The Fallacy of Money As A Means
life-longlearner.com
life-longlearner.com
I want to make money so I can help people. To be able to invest in things which might cure diseases, solve hunger, produce cleaner cheaper energy. Things which might have an opportunity to drive humanity forward.
I want to make money so that I can change the world. Not in the superficial way that people think you mean when you say that, but in real ways; in ways that create true value for humanity. Things that might drive us closer to a star-trek-esque free-energy economy.
This is what people don't understand about money. Some people want it because it has the power to do a lot of things. It is a measure of value, and you can use that value to create more value. It might spiral so high that you don't even know what to do with it anymore; and that's okay, because all it means is that you've produced value and created something real. If I have billions of dollars when I die, I won't care if I lose it. The real reward was the creation of which it was an accidental result.
Travel? Nice things? Acceptance? Popularity? You think that's why people want money? Child's play, all of them.
I noticed you have this on your first list: "create the biggest impact possible?"
But you never responded to it. It's because it's the real reason. Money is a means to create the biggest impact possible. It is a means to create. Full stop.
Have you seriously never met these people who think this? Hell, I've been in those shoes.
*Edit: Okay, sorry, "children" is a little harsh. You get what I mean. Of course we all want financial independence, security, and the means to not have to worry about where we eat for dinner every night. Great.
You can have that, and do more also. Look at pg—in addition to I'm certain a comfortable life, he also invests in all of you and helps create things of value.
Look at what Elon Musk is doing: SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity—they're all a means to advance civilization in leaps and bounds. Fucking awesome. Will he make a lot of money in the process? Probably, if he's successful at it. But I guarantee you that's not why he's doing it (incidentally I think that's a huge reason he might be successful, also).
If you're not doing big things like that, you can. Why not? You need a bankroll to do big things. You don't get there by vilifying money and just wanting small things for yourself—even deep things like happiness or self-respect or spirituality. I feel that is a somewhat childish self-centered idea. You're saying "what can money do for me?" The answer in this article is "You don't need money to get those things you want for yourself." Well, buster, it's not for me: it's for the world, it's for advancement, it's for creation. Money gives me no great desire in itself, but the advancement of society certainly does, and it clearly does for others too, and that's a good thing.
You might be shocked to discover that not everyone is like you. Not everyone feels sufficiently fulfilled in their own life. Indeed, some people feel that their fulfillment may come from "the advancement of society", oddly enough. But are they chasing the advancement of society for its own sake, or are they chasing it for their own self-esteem?
I'd personally like to refactor the entirety of society. But, you know, that's childish and it's also just me.
It usually takes people a long while to discover this, but hey, it's all part of the journey.
Opinion: It's almost nice and idealist for you to think this, but you ruined it by being generally sour (on my interpretation).
So you are not the audience.
It might not be your goal, but you can't deny it would be a noble one.
Until age 3, a child doesn't even need a dedicated room, so basically any apt suitable for 2 people will do.
Disclaimer: I'm in Austria, maybe it's easier here.
Sources of capital expense for US/Canada:
- Parental leave. Most social insurance systems do not pay full salary if you make over a certain amount of money (say, $40,000 annually). If your lifestyle is higher than that, you need to save the excess. In Canada, parental leave is usually up to 1 year. In the USA, it is often 2 to 3 months (though some insurance plans allow for longer).
- If you're both working, daycare can cost $600 to upwards of $1500 monthly, depending on quality & city.
- Depending on the child, if you want to actually sleep at night it helps for the child to have their own room by age 1 to 1.5 or so, which may entail a larger flat or house. Other children are not restless sleepers and can be tolerable in a shared room.
- Otherwise, the usual expenditure, depending on your desired lifestyle and travel needs: car seats ($500+), booster seats ($200+), clothes, toys, diapers, child-proof cupboard door clips, strollers (upwards of $1000 if you're getting a multi-purpose Chariot-type carrier)
So I'd say, a middle class family would often be advised to save at least $10,000 before having a child. An upper class / affluent family that wants some level of dual parental leave, or a nanny, likely $100,000 or more.
There's also the dark side of having a child, and that's the astronomical costs of separation, assuming you want shared custody (or are fighting for primary custody). In the US or Canada, legal costs are usually at least $10,000 to get to a custody agreement and divorce filing, and more likely $20,000 to 50,000 for minor contentions. Major custody battles can cost upwards of $500,000 (each). Legal aid can help, but only if you fall below a certain income threshold. Whereas I've seen couples split with no kids for under $5,000 each.
source: many friends with children, I have a 3 year old, also too many friends with bad divorces
>Travel? Nice things? Acceptance? Popularity? You think that's why people want money? Child's play, all of them.
You've got to be kidding me. These are billion dollar industries and people certainly do work and commit crimes for such things. To dismiss that as child's play is to live in a fantasy world and to have, plainly, a tenuous grip on reality. Just being honest.
>But you never responded to it. It's because it's the real reason. Money is a means to create the biggest impact possible. It is a means to create. Full stop.
Maybe for you but come on, let's be serious. You act as if it is silly to think there exist entrepreneur for whom the sole goal isn't ending world hunger or creating world peace. I'm flummoxed by that.
You can get those hidden agendas directly. Why make a lot of money to change the world? Change the world. Money is a means by which one changes the world.
If it happens that your inward goals are to make a lot money, then you're much more likely to get what you need. If you're not impeccable, you're more likely to wander around lost and confused.
This... does not always work out how you think it will.
I'm the oldest of six. (Divorced/remarried parents, 3 kids each). I'm dramatically more successful than any of my siblings, adjusted for age. According to the tests, I'm not any smarter than them; according to in-school performance, well, I'm about the worst of the bunch, academically.
Now part of this was just plain luck; I graduated from highschool in like 97-98, and had a solid sysadmin/programming job within months. If I had gone to college? There's no way I would have been able to do as well looking for work in 2002.
But, I think a lot of it was that when I was growing up? money wasn't a given. I mean, my parents weren't dirt poor or anything; they owned a house, etc... But, I watched as they moved up from renting crappy places to buying their first house. Clothing often came from goodwill. They loaned me money to get a cheap car when I got out of high school, but I was expected to pay them back. If I worked hard and got good grades and scholarships, there'd probably have been some help for college, but it certainly wasn't a given.
By the time my siblings came of age? my parents were in much better shape.
Now, I mean, when I say I'm more successful, I mean financially, maybe they are happier, I don't know. It's quite possible; I certainly wouldn't call myself well-adjusted. And certainly, that can be more important than money; but I'm pretty much the only one here that wouldn't be in trouble if our parental safety net went away, and that's kindof a big thing, I think.
But, my point is? more money does not always mean more successful children. Children look at what you do, not what you say, so if you are optimizing for successful children, it's probably best to have them watch you /become/ successful, not watch how you act after you have become successful, and have time to enjoy the fruits of that effort.
I can see how this is true when you compare poor vs. non-poor families. But the article is about staying middle class vs. pursuing riches by founding a successful company. It's probably true that the children of millionaires will be financially better off than children of middle class families, but that leads back to the point of the article: Will that affluence make them happy and more fulfilled?
>Now, I mean, when I say I'm more successful, I mean financially, maybe they are happier, I don't know. It's quite possible; I certainly wouldn't call myself well-adjusted. And certainly, that can be more important than money; but I'm pretty much the only one here that wouldn't be in trouble if our parental safety net went away, and that's kindof a big thing, I think.
so yeah. it's quite possible my siblings are happier than I am. I don't know, but I am fairly certain that they would be happier than they are now if they had more money (or rather, had more independent earning power.)
I mean, sure, money doesn't buy happiness... but, at least until you have 'enough'? it makes a pretty big difference; I've had 'enough' I think, by that standard, pretty much since I reached the age of majority, and it gives me a huge degree of freedom that my siblings mostly don't have.
(that said, I probably would be a lot happier if I focused less on money and more on the other stuff. I mean, right now I'm putting a lot of effort into running a business when I could live fairly well just contracting for other people maybe one third of the time, and instead focus on other things.)
It is very difficult to be happy when one is homeless, or is living paycheck to paycheck and has to stress about paying bills on time.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/science-money-makes-you-hap...
I am just recalling these numbers from a potentially faulty memory, but if you want to see for yourself, search for "intergenerational economic mobility"
a. Who gets to have private jets and get into hot nightclubs.
b. Who gets to build things of importance to the world.
> a. Who gets to have private jets and get into hot nightclubs.
> b. Who gets to build things of importance to the world.
No, its not. Those two are two of the many aspects of the one thing that money is a determinant for: power. Or, "who gets to do what they want to do".
"Have private jets and get into hot nightclubs" is just one of things people might want to do. "Build things of [or, that they think of as having] importance to the world" is another of the things people might want to do.
There are more, of course.
That's not the same "nightclub lifestyle" as a nightclub patron.
From the article: Starting a multi-national company is only one way to achieve impact that a small subset of people can accomplish.
In other words, if your rationale is "I'm going to start Tumblr for Cats, and turn it into a multi-billion enterprise, and then I'm going to go all Bill Gates and become a philanthropist!", you're probably deluding yourself. (1) It's probably not going to happen. (2) Even if it happens, many people never end up following through with their plan. The money might be tied up in a trust fund on the British Virgin Islands, or there are other investment opportunity coming up. "Just one more billion, then I have enough to donate!"
If you're honest with your goals, a better way to make an impact would be to join a biotech or clean energy company, or even start one yourself (not a contradiction with the article, because your primary motivation would not be to make huge amounts of money).
That's the short-sighted part. Money doesn't buy a great life. Sure, a good one. But it's no guarantee of a great life. (think of all the rich people who have committed suicide, for example)
If you want to give your family a great life then experience life with them instead of building a life for them. And that simply does not always require a lot money. Key words being "a lot". Sure, trips to Disney World require money but not "Oh my God I just sold my useless social network for a billion dollars!" money.
> I want to make money so I can help people.
Sorry, not buying it. This can be done on a daily basis for free.
> I want to make money so that I can change the world. Not in the superficial way that people think you mean when you say that, but in real ways; in ways that create true value for humanity.
You mean like how Woz invented the PC when he was a broke (by comparison) college dropout working at HP?
For example, it assumes that there's only one reason for wanting a lot of money. What if I want a "total autonomy over my time" and "nice things", at the same time?
As @dragonwriter said elsewhere in this thread, money is one of the means of obtaining power. That's why nearly everyone would like to make a lot of money: they want power. Power to do what? That depends on each person and cannot be oversimplified the way this article does.
(For the record I find your take on things noble, and it exceeded what I had considered)
Now the question remains, what you dream about. Is it just money that you want, that you'll do great deeds with, when you have it? That's a dream you don't want to have. There is a saying for it: The dreamer is one who can look beyond what is immediately around him, family, kids and loved ones.
People have been doing that with 100K a year -- and much less.
>I want to make money so I can help people. To be able to invest in things which might cure diseases, solve hunger, produce cleaner cheaper energy. Things which might have an opportunity to drive humanity forward. I want to make money so that I can change the world. Not in the superficial way that people think you mean when you say that, but in real ways; in ways that create true value for humanity. Things that might drive us closer to a star-trek-esque free-energy economy.
Those sound like very peripheral things people want to make money for... Perhaps you mean it, but in most cases those are Miss USA style BS.
Money is freedom. This only dawned on me when I had absolutely nothing. Without money, you can't really do anything, all your choices have been taken from you. As you start accumulating money, more and more doors open up, and you are increasingly free to do what you like. Money is, almost by definition, the abstraction of means.
There's probably an upper cap for this effect, but I'd argue that 99% of us will never reach that.
I wouldn't say that not middle-income means you have no freedom. It's more about perspective. If you view money as an enormous burden on your freedom to do whatever you want, then it becomes that. But you can do whatever you want, regardless. There's no requirement to have "fuck you money" to have a "fuck you, i'm not going to take your shit" attitude about life and relationships.
Sound advice. Even though my income has happily grown over the past year, I’m trying to keep my value perception of money as close as possible to where it was when I was a poor student, to maintain my sanity as much as anything else.
My outlook on life is unimaginably different now that I have a few thousand euro lying around my bank account than it was right after I burned my last startup and I was forced to borrow shampoo.
Money == freedom.
Poverty != Freedom
(Or rather, being dirt poor can get in the way of the good life.)
Most people in Western countries are not forced to borrow shampoo. If you are scraping around for basic needs than obviously your life choices are limited, but you don't need loads of money to move beyond this point.
I've seen that picture and story referenced many times as an example of a pure drive that isn't influenced by money. That it was "all you need".
At the time Steve Jobs was already a multi, multi-millionaire (from the IPO of Apple in 1980 he was worth some $200 million). He had the freedom to never worry about basic needs, could travel the world at his leisure, could do essentially what he wanted, etc. He had the sort of freedom that such wealth provides.
It is convenient to be in that position and no longer worry about money, because you're already there.
I understand that a lot of people don't understand these feelings if you haven't been poor but they are real.
I think it is very obvious that no, it shouldn't. Implicit in the statement that money == freedom is !money == !freedom. Without money you are not free.
I want to be very clear here: This. Is. Wrong.
Do I have a solution? No. Not a palatable one. But I urge you to at least think about it. There are not enough people of means giving this fundamental question any thought.
The world will go on regardless of whether or not we end this immoral game of money. But I am willing to bet that the future will look back at us and be disgusted and sickened.
Can't we at least try?
I keep hearing how money is "freedom" or buys you fearlessness. I don't buy it.
Freedom and fearlessness happen inside. And, when you have those things inside, amazing things happen on the outside. With or without money - it doesn't matter.
I think that you have diminishing returns on this as you earn more money... I don't think it's so much a hard cut off. The 'freedom' difference between being dependent on family for rent and being able to support yourself is larger, in my opinion, than the freedom difference between owning your home and owning a block of apartments.
In my mind, if you can make a programmers wage, and you feel like you can easily get another job if fired? you have a pretty large degree of freedom.
I also think that 'job security' or, perhaps 'perceived income security' has as much to do with this freedom as does the amount you earn. If you feel like your boss can fire you at any time, and if you feel like you can't easily get a new job? you... are going to feel rather less free than someone who either thinks they can get another job fairly easily or who feels that they can't be fired.
I think most people chase money based on the perception that it will raise them to some higher plane of existence. But the reality is that every time you break into some new level, there's always just another level waiting above you, enticing you to double down. This article has a strong point: instead of chasing abstract advancement, figure out what it <i>actually is</i> that you want, <i>and then</i> strategize how to get it. And better yet, strategize how you can enjoy the journey. You might actually achieve definitive satisfaction that way and also be able to look back on your life and not feel as though half of it was spent in an unfulfilling chase.
I've come to roughly the same conclusion as the author; namely, that I should focus on figuring out my real motivations and work to fulfill them, rather than blindly follow the "more-money-more-happiness" default route provided for all of us.
I find it interesting that other commenters react so strongly to this article. I think the article is a sobering one, and that the author makes a good point. After thinking about it, if you come to the conclusion that more money _is_ what you need to fulfill your goals, then by all means go ahead. Introspection is never wrong.
What about the person that wants to make some good money while also enjoying the process. Wanting nice things and seeks financial freedom so as to provide a exceptional living for him/herself as well as for their family.
I dream big. I am realistic and I take time to enjoy what I have. It's not just reaching the summit that will be that moment. The journey is fantastic and it's the journey to that exceptional lifestyle that is all part of it.
This article just comes at it from the entrepreneur that is only coming at it for having the ends justify the means. However, a lot of people have jobs like that. Heck I'd wager to say more than 50% easily of the population have jobs like.
So I'd say to the entrepreneur that does slog away at something that he/she really isn't into and does end up with at least the experience. That's awesome. Maybe just the process of starting a business albeit tech one at first gives them experience. That down the line they are already ahead to possibly start some type of another business.
The more I write the more I feel like I'm just feeding this troll.
By way of contrast, I got out after I'd only worked there about 5 years, with enough savings to support me for only a few more.
Frankly, I wish I'd stuck with it and solved the "earning money" problem for life for once and for all.
I.e., while I'm generally in agreement with this line of discussion, there are also plenty of cases to just work at something not too unpleasant in return for the money it provides one.
I thought I'd get there in the beginning because I was doing very well at the job and getting more and more recognition and responsibility. Large bonuses were being given out to developers, and firms competed hard to get good ones. But then came the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and everything changed. The pay was reduced a lot--I have never made as much money as I did in 2006, despite having gotten a title promotion, and a larger role with much more responsibility, since then. New regulations have created a much more bureaucratic, administration-obsessed environment than I was accustomed to, making it much less pleasant for anyone interested in building and hacking.
So now I'm stuck at a local maximum--I feel like there could be a much better situation out there for me, but no direct step I could take to put myself in it. I still make enough that it would be tough to match my current salary outside of wall street, but the work environment has degenerated so much that I hate going to work, despite this taking most of my waking time and energy. So I have to make a choice: I can stay at a my current job, with its comfortable-but-not-stellar income and its ever-more-unpleasant work environment, or I could jump to another position (be it a new job or attempting to strike out on my own and develop a business and/or consulting) that could be more fulfilling, but much lower-paid, at least initially.
To those who would advise me to strike out on my own with a startup or consulting: my situation is complicated by my need to support my wife, who has a condition that would make it prohibitively expensive to get her the medical care she needs without employer-provided health insurance. (Nobody would insure us on the individual market--not at a price I could pay if I were just starting out on a business or consulting venture and attempting to live off my savings until it got off the ground, at least.)
I know this is not the worst problem in the world to have. A huge number of people would love to be in my shoes, and I can look at it from a larger perspective and see that I'm still damn lucky to be where I am and have what I have. But I'm not anywhere near able to "solve the 'earning money' problem" and I don't think I will be anytime soon. So I still find myself wishing I'd taken a leap earlier.
Of course, if I were a trader or had some other position in the actual business to make the REAL money, then it might have been a different story.
1) Making a contribution to society as profound as Isaac Newton's, but leading such a harried life that they died before the age of 50 from a stress-related illness
2) Leading a content, good, happy, and unremarkable life
Everyone in the Valley chooses (1)
So if you take different point from the article, it may make sense to attempt to achieve whatever your goal is another way than slaving away for 3 years on some "Growth Hacker" startup that goes nowhere, because, again, it's not going to get books written about you 200 years from now. Or not.
I would like just enough to afford shelter, food and internet, so I can not die and keep working on making software development better.
I think that this is exactly not what you want to do to find a life partner. Whether you are a man or a woman, if you do this, you will find that (almost) all of your potential partners are shallow and extremely disappointing. Moreover, the people you are attracted to will be afraid of getting into a relationship precisely because they are, rightfully, afraid of disappointing you, or, more likely, afraid of feeling disappointed in themselves. You might get lucky, and it would help to be superficially attractive, if you choose to try to meet members of the opposite (or same) sex by improving your inner self.
I'm not saying you shouldn't try to be a better person, I'm just saying, it's terrible dating advice.
It's merely bad advice because that's not what people are looking for. Even people who might intellectually think "oh, I'm looking for a good guy/good gal" are not six times out of ten (that's a made-up statistic)
I don't see the contradiction. I'm fairly obsessed with self-improvement and my body and health are a big part of that. I'm certainly more attractive now than I was 5 years ago, for example.
When that is achieved your dating options will explode (relative to whatever they are now). The fact that 80% of them are shallow will be irrelevant because the pool of candidates will be much larger.
But if your pool is small and scant of fish, and is destined to always be that way, keeping your standards low would be useful advice, yes.
There's a million reasons why I want to start a web company. And I don't think I'm lying to myself about any of them. If it was all about money I would be working on perfecting my pitch and just focus on getting an investment.
Family: I have little interest in starting a family. Where I live, overpopulation is a problem. I don't like driving. There isn't even enough place to park cars. Why does everyone have to buy a car?
Money: I have little interest in making a lot of money. Growing up, my family had enough money, but I saw how my parents really didn't have time for much else than making moey.
Name, Fame and acceptance: I think about this sometimes. My college peers are apparently well settled. Higher up in the job/salary/business/family heirarchy than I can hope reaching in my lifetime. Makes me sad a little thinking they must be looking down on me, but then I realise that it doesn't realy matter. I wouldn't have been happier if I had made the choices that they did in life and I wouldn't be happy chasing success just because I can have acceptance from my peers. Because all of us are individuals with separate lives. But all in all comparing myself to my peers makes me unhappy transiently, even when I know that I don't hate their success and being happy for them makes me happy.
Happiness: Sometimes I can pinpoint what makes me happy. Like when I am working on a hobby application,which turns out better than I expected. Or when I find a smarter way to implment a certain feature. Other times it is not that easy to say what makes me happy. Building something so I can be the next facebook or tumblr doesn't make me happy. Perhaps because I know that it is impossible.
A lot of the happiness problems is because of the need for social acceptance. I don't grudge my peers their success, but sometimes you feel the eyes of society scurutinizing you and judging you as a failure and that is what makes me unhappy, but only transiently. Because, I know that what society thinks about me is not that important. For eg. Currently it is important enough for me to be posting anonymously online, but not important enough to make me decide what I want to do in life.
But eventually thinking about the meaning of life does not lead to answers. Perhaps it is a difficult thing to understand. Or perhaps everyone else has it right and I am afraid of trying and losing.
I understand that the biological reason of life is procreation. But I understand little else. So I generally try to live in the present and try to save some money so I don't become a slave to my current job and eventually hope to be self employed, make enough money, not hurt others and maybe help others a little.
It might not be a reality. It might not even be attainable (maybe the bar keeps moving), but that's my criteria.
I have a hard time believing that anyone who is only fueled by money and does not truly enjoy 'building things' would last all that long starting a company.
I know a great many writers. Not many people get rich writing (if $1 billion tech company exits are black swans, then JK Rowling is like a rainbow swan or something), and yet there are still people who choose to write. They truly enjoy writing, they make their lives work even though they no they're not very likely to end up with a million dollar book deal.
I get the feeling from most of the really great people I've met in the tech world that they would be 'building things' even if it there wasn't the seemingly realistic possibility of millions of dollars. They're not in it for the end game of travel or sex, they're in it because they're only happy 'building things.'
Most people want a certain quality of life that getting more and more expensive: a safe neighborhood to live in, decent schools for kids, healthy food to eat, some free time.
Freedom, Legacy, Philanthropy and Charity work, Fame, Superiority, You just enjoy creating value, To scratch an itch?, Sex... Maybe? E.T.C
...
And you are right that we need to find out exactly what our motivations are and then truly accept and admit it..
Next, optimise your company, life and decisions so that you can achieve those goals otherwise you'll end up miserable, confused and un-satisfied.
Starting a company might not always be the best way to satisfy our desires but in some cases (like if all you desire is FREEDOM), there is no better way to satisfy that desire than to start a company.
And while money cant solve all problems (it solves a lot of problems) it makes living with said problems (and also solving said problems) a whole lot easier.
To quote the author, I'm sure there is "a much more direct path" to living a fulfilling life than focusing one's energy on asking others to question their true motivations and suggesting that if they're "brutally honest with themselves," they'll come to the same conclusions as the author.
Ironically, much of the time, public displays of introspection like this are driven by the acceptance-seeking that the author is apparently not very fond of.
I did have a problem with almost all of the rest of the article though - the Author dismisses offhandedly many, many goals which are quite legitimate, and tries to build a case that money is not really necessary for most of the things people try to achieve. Maybe that's true, but there are plenty of cases where money is important:
- I know several "effective altruists" [1], who work hard to make the most amount of money, and donate as much of it to charity as possible. This is to help other people, not to achieve a personal sense of worth, and very much depends on making as much money as possible.
- People who want the freedom of not having to work, but don't yet know what they could do that won't feel like work. It's always a nice sentiment to try and work at something which you love doing, and is even possible in many cases... but ask many 25 year olds what kind of work they'd still enjoy doing at 40, and not many will be able to tell you for sure.
etc.
[1]: See e.g. http://80000hours.org/
Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it
resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of
the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul
*becomes*; for that for ever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all
reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas
equally aside.I don't like the way he just says "do something else" to achieve them. A lot of them involve making other people happy, which is something you cannot ever do. You are not in charge of other people.
Of course, there is no guarantee that by the time you have money it will still make you attractive to the appropriate sex, or earn you the respect of your peers. It does have a very good track record, though.
If you are doing a regular skilled job in a Western country I would argue you will have enough money to pursue happiness/not be overly blocked by lack of wealth.
But if you're going to pick a fake motivation for your pitch deck, "I just want to build stuff" is pretty lame. Do people really say that when it isn't even true?
Guy decides he wants to be a tech entrepreneur. He tells people “he likes building things” because that seems to be a publicly acceptable rationale for building a tech company…but super secretly he just sees starting a tech company as a means to generating an inordinate amount of wealth quickly in a way that’s more enjoyable than playing excel like a keyboard.
I think many or most of us, especially in YC circles, do start a company because we "like building things" -- not literally just that, but it's a part of our motivation or identity to get inherent pleasure from building things. If you don't, though, I see no reason to fake it. It may be cool and trendy to be a maker at heart, but it's certainly no prerequisite for starting a company.
We've really come full circle if we've gone from legitimizing and celebrating hackers and makers as founders to the point where people are posing as them to better fit a script. It sounds like cargo cult entrepreneurship or Zuck mania.
but of course most people plan to have a family someday... when that's taken into consideration, I think the author's claim of "a wasted life" seems extremely naive and misguided