work. They jet here and there, intervene wherever they want, and everybody listens to them all the time. They can cancel and postpone meetings as they wish, and so on and so forth. It's work in the same sense as buying another house is work -- you have to get together with lawyers and plenty of people but in the end these people all work for you and you can also change your mind and not buy it.

That's also the reason why these multi-billionaires never retire. They've retired from real work a long time ago.

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It is the news media report calling it work. For some people it is just a passion. My boss at a Uni works literally 20 hours per day (he is rich and has a lifetime job). But science is his passion. He would not call it work. Maybe Brin has ideas. he has so much money that he does not need to work but he gives his brain some work.

Was looking for this comment. Cutting meat in some factory is considered 'work', running a global tech business is also considered 'work'. Both 'work', different requirements from the 'worker'.

One is doing lifework, the other is doing labor.

Plenty of work isn't manual labor. That distinction is not at all what I've talked about, you've missed the point entirely.

Ok, I might have made a mistake then.

It's work in the sense of exchanging their attention, energy and the hours of their lives towards a goal, while in the moment they'd rather be somewhere else doing something else.

Same way that dusting your cupboards is work.

it doesn't quite work that way. Once you do this what you call "work", you can't just extricate yourself in the middle of dealing with complicated situations or drop things where others depend on you. So it's still work in the sense that you can't just literally do what you want the way you do when you lounge around your house.

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