Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?

https://journal.media/why-don-t-rich-people-just-stop-working

by adham01 • 5 years ago

46 143 5 years ago

Because being somewhat of a workaholic or craving power / money / achievement is how they got to be wealthy in the first place. This is roughly akin to asking "why don't strong and fit people stop going to the gym?"

0_____02• 5 years ago

But unlike going to the gym, acquiring a certain level of wealth gives you the means to continue to accumulate wealth. At the point that you're worth $10MM, you could live an upper middle class existence indefinitely with even a fairly pedestrian set of investments.

boyadjian2• 5 years ago

richness is not only money, it's human relations, quality of life, all things that need some kind of work

OminousWeapons3• 5 years ago

Sure, you could, but the point is that they have a worldview which prioritizes work and achievement which is why they keep pushing. The work / achievement / resource obtainment is the goal itself, not quality of life as others would define it.

ericmcer2• 5 years ago

If people stayed fit after getting in shape one time I think most would stop, your metaphor only works if we made some kind of capital gains scenario for fitness.

bko• 5 years ago

I disagree.

I enjoy the act of exercising and the immediate effects following excercise. Most people that are very into fitness or exercise enjoy it as well.

OminousWeapons3• 5 years ago

I think you're missing the point though. These are people who aren't optimizing for quality of life as most people define it (i.e. work as little as possible and reap maximal rewards and time with people you care about). Work / achievement / solving problems / obtaining resources becomes the goal itself. It is never enough because you can always have more / there is always something else to do / there is always another problem to solve / there is always another company to start etc.

Its the same thing for people who are serious about the gym. You can deadlift 600 lbs? Cool, now its time to try to get to 650. If you hit 650 it is time to plan for 700.

rcoveson• 5 years ago

No, I really don't think they would. The gym is a lot of people's "third place[0]". Not to mention that exercise in particular releases happy chemicals independent of whether or not it is making/keeping you fit.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

AndrewKemendo2• 5 years ago

I'm a lifetime "fitness person" and I know for myself and quite a few others like me that being fit is a side effect of exercise not the primary goal.

ThePadawan• 5 years ago

"why don't strong and fit people stop going to the gym?"

You know, in the beforetimes, I went to the gym and asked myself that question a lot. (Just usually more in the context of grumbling "why didn't this incredibly buff dude unload all these plates from this machine")

lisper• 5 years ago

Because it's not working that sucks. It's having to work that sucks.

mathattack• 5 years ago

You can have a lot more fun when you have FU money: at that point it’s about creation, competition or whatever floats your boat.

MattGaiser• 5 years ago

Or just even having to work for someone specific as jobs are hard to get.

brightball2• 5 years ago

Nicely summed up.

afroisalreadyin• 5 years ago

This is actually a great point. I would guess that once the pressure is off, you can work more creatively and elaborately, taking the time to understand what is puzzling for you or above your level. Which in turn makes you more eager to work, and much more effective at it.

bokohut• 5 years ago

A great comment supporting another great comment and yes, your "guess" is correct.

randomopining3• 5 years ago

That's my goal. Get to 500k savings and then decompress for a bit and really figure out something to work on that seems worthwhile that i want to build my future identity around.

dllthomas• 5 years ago

Much like cooking.

ible2• 5 years ago

This is actually a great argument for a strong social democracy/welfare state.

loudtieblahblah4• 5 years ago

Sort of.

If everyone does what they want - who does the jobs no one wants?

loudtieblahblah4• 5 years ago

If i could take care of my retirement, medical care, my kid's future, etc.... i'd work a very different job if i could. I'd probably work more than i do now. I'd love to run a simple restaurant like a BBQ restaurant or something like that. And i'd never sit at a desk ever again as part of my daily tasks.

And i'd fuck-off on HackerNews and Reddit a lot less.

I just got a job where I make more than double my last role. It's world-changing types of money and benefits. But it's still a tech job and i'm not even being done training and my "revitalized energy" i got from leaving my last job only lasted like 3 weeks. The reality is, it's still a boring tech job with all the shit i knew I would hate about working at such a larger org. And I'm just burned out on tech. But it's the only thing i know how to do and actually make a living.

randomopining3• 5 years ago

Im about to make the same leap as you and I know it'll be the same. What's your plan?

I think it would be worse to inflate your lifestyle with all the nice things and still have to work at that new big tech place for decades more

BuckRogers• 5 years ago

You sound like the same person that I am. I could almost print your comment out and put it on my fridge.

The only difference is you're almost certainly a better developer than me, I'm scared out of my mind to switch jobs because I despise being put on the spot during interviews. I hate it, and in my real work I'm searching online all the time and that looks bad. I don't have a child either but part of me wants to end my lineage just because it increases my own slavery.

I have no better way of making money. And to think I used to want to do this. Sometimes at night when thinking about the next day and my constantly-angry coworkers, I spontaneously envision shooting myself or hanging myself. I'd never do that, because I'm not giving the world that satisfaction, but it sums up how I feel. I'd bet there's a lot here on the same page. I think a large part of this situation for a born and raised US citizen is the outsourcing. Not only is the pay suppressed, but the treatment isn't nearly as good as it would be if companies weren't allowed to outsource costs through visas and remote hires.

These companies didn't care about keeping jobs in the US, so we shouldn't care about them either, and unionize with our international colleagues. Then the treatment and respect would go through the roof, and having the dignity of putting red tape in their way for once would probably increase worker satisfaction. I'd certainly get a good chuckle watching them being forced to pay my Indian colleagues the same as I make, and I'd be happy to do that to any employer that embraces outsourcing.

m3kw9• 5 years ago

There is actually more meaning to life than earning vast amounts money, and spending it. Once you’ve earned enough, your natural self will seek the next meaning to life

HWR_146• 5 years ago

That seems like the exact opposite of what the article is saying. The question is, "why don't they stop working"

xeromal2• 5 years ago

Probably because work has something to do with that meaning of life.

endisneigh• 5 years ago

A better observation to make would be if people who receive a sudden windfall of money stop working.

spoonjim• 5 years ago

There are plenty of these in Silicon Valley. Engineers who got rich at FB or Stripe or whatever and don’t work anymore. However because it’s considered déclassé to be in the idle class, they invent some things to put on their LinkedIn like Angel Investor or Startup Advisor.

ttyprintk3• 5 years ago

That’s right: This article is about millionaires who were raised by upper-middle class people. Either their parents or caregivers were not part of the leisure class. Some who were raised with money actually had influential child care providers who were obviously not millionaires themselves.

lake_vincent• 5 years ago

The answer is always classes, folks. Because once you become a millionaire for the first time, you leave the middle class and realize that you are actually quite poor amongst the millionaire class, so you have to keep working to climb through the ranks of millionaires. It's a recursive algorithm, you see.

HWR_146• 5 years ago

That answer seems to fail when you look at 2/3 examples just from the masthead (Musk and Zuckerberg). It's possible you could look at your ability to buy literally anything on the planet and feel jealous someone else's infinity is higher than yours, but that seems unlikely.

grogenaut• 5 years ago

Musk isn't really limiting himself to buying things just on this planet.

kiba2• 5 years ago

Maybe that is a motivation for some of them, but not all of them.

It's certainly not a motivation for billionaires like Elon Musk, who seemed singularly driven by his life mission.

pasquinelli5• 5 years ago

that's not actually what classes are. class is not just a braket of incomes, it is a role in economic production. if you get your money by trading your work for it, you're working class. if you get your money by virtue of what you own, you're capitalist. a bit of both is what middle class is.

bittercynic• 5 years ago

This is my preferred understanding of class as well, but I've noticed that my conversations are more enjoyable if I don't try to insist others use the term the 'right' way.

captainredbeard• 5 years ago

This is super true, you graduate from being "rich poor people" to "broke rich people"

DamnYuppie2• 5 years ago

I am not going to say there isn't some aspect to that but once you get $5,000,000-$10,000,000 in the bank the interest alone will dwarf almost any salary. So you could kick back and let compounding interest do the trick.

In my social circle I know of 3 people in that bracket and all of them are working. It isn't so much for the money they like being mentally and socially engaged while working on problems that interest them. Of these individuals their ages range from mid 40's to mid 50's. All of them had taken breaks from work and found not working to be incredibly boring.

randycupertino3• 5 years ago

When I worked with a billionaire and several millionaires at a private equity firm, everyone was jealous of and struggling to make it to the next level up. The guy who made $250k and a 200k bonus was jealous of the guy who made a $2million dollar bonus. The $2 million dollar bonus guy was mad he only flew first class and didn't take net jets everywhere like the senior partner. The Senior Partner was annoyed he took net jets instead of having his own jet like the Principal. And the Principal was jealous of another Principal with a bigger jet. There was also a lot of arguing with all of their wives about horses. These people all blew an incredible amount of $$ on horse racing and horses.

If you have enemies in life, consider encouraging them to get really into horses because imo it's the fastest way to drain their time and assets with little return.

tonyedgecombe• 5 years ago

It's like the ex CEO of Goldman Sachs who said he doesn't see himself as rich. I guess it's an easy trap to fall into when you live in an apartment block with ten other billionaires.

reubenswartz3• 5 years ago

LeBron has plenty of money. Why is he still playing basketball? :)

jkepler2• 5 years ago

Maybe he enjoys playing basketball.

jayzalowitz• 5 years ago

He definitely shouldn't become an actor

busterarm• 5 years ago

We have a real societal disconnect and it's clear that we don't communicate enough with our elder generations.

While some people are content to retire and stay home in bed, not having something meaningful to do every day makes quite a lot of people absolutely miserable.

HWR_146• 5 years ago

But that's not the option open to the uber-rich. Look at Tom from MySpace. He took a ton of money and is on a permanent vacation. He certainly seems to have a more enjoyable life than Zuckerberg. Although I guess he cannot afford the biggest yachts in the world.

lbriner2• 5 years ago

I guess it depends on your interests outside of work and if you have any. Some people work so hard, they have nothing outside of work that they fit-in with. Its a bit like people who retire and spend their retirement years watching TV.

Imagine, instead, you enjoyed sports, blogging, travelling, exploring etc. you could easily do that if you were super rich and not bother with work again.

xeromal2• 5 years ago

Not everyone is a Myspace Tom and more enjoyable is your take on Zuck's situation. I bet Zuckerberg either likes creating new things more, accumulating power, or just keeping his baby moving. I'm sure he enjoys what he's doing.

Then you have pure engineers like Torvolds or Carmack that just like being in the trenches.

jcelerier• 5 years ago

He certainly seems to have a more enjoyable life than Zuckerberg.

heh, Tom's life (according to https://www.hellomagazine.com/travel/2020111645793/tom-myspa...) would have myself commit seppuku in three weeks. I can barely stand five days of "do nothing productive" vacations. Would definitely choose "testify in front of congress" instead.

lotsofpulp• 5 years ago

He certainly seems to have a more enjoyable life than Zuckerberg.

There is no universal metric for enjoying life. Some people just like playing the game. My 99 year old grandpa was still managing his farm’s yields before he died even though he had no need to because why not. He actually bought it after he “retired”.

awillen• 5 years ago

He seems to? How do you judge that? I feel like most people who make statements like that really mean "if I were given the choice between the two lives, I would choose Tom's over Zuckerberg's." That doesn't tell you anything at all about who's enjoying their life more, since you're neither Tom nor Zuckerberg, and their goals/priorities/values are probably very different from yours.

randycupertino3• 5 years ago

I've noticed how quickly I become depressed when I have nothing to do. It's sort of like the properties of a gas- my lethargy expands to fill the volume of space I have. When I was on a sabbatical between jobs instead of going to museums and art shows and exploring new hikes and doing other things I'd think I would enjoy I laid around and binge-watched The Wire and the West Wing.

When I'm busy I actively block out time to do those activities and plan for them and look forward to them. It's a weird phenomena but I'd guess if I was wealthy enough not to have to work (which I'm not!) I would need to keep working anyways to keep some structure in my life and avoid depression.

nightski• 5 years ago

I must be weird because I have never been bored in my life, working or not. I always can think of countless things I'd like to do at any moment.

fridif• 5 years ago

Because nothing in life is guaranteed.

krapp• 5 years ago

Nothing in life is more guaranteed than the wealth of the elite. Beyond a certain point, at least. Nothing short of the collapse of Western civilization and the almighty dollar could make Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos anything less than rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

pasquinelli5• 5 years ago

rich people get rich from other people's work. so if the rich "work" it's to pretend that that isn't the arrangement; to maintain the illusion that they work for their money rather that owning the surplus value created by their workers.

kiba2• 5 years ago

Sounds like a rather cynical and false take.

There are probably many reasons for why rich people work.

gruez3• 5 years ago

This reads like rich people fan fiction. Is there any evidence backing this?

pasquinelli5• 5 years ago

backing which part?

jkepler2• 5 years ago

Your statement was only true prior to the invention of capitalism. After capitalism, its possible to gain wealth without stealing it from workers. Capitalism is more nuanced than many say it is---see the Rerum Noveram by Pope Leo XIII for an intro to the nuance of the issue: he warned owners not to abuse worker, but also called workers not to destroy property of owners or other individuals.

Oppression and wage-theft still occur, bit they are not necessary parts of capitalism per se, but rather abuses of the system. If workers are truly free to choose their jobs, they can leave a bad situation, and that puts market pressure on businesses to do better.

pasquinelli5• 5 years ago

you can't pay a worker as much money as they make for you, because then the business would have no profit. the profits are distributed to the owners; their ownership comes from paying for it, not from working for it, that's what the word capitalist means.

racl1012• 5 years ago

I find that rich people, like the millionaires and billionaires, are driven people and driven not necessarily only by money. Extreme financial success is but a side effect of whatever is driving them whether it be building a huge company or a revolutionizing and industry.

And if getting rich is not the end game whether entirely or partially then the work is never done. They are still on a mission and there are more challenges and more worlds to conquer.

lbriner2• 5 years ago

We had a talk once from a man who had sold his company at around 23 years old for several million, a lot to a young man. He said he thought he would live the dream, travel the world, go and do whatever he wanted, waking up at 10am every day and having a cooked breakfast!

Then he realised how boring and lonely it was. His friends were all at work while he was "free" and most people don't want to sit by themself at a bar in Tahiti, even if you can afford the drinks!

He quickly went back to working/advising companies and found it much more engaging.

brendoelfrendo• 5 years ago

Sounds to me like he left a lot of options on the table. There's a lot more out there than working in corporate or sitting alone at a bar in Tahiti. I'd love to be able to get creative and indulge hobbies as full-time work; it'd be nice to brew beer, or write a book, or take up woodworking, without having to worry about financing or making a profit from any of those activities.

moate2• 5 years ago

Giong to make some bold guesses here: This is a single man without children.

The idea of a single guy in his mid-20s being unable to find meaning in his life seems pretty normal. I'm not saying getting married or having kids mean you're winning at life or are the only ways to have meaning, but as a married person in his 30s, I'll gladly take a few million and retirement to go on adventures with my wife for the rest of my life when I'm not just enjoying my hobbies or visiting loved ones.

TL;dr- Different strokes. I would have gleefully retired at 18 given the chance.

genericone• 5 years ago

Getting shit done with the team feels great, agreed. I guess our hunter-gatherer group mentality is holding us back from simply enjoying fruits of labor.

racl1012• 5 years ago

I know this statement is controversial but honestly: for some people, work gives life meaning. Whether for a salary, or stock or for free.

But it should be revised to meaningful work. Not schlepping a mop at 7-11 to eke out next month's rent.

Heck, I don't have that level of success, am very middle class in fact, but even I think it's so boring to just sit in a beach sipping drinks for the rest of my life.

It means more to me when it's a nice well earned break from the work but for that to be the rest of my life .... I couldn't. I'd always find something else to work on as long as I was able bodied and of sound mind.

soneil2• 5 years ago

Many years ago, I knew / worked for one of the co-founders of Waste Management. He retired (at retirement age), moved to our neck of the woods, and bought & expanded several working properties (farm, hotel, golf course, etc).

His wife was an absolute gem, so I asked her one day - why is he still working at his age. He's surely got enough to retire on. She explained that they moved there to retire, but he was "like a caged lion" and just couldn't stop. So he took up several ventures almost as hobbies. My job was his hobby.

tl;dr; I agree. I strongly suspect that for this type, getting rich is a side-effect, not an end goal. It's unimaginable for me - with that money I'd be on a 50ft sailboat doing endless laps of the planet with no real goal or ambition. It's just who they are.

laurent923• 5 years ago

Not too different from my grandfather: As a farmer, he gave everything to his first son and retired at 70. And worked well into his 80ies…

Clearly it wasn’t for money. I would say our sense of purpose was built into us for years. His wife built the stone stairs leading to the main door, 3 months before dying. Brave people from ancient times.

throwdecro• 5 years ago

Having billions of dollars and continuing to work doesn't necessarily mean that you're not driven by money. It can mean that the drive for more money is insatiable.

But I agree other factors are involved; if there are rivals left to be crushed, or any capacity for increased public attention remaining, many rich people will keep grinding.

bluetomcat2• 5 years ago

There's different kinds of "rich".

Rich, as in, a busy lawyer with lots of customers on his shoulders, who also tries to maintain a respectable social status by having the right house, connections and the right car. For him, stopping work means cutting their income stream and social connections and still having to support this expensive lifestyle.

There's also rich with passive income from investments and they really have the option for a leisurely escape.

entropicgravity• 5 years ago

Work is fine when you either don't have a boss or can quit any time you like.

burkaman• 5 years ago

Well they sort of do, in that they usually stop working for other people and stop working on anything they don't enjoy. If you're rich enough that you can design your own "job" and delegate anything you don't want to do, it's not really the same concept that most people associate with "work".

ttyprintk3• 5 years ago

I think that’s an easy approach for the purposes of conversation. Work includes both innovation and toil. What is stopping you from hiring someone to take care of your toil?

cm2012• 5 years ago

I'm the type people might think is ambitious, I own a business with a high valuation, I've worked hard for a long time, I'm very skilled in my field.

But I only work hard for the reward. Once I cash out and have FU money, I am done working forever. Life is so short, I just want to focus on family, health and pleasure.

I understand that most other ambitious people aren't like that but personally I don't get it.

ghaff4• 5 years ago

I doubt you're atypical. Based on the smattering of people I know who were able and wanted to retire in, say, their forties to some point on the FIRE spectrum, they pretty much were retired. Oh, they might do the occasional advising or angel investing, might teach a class somewhere on the side, but were mostly retired. (That said, I also know even not so young "retirees" who pop up here there and everywhere doing various consulting and so forth.

TuringNYC• 5 years ago

Some people enjoy work.

Some people want impact, not money. They may be driven by their worldview and being able to further it.

Some people worry about getting stale if they dont do anything.

Free time can get boring, one values free time more when they have less of it.

yamazakiwi• 5 years ago

And some people pretend to do all those things so that they can hopefully one day do nothing at all.

brightball2• 5 years ago

Another suggestion not mentioned in the article...maybe the fact that they can afford to use their own free time for anything they want leads them to doing exactly that?

Bill Gates leaving Microsoft to focus on the foundation? - AKA, he wants to focus on making the world a better place

Elon used all that Paypal money and started SpaceX and Tesla? - Also, wants to focus on making the world a better place

If I were Zuckerberg, personally I wouldn't trust all of the power that Facebook has in somebody else's hands...ever.

The kids still have to go to school. Even if you took a year off to say, travel the world or something along those lines...you're going to get bored eventually. Either you'll pick up a hobby (Jimmy Carter and his furniture building) or you will focus on working on something that you care about.

The difference is that you're doing it because you want to, not because you have to. At that point...it's not really work anymore.

cma2• 5 years ago

Elon didn't start Tesla.

arcanon• 5 years ago

And Eberhard and Tarpenning just copied Coconni and Gage’s tzero from AC propulsion.

nly2• 5 years ago

They do.

The three faces in the picture at the top of the article are famous billionaire outliers. Plenty of modestly wealthy people (say net worth of >$5M) lead lives of complete leisure.

Berobero• 5 years ago

This article is a jumble of broad strokes of conjecture with effectively zero empirical substance that vaguely alludes the just nature of the "meritocracy"; I have a hard time not interpreting it as a puff piece for the status quo.

ghaff4• 5 years ago

Yes. There are likely a ton of people you've never heard of who received a fairly modest inheritance, won the startup lottery, or was just successful at the right Big Tech, finance, or law firm who decided to ride off into the sunset in their 40s. I know some of them. Some are quite well off. Others are just willing to live modestly, perhaps off some sort of early retirement pension.

smeeth• 5 years ago

It will never cease to amaze me how much people project their own feelings about work and life onto others.

Just because ~you~ hate ~your~ work and can't see value in it beyond [money, status, narcissism, power, etc] doesn't mean that's how everyone else values work and the other parts of life. Sheesh.

bluetomcat2• 5 years ago

Because they've had it too good for too long and then it's rather hard to imagine what life would be after moving to the middle of nowhere, to have to cook yourself, to drive a boring car, to cut social connections with interesting and influential people and stay encapsulated in your family instead, etc.

duxup3• 5 years ago

I remember when I visited the CEO's office at my first "real" job. I was sitting with my boss waiting for the CEO to show up to his massive (quiet) office with comfortable furnature, secretary who was busy organizing his personal and professional life (she asked us about gifts for his grand kids since we "knew computers"), drinks and food at the ready nearby...

I said something like "Man I would find work pretty dang nice if I was up here".

My boss said something like "Yeah but these guys work all the time."

I couldn't help but think... yeah it would still be pretty easy to work all the time in this environment.

That's not to say they're not stressed or etc, but if you have the option to work comfortably ... I can see why you might continue to work if your conditions are good.

Meanwhile I go back to my cube with constant noise, folks looking over my shoulder, planning business my trip in regular people class (not 1st) and so on.

These folks aren't "just working" they didn't take up a job at McDonald's... they choose to work in a different world too I suspect.

randycupertino3• 5 years ago

So what gift did you recommend for the grandchildren?

duxup3• 5 years ago

CEO asked us about it too.

We discussed the pros and cons of laptops vs desktops and etc (this was when laptops were still a big tradeoff vs a desktop in power and etc). IIRC we recommended a nice desktop for the kids that could be upgraded / changed they were inclined but also plenty useful if they chose not to. Also told him to get a nicer monitor than they were thinking.

ghaff4• 5 years ago

I don't know how large the company was, but at a big company, the CEO is probably not actually in that nice office all that much. They're on planes, in airports, scheduled in meetings from breakfast through dinner, on late night calls, etc.

I'm not saying they have a "bad" like and they're well-paid for it but it's not particularly relaxing or flexible.

eplanit• 5 years ago

I had a very wealthy 73 year-old client once -- one of the most interesting of all. He had built up a collection of businesses around the world, and at 73 was (and is still) flying around the world to make deals. He is like a savant in that if he is awake, then he's busy working. It was very common to send him an e-mail at 10 or 11pm, to which he would immediately reply, and then wake up the next morning at 7am to find he'd already sent a new e-mail a few minutes earlier.

I noticed that nothing stressed him -- he would push people and get angry and annoyed, but it was all externalized and not internalized. He's worth billions, but never does _anything_ that normal people would consider fun. For him, the work is his fun. I have great respect for the work and the success, but it's hollow in context of it all.

katzgrau• 5 years ago

Some reasons:

* Because it's something to do. Being retired is boring.

* Because whatever they're doing is providing some meaning (even if it's just getting richer and building on their ego)

* To stay relevant/up to date

* Their spouse is still working, and why not?

* Because they have friends who retired and degraded health wise (it seems to happen in older age) and they don't want that

swiftcoder• 5 years ago

If you actually want to stop working when you have enough, you'll quickly discover that society doesn't count "enough" as "rich".

Signed, someone semi-retired from tech

nly2• 5 years ago

I agree with you, it's all in the framing.

According to Expatistan[0] a typical family of four in the US need $55K/yr just to cover living expenses. At a SWR of 3% (Reasonable if you're young and looking to ride out a lot of market variance before you shuffle off rock) that means you need ~$1.8M fully invested just to live a typical middle class existence.

If you say you have $2M in the bank some might say you're 'rich'. If you say you earn $55K/year most people certainly won't. The best case scenario of course, is to have both.

[0] https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/country/united-sta...

thescriptkiddie• 5 years ago

They largely do, it's just that we don't hear about it. The ones we do hear about enjoy the celebrity.

GDC7• 5 years ago

Because when JFK died the world stood still for a hot minute and then everybody resumed their activities as if nothing had happened

Same with MLK, Diana Spencer, Michael Jackson, John Lennon etc.

Even if you are #1 of 8.000.000.000 you are still only 1/8.000.000.000

Bezos and Branson didn't need to go up in their own rocketship, but they did so to occupy the airwaves.

Same reason why Musk tweets like a maniac

These people are like the person who climbs the Everest "because it's there", but instead of mt. Everest they see the total amount of daily waking hours that the 8 billion people on the planet spend doing their own activities and then seek to monopolize that time forcing people to genuflect and idolize them and their products.

In the past those who had this sort of social standing were forced to live in the moment.

Roman emperors woke up greatful that they were not assassinated during the night, and went to bed equally greatful that they managed to stay alive.

Today you have people with 100B dollars and 40 years of life ahead of them! Humans were never made to live in this way. We are in uncharted territory.

I don't know if we would ever be able to analyze brains in real time or postmortem but we probably won't like what we'll find in there.

rsynnott• 5 years ago

While I'm not rich, I have a strong need to be doing something productive most of the time. I can't imagine that changing if I won the lottery.

rektide• 5 years ago

they're probably in positions of power & get to order people around. why give up power?

and being rich their risk of failure is immaterial. if expectations ever exceed their desire they could stop, so they can negotiate & put in as much or little real effort as they please.

amsuingly from a serendipity perrspective, our made-it founder-ceo raised this question out of no where in his opener talk, pretty recently at a mid year all hands. i dont really remember the response he offered? i like it, seems like probably about 60% covers what he said.

boyadjian2• 5 years ago

Why would you "stop working", when you have a wonderful job ? Rich people almost always have interesting jobs, so no reason to stop

jdc0589• 5 years ago

this was a good read, its definitely a weird societal position.

Most people's spending catches up, or at least increases, with their wealth. Completely ignoring the whole keeping up with peers aspect (who are also wealthy now) and even power/wealth craving, most people aren't content just realistically living within the perpetual means provided to them by their accumulated wealth. Additionally, a lot of people that think they'd be content not working and living a simpler life, actually aren't when they give it a try.

I'm extremely biased, but I always end up citing hobbies as the problem and solution in this kind of situation. Ask a friend what they'd do if they didn't have to "work" any more. Most of them are going to tell you that they have no clue and haven't thought about it, or tell you about something that isn't actually feasible to be your primary activity without a steady traditional income stream.

I'm mostly talking about people that barely qualify for this discussion in the 1-5m wealth range. As mentioned in the article, this is generally plenty to satisfy general FIRE requirements, and even tradition retirement requirements. But most people in that wealth range would also have to change their lifestyle to safely make retirement happen, and that's a tough sell when most people get their dopamine fix and sense of enjoyment/relaxation from expensive vacations, fancy dinners, new cars, new gadgets, stuff directly tied to spending money with no return.

kangnkodos2• 5 years ago

"Many people with a large amount of money, perhaps a million or two, consider themselves middle class when clearly they could even retire and live off their passive income"

If you have a million dollars, stop working, invest the money, you can safely draw about 35K per year for a long time. This is based on long term historic returns of the stock market.

There are different definitions of middle class in the US. The first one I found, Pew 2019, said the range was 46k - 137K.

So living off the passive income of a million dollars puts you well below middle class.

Cycl0ps• 5 years ago

A quick search shows average returns across the market sit around 8-11%. If we say 5% to be conservative, 1M returns $50'000 each year. That's not bad. That's a house in a quiet neighborhood with no worries about food, or debt. You're not living without a budget, but you could live without working.

kangnkodos2• 5 years ago

In the last ten years or so, returns have been extremely high. If you look back at all the data available, you get a number closer to 3.5% or maybe at the most 4%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study

docflabby• 5 years ago

What else would they do instead?

I think most people with unlimited financial backing would pursue what truely interests and excites them, might be projects, more money, parties, power. Money buys the freedom to do that.

Theres plenty of stories of people inheriting money and just spending it all on partying and hedonism. And others where they just study in education their whole life.

tppiotrowski• 5 years ago

Having a seat at THE table: wealth allows you to influence the direction of the world. Be a thought leader.

Zero sum game: every day that I don't work, others are getting head. Either everyone has to quit or we all need to keep going.

coding1232• 5 years ago

Also, apparently if you stop working you die a lot earlier.

soneil2• 5 years ago

I don't think you need to be working, but you do need to have a purpose. There's a heavy overlap between the two, but it's not the only option.

coding1232• 5 years ago

Yes totally agreed there

sparrish• 5 years ago

One of the only thing people with power and money fear is losing their power and money, which drives them to accumulate more.

racking7• 5 years ago

I think a lot of the comments here are missing the point, and the author doesn't help by putting Zuck/Musk/Gaga at the top.

It seems to me the author's point is: Why do people who reach a certain level of wealth keep grinding away at jobs they may not like? For the sake of argument, lets exclude those who shift and work on what they care about. I think he's talking about those who do not necessarily love what they do. This group would be millionaires, and using his numbers are the top 0.005% globally (40M/7B). His answer is that they continue to strive for money because they look towards the next class above them and to provide for their children.

I agree with the author in that people are seeking higher and higher status, and I agree with a peer comment that people get used to luxury. But I would add that that this striving for climbing the class ladder is both endemic in the culture of the US as well as accessible. In many other places in the world there are stricter controls on upward class mobility. I'd posit that people continue on in this because they don't really create a philosophy of life or pay that much attention to how to live until they are much older. It's easy to just keep doing the same thing, especially if it provides a luxurious life. It is a subjective value statement on what to do when you reach that point that is clearly different for everyone.

Abrownn3• 5 years ago

This article is stolen from another blog. OP is a serial content thief who rehosts other peoples content on Vocal.Media for ad revenue. They're now targetting HN with their spam and they were busted the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509445 and again last night: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28538985

Edit: and now this one too, pew pew! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28540643

Edit 2: to clarify, this article was stolen from here: https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/life-culture/why-dont-rich-...

akvadrako• 5 years ago

This is a good reason to always read the comments before clicking on an article.

Abrownn3• 5 years ago

Funny, I came from Reddit where I chased this guy out from and they suffer the exact opposite problem. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbz49j/new-study-...

dang• 5 years ago

All: please email hn@ycombinator.com if you see abuse like this. Protecting the quality of the site is our #1 priority and we can't address problems we don't know about! Fortunately I randomly ran across this post and have done the needful.

Abrownn3• 5 years ago

Thank you for the note! I'm not a regular user here and don't know how the moderation/administration of posts works here, so the email is greatly appreciated.

sys_64738• 5 years ago

I'd rather be bored out of my mind than have to work. Lucky for rich folk they can do what they want whereas most of us need to work to live.

Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?

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