Is it OK to Want to Make Money?

http://swombat.com/2010/12/7/ok-to-want-to-make-money

by ColinWright • 14 years ago

163 142 14 years ago

swombat.com

fleitz• 14 years ago

A better question is: Should you live your life through the morality of others?

If the answer is yes, then simply read what someone else says about making money and do that.

If the answer is no, then you're free and can do what you want.

Estragon5• 14 years ago

Exactly. OK by who?

_delirium5• 14 years ago

That seems a bit simplistic as a binary choice. I'll ultimately choose for myself what I think is ethical to do, but that doesn't mean I should ignore everything anyone has ever written. Reading intelligent things other people have written is a good way to improve my own thinking on a subject! In fact I'd say a pure "do whatever you want" approach is somewhat intellectually lazy, because it actively avoids engaging with and working through ideas that might be challenging to my own preconceptions.

majani• 14 years ago

The mistake people make is to toss any thoughts of making money to the side. As pg says, get ramen profitable as quickly as you can. That really changes your attitude, and allows for the long term thinking.

nirvana3• 14 years ago

There's a false dichotomy in a lot of these discussions. There isn't a contradiction between helping society and making money. Virtually every legal way I know of making money helps society.

The money you make comes from somewhere- generally customers who are parting with it. Why are they parting with it? Because they prefer what you're buying to the alternative.

People spend, in the aggregate, because it makes their lives better. Even hoarders drowning in needless stuff are spending the money to assuage the pain they would feel if they didn't.

The vast majority of software has a serious positive impact on the customers lives. We may wonder about Instagram, but instagram made a LOT of people happy. Making people happy is a positive benefit to society.

Plus, lets remember what money is. Money is a medium of exchange, its not the thing itself. It is a medium for trading your labor or your intellect. A ditch digger rents his body out at work in exchange for money. When he buys shoes, the money is simply they conveyance of the value from digging the ditch to the person selling the shoes.

When a software developer uses his brilliance to come up with a new program, he's trading his brainpower for whatever he ends up being with that money. Money is the medium that enables efficient transactions where barter failed. That's all.

Money is really another way of saying life.

People don't trade their life away, generally, except where it is profitable.

You make a billion bucks by making something people want? You've improved their lives probably by 7-9 billion dollars worth.

$7 for a movie? Worth more than $7 in entertainment to the person buying it... or they wouldn't buy it.

You don't get to be a millionaire by making people miserable.

(and I need to get a blog going, I think my comment is longer than the original article.)

masenghi• 14 years ago

>Virtually every legal way I know of making money helps society.

HFT and Domain squatting are legal.

aay4• 14 years ago

The people who make money doing this will spend the money on goods and services, which in turn benefits the people involved in providing them.

fredley• 14 years ago

Hence virtually? It's easy to pick out a few examples of people making money (often lots) that do have a detrimental affect on society, but it really is a very small number of people. Compare how many people you know who are making money through 'bad' jobs such as HFT and domain squatting, and compare it to the number of people you know who aren't.

retube• 14 years ago

HFT: provides liquidity and increases market efficiency (suppresses pricing inconsistencies) Domain squatting: allows market to set the value of a domain.

Not sure what's wrong with either of these, or why they are any worse than any other business that seeks to take advantage of market inefficiencies or speculate on asset prices (after all, most businesses are some combination of the two)

nirvana3• 14 years ago

This is why I said "Virtually". Seriously, think about what you've just said. Do you realize that you didn't even make a claim, you simply imply that these are somehow not beneficial to society as if it were a fact? Don't you realize that you should have made an argument here, if you're going to make that claim? Making a counter argument is simple: HFT adds liquidity giving better prices to traders, and domain squatting effectively provides a set of links to relevant sites when someone goes to a non-existent site. Shouldn't you have made an argument for your position, if it was worth making a comment?

Are you really trying to derail the discussion into a debate about HFT and domain squatting?

Do we really need to think of all the possible legal ways to make money that don't help society?

How about recognizing that the point of my comment is correct, even if you manage to find some legal way to make money that "doesn't benefit society"?

pclark• 14 years ago

Academia, Teaching, Charities & Not for profit organisations all improve society and you wouldn't do any of those if you wanted to be rich.

nirvana3• 14 years ago

People have gotten rich doing all of those. For instance, the head of the Red Cross makes a lot of money. So do the leaders at United Way.

Further, many of these organizations arguably don't improve society. For instance, the Red Cross monopoly on blood supply significantly drives up health care costs, primarily to the personal profit of the Red Cross bureaucracy.

But this is all sidestepping my point.

The idea that making money is to the detriment of society is the claim I wish to dispel.

My point is not that you can't help society without getting rich-- its easy to prove you can.

My point is, most ways of getting rich do significantly benefit society.

Estragon5• 14 years ago

Coming from academia myself, I'd have to say you've been deceived on both counts, there. At an institutional level academic research is all about the money, and the prestige used to bring in more grant money and student-loan money. For instance, I know a professor at a top-tier US university who received an award last year purely for being in the select group who had made the school $1M by bringing in large government research grants. And the people who do this do very well financially.

There are many individual academics for whom it's not about the money, but this institutional culture corrodes altruistic motives, and selects against them.

Shivetya• 14 years ago

There is a lot of money to made in non profit and charitable organizations. At least for those at the top. Go look up how much your higher ups make in groups like United Way and you will begin to wonder how many people could be helped if so many people didn't make near a half million a year at a charity.

QuestionWriter• 14 years ago

Agreed, most of the wealth generated by most businesses is enjoyed by its customers, not its owners. Take Google or Facebook - while they enjoy huge profits now, and will in the future, their profits are dwarfed by the wealth (search and connection) they have created for their users.

cousin_it• 14 years ago

> $7 for a movie? Worth more than $7 in entertainment to the person buying it... or they wouldn't buy it.

What if the movie sucked but the person didn't know it beforehand?

> You don't get to be a millionaire by making people miserable.

Why not? I can think of several ways. You could make them miserable first by advertising, them sell your product as a remedy. Or sell a positional good and let your customers have bidding wars, even though the total sum of misery remains unchanged. Or sell a good with large negative externalities.

andrewfelix6• 14 years ago

I work in Advertising. I make very good money. I am quite sure my work has little benefit to society. Most of what I do is deception.

andrewfelix6• 14 years ago

>Virtually every legal way I know of making money helps society

I respectfully disagree. Here are a few examples why:

- In my country 1 in 4 people are employed by the government. Their income does not come from 'customers', it comes from tax payers. Many large gov. contracts are won through corruption.

- The weapons industry makes money. It benefits from war.

- Paper/oil/meat/mining industries are huge, they're largely fed by non renewable and increasingly precious resources.

- The food industry is making money while systematically destroying peoples health and negatively shaping societies relationship with food.

- etc etc.

>"You don't get to be a millionaire by making people miserable."

How quickly we forget. The housing market crash was created by a whole swathe of people getting rich while making people miserable. Financiers rarely consider the consequences of their decisions, they think about the bottom line.

marcusf2• 14 years ago

I guess it's a difference in perspectives, because in your lists I definitely see things that help society:

- Government provides services. Around here, it's healthcare, schools, universities, infrastructure, defense, a justice system, social services, plain governing, etc.

- The weapons industry might be an ethical negative, but they provide benefit to society in terms of basic research and R&D (not saying other things couldn't replace this -- I'm saying right now they provide this value)

- Paper/oil/meat/mining provides tangible goods that while depleting a finite resource pool still provides value today to scoitey.

- etc etc.

forgottenpaswrd• 14 years ago

"Virtually every legal way I know of making money helps society."

Gambling does not help society, and it is legal:

Buy a house for x, sell it to a fool that will pay 4x, who will sell it to a bigger fool for 6x. Now houses go back to x. The only problem is that the bigger fool is the normal American or European middle class that in not an expert on economics and it has been fooled will all their savings from experts with their own money(investment banks takes the money from banks because they are the same since it become legal).

You can say: "I can choose not to buy a house". But then bailouts happen and you pay for it.

Invest on a company, lets call it "makebook", x money lended from pension funds, "makebook" gives (1/10000)x profits a year, sell private stocks to bigger fools for 10x("internet""cloud","social" or any other magical word companies, are the future...), and let those sell again to bigger fools for 100x. Now the company make an IPO for $100B is never going to recoup, but middle class get crushed again.

http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:GRPN

Also money printing makes a lot of money, it is the main way to "make" money in the world.

I mean I agree with you in what it should be, but a big part of the world does not work that way.

jes5199• 14 years ago

well, in the state I live in, gambling losses in the state lottery fund the education system.

tluyben22• 14 years ago

Money making is fine, but wanting billions is kind of weird imho. The goal of 'being the biggest search engine' is great, being a search engine and having the goal to make 10 billion $/month is not. Again, in my opinion.

He mentions 'feed the family'; no matter what your 'family' is here, with honest hard work you can do that without having too much money focus in your company. But yes, the bottom line needs to be solid and you are insane if you don't watch that like a hawk.

swombat7• 14 years ago

But yes, the bottom line needs to be solid and you are insane if you don't watch that like a hawk.

Looking at the average startup, it seems like insanity is the rule rather than the exception...

tluyben22• 14 years ago

Yeah that's what worries me when reading all the stories here; it seems that we shouldn't care about the bottomline in startup mode. In my, maybe old, mindset, I try to break even as fast as we can and THEN start growing.

I see a lot of exceptions where this way of company startup would not work, but a lot of them should do it this way imho. The funding => jumping too high method is too much slot machine for me. Especially if you are not doing consumer services/products, it is almost always possible, if your idea has merit, to run a profit even before you built anything. Then funding is a much safer bet.

maeon3• 14 years ago

Alternative questions: Is it OK to want to make money at zero sum games where your windfall causes other people's losses? For example roulette, poker, and trading cards?

Is it OK to want to make money at win-win games? For example restoring a vehicle, Writing a book or solving a new problem?

The problem here is that very powerful organizations in this country are daily trying to brainwash people into thinking that somehow the green slip contracts in our pockets are evil. Having money, or wanting money is morally suspect. These powerful organizations control media narratives, political talking points, church services, and pretty much every company in America who is interested in turning a profit from the masses.

Is it OK to get an education for yourself and your children? Yes. Is it OK to go to the hospital when you are sick? Yes. Is it OK to want to make money? No. Your money is morally suspect, take some out, and give it to me, there will be a net gain in righteousness in the universe when the money flows from your pocket to mine.

pjscott• 14 years ago

Good point. After you make the distinction between making money at another person's expense, and making money in a way that makes the world as a whole wealthier, the whole question kind of dissolves.

kator• 14 years ago

My dad has a great poster on his wall in his home office.

It says: SUCCESS - I've managed to eat and not be eaten and find a place to sleep every night.

Success is a personal measure, we often externalize it and try to measure it against other's perceptions. If you choose to measure yourself against people who think "Money is Evil" or "Greed is Good" then that is just a choice. No different then choosing to put sugar in your coffee or not drinking coffee at all.

I've always considered myself a passionate pragmatist. I've started many companies, sold some, bought some, crashed some and put some in mothballs. I love the creation process. It's my hook. At the same time I try and estimate the financial impact of those decisions and balance my passion with a pragmatic review of the risks. Sometimes I make boat loads of money and other times I am lucky to get out with my life. But always it's a balance of rewards and money can be one of those rewards. The reality is that the most rewarding parts are the people I meet along the way, the things I've learned and the passion I felt for those projects as I executed on them. If you look at money as just a game token like many other tokens in life then you might be ok if you don't obsess about it. I personally think often about how many people would be willing to take time out of of their busy lives to visit me when I die. It sounds morbid but it's also another interesting measure of your impact on the world. Don't focus on the money, focus on the tools you need and goals you have for yourself in your life. But know that money is just another tool that might help you meet your overall goals. That said you can become a monk and let go of all possessions and I know some people who have done that and they say it's the most rewarding thing they've ever done. But clearly its not compatible with the goals I currently hold in my life. Maybe when I get a bit older I'll change my mind. Because again, the power to change your mind is still yours!

I have managed for 30 years to follow my passion and the whole time I've managed to eat and not be eaten and find a place to sleep each night. I've done amazing things, met amazing people and learned more then I could have ever imagined was available to me. What more can you ask for in life?

edw519• 14 years ago

2 quick stories:

1. My fraternity brother's father (a successful doctor) took the two of us out to dinner. He asked what I was studying. I told him computers. He said, "Good. As you know, I want John to study medicine. But if he didn't want to, I would want him to pursue computers. But definitely not law. I don't want my son spending the rest of his life chasing dollars." Strange remark. But somehow, it really left an impression on me. I've always wanted to have fun and make a difference, but never wanted to be like so many business people I've encountered whose sole purpose seems to be the pursuit of money for its own sake.

2. My mentor and first co-founder on the subject of money: "It's never about the money. And it's certainly not about us. Our first, second, and third responsibilities are making sure our customers get what they need. That being said, it we earn a lot of money in the process, what's so bad about that?"

swombat7• 14 years ago

If it's only about making money, you've failed, big time.

If it's never about making money, you've also failed, just as badly.

It is shameful that smart, competent, brilliant people let themselves be fooled into thinking that money is bad. If you're smart, competent and hard-working, in the world we live in, you can be well off and deserve to be. Being broke is not a badge of honour. Making money is not a badge of shame - nor is it an incidental event that just happens while you weren't looking.

What you're implying (though you're not saying it directly, so I could be misunderstanding you) with both of your stories is the exact opposite of what I believe. In the first story, you're putting up a straw man of the money-obsessed fool and warding people off the pursuit of money with that. In the second, you're implying that making money is incidental to other pursuits.

The reality, which I'm advocating for, is that money is a useful tool that is worth pursuing - not with soul-destroying obsession, sure, but with some portion of your mind. It makes your life better, extends the reach of what you can do for others, enables you to leverage your intelligence to achieve more in life, etc. And since most of the ways of making money that people on this site would consider are honest and value-creating, if you do something clever and make money from it, it's well earned, well deserved.

The answer to the second point is, as I've repeated many times, that making money will not happen incidentally while you're looking somewhere else, or at least not in 99.9% of cases. If you like those odds, buy a lottery ticket. I can assure you that your mentor and his business associates spent a lot of time sweating the details of how their business model would make lots of money, before it did. That was no accident, and it was not solely the result of customer focus. It was the result of customer focus and commercial acumen. Both are essential.

bhousel3• 14 years ago

> But definitely not law. I don't want my son spending the rest of his life chasing dollars." Strange remark.

That is a strange remark indeed, but I suppose I could understand that sentiment coming from a doctor whose main interaction with lawyers involves "ambulance chasers" trying to squeeze money out of his practice.

Most lawyers don't do that kind of work and aren't in it for the money, although a law degree will mostly guarantee you a comfortable middle class life. I know quite a few who work for the government in tiny crappy offices and who will tell you that going to law school was the biggest mistake of their lives. Law is a surprisingly misunderstood profession.

efsavage• 14 years ago

I don't think he meant chasing dollars as in "make as much money as possible", but as in the fact that many (most?) non-criminal lawyers spend their time starting, defending or trying to prevent disputes that are ultimately just about money.

Not that it's a bad thing, but it's foreseeable that people go into it seeking to advance justice and other noble causes and realize 20 or 30 years down the line that it's really all about protecting your clients' bank accounts. Perhaps there's something to be said about the ambulance chasers being at peace with that.

edanm• 14 years ago

An essay that helped me a lot in coming to my views on wealth is PG's essay "Mind the Gap".

If you haven't read it, I recommend you check it out.

http://paulgraham.com/gap.html

Also good:

http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

jimworm• 14 years ago

Making money almost always goes with creating value, but in some cases the optimal strategy to make money does not involve creating value.

If a business that treats money as its primary objective encounters one of these cases, it will defeat its value-creating competition and become a parasite to society.

tomelders• 14 years ago

It always grates me when people with lot's of money tell people who don't have lot's of money, that it's not about the money.

Money my not equal happiness, but a lack of money certainly equals stress and misery. And while people are being stressed and miserable, they're not at their best.

I think people would find it hard to be so nonchalant about the importance of money and the benefits it can bring if they were worried about how they were going to pay the rent, or if they had a sick kid they couldn't afford to treat properly.

andrewfelix6• 14 years ago

Right on. It's not about being able to drive a Porsche, it's about not having to worry about the rent.

simonh• 14 years ago

I think what a lot of people who say that mean by it is that to be successful, your primary focus doesn't have to be about making money. For many successful, people becoming wealthy is a (usually intentional) side effect of building a good business.

Conversely, people who primarily focus on making as much money as possible are susceptible to making mistakes such as scrimping on necessary expenses, or sacrificing relationships with valuable business partners.

swombat7• 14 years ago

I think what a lot of people who say that mean by it is that to be successful, your primary focus doesn't have to be about making money.

I agree - if all you care about is money, you won't become successful. You'll probably become rich, though.

For many successful, people becoming wealthy is a (usually intentional) side effect of building a good business.

But a good business is one that makes money (apart from the instagrams and other lottery tickets of this world). So focusing on making money is necessary to them too. If you do a great job for your customers but you don't charge them, and so you run out of money and go bankrupt - well, you haven't built a great business at all.

I think you're confusing short-sighted focus with "focus". Warren Buffet has primarily focused on making as much money as possible (his chosen career is literally to make money from investment) and he's not skimped on relationships or other necessities. On the contrary, I think if you're smart and you're focused on making money in both the short and long term, you probably will make money.

On the other hand, if you assume it will happen some day later, you probably won't make money.

_delirium5• 14 years ago

In Silicon Valley with a tech background it's rarely a very stark choice, though. If you have good tech skills, a the default/fallback option is a pretty nice one, materially speaking: a low 6-figure programming job at a big company. There is very little chance of ending up unemployed-and-homeless, given how much companies are scrambling to hire technical people.

In that context, it makes more sense to me to encourage people to think about something other than money as their main/only goal. It is indeed something you can only afford to do if you're privileged enough to have the option, but being a tech person in Silicon Valley means there's a high probability that you do have the option, because if you "fail", you can always fail back to the 6-figure corporate job, which is a pretty soft landing. So given that you can live a materially comfortable life just taking the default route, what else do you want to do?

swombat7• 14 years ago

There is very little chance of ending up unemployed-and-homeless, given how much companies are scrambling to hire technical people.

For now. See how it goes in 20 years.

runako• 14 years ago

Until you're 40 and are forced out of the field: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3878522

Falling back on the corporate job in software becomes less likely as you get older.

twelvechairs• 14 years ago

> It always grates me when people with lot's of money tell people who don't have lot's of money, that it's not about the money.

That may be true, but it is equally grating (if not moreso) when people with lots of money tell people who don't have lots of money that it _is_ about the money....

kamaal2• 14 years ago

May be its also because the rich remain rich only when someone is poor.

Being rich is not just comfortable but also a social status, not everyone likes everybody to be their equals.

scotty7910• 14 years ago

Perhaps it's wrong place to ask, but ...

Does anyone have an idea how to get this "hunger for money"?

I get no pleasure from earning money and almost no pleasure from things I can buy. I find it hard to motivate myself to get rich despite the fact that I consciously know that it could make my life bit easier.

lmm• 14 years ago

Think about the specifics. If more money really would make your life easier, bear the details of this in mind as you're earning it - even to the level of thinking "this hour got me the xyz", if you like.

scotty7910• 14 years ago

Thanks for the idea. Keeping firm grip on income and expenses could help. I noticed that my motivation declined when each piece of income added to the pile that was shrinking at the same time due to unspecified expenses.

mfieldhouse• 14 years ago

You're not earning money for material possesions. That's a never ending unfulfilling pursuit. Your earning money to give yourself a secure future, to be able to spend more time with people you enjoy being around, to be free to go wherever you want, do anything you want at any time without money being an issue. You're earning money for freedom and independence. Do you have the hunger now?

scotty7910• 14 years ago

> Your earning money to give yourself a secure future,

I have been doing that during my college years and few years after that but then the future came and it was secure regardless of money I had. Money got spent or lost on stupid investments. I feel bit insecure now but only a bit. Is scaring yourself about your unknown future the way to get the money hunger?

> to be able to spend more time with people you enjoy being around,

I spend 24 hours of at least 95% of my days with the woman I love. I think I can't improve that area by making more money.

> to be free to go wherever you want,

I'm exactly where I want to be. And I really don't like travelling.

> do anything you want at any time without money being an issue.

I'd like to have that, but to get more money I'd have to crawl out of my local optimum by doing the things I don't want to for a lot longer than I do now. Also success of 100% passive income would not be ensured.

> You're earning money for freedom and independence.

I don't feel like I'm lacking either of them now.

> Do you have the hunger now?

No, but thank you. Idea of making myself feel insecure about my future might be a way to go.

bmelton• 14 years ago

For me, I care far less about the money than the freedom it buys me. I like solving problems, and learning new things, and ending up with something tangible that I can point to and say "I made that."

In a 'job', I don't necessarily have the freedom I want to play around all day. If a new language comes out and I want to play with it, but can't because I'm coding a login form for 'the employer', that sucks.

If I were financially independent, I could do what I wanted, more or less. I also hate doing dishes, and laundry. But I also really hate it when there aren't any clean dishes or clean laundry. Money buys me clean dishes and clean laundry.

Beyond that, I'll freely admit that I never had a huge desire for more money than I needed to live the life I wanted until I entered the wonderful realm of parenthood. Now I'm dumping tons of money into her education, into savings. She's going to need (hopefully) college, a new car, the ability to fail without too much pressure that the world is going to end. I'd also really like to leave an inheritance. I don't need my daughter to grow up like Paris Hilton, but I don't want her to grow up in poverty either.

While it's true that money doesn't buy happiness, lack of money is a pretty direct road into depression for many. Having money that you don't have anything to do with is just responsible, in the same way you have dental, medical and life insurance. The same way you buckle your seat belt.

ryan-allen• 14 years ago

Someone (who was it? PG or DHH or someone) referred to this 'initial money' as 'fuck you money', i.e. enough to provide for your family and give you the freedom to then work on what you want.

Money is important, when you don't have 'enough' you typically have to work on fulfilling other people's dreams and you're not truly free.

But this is just one man's opinion, and that's all it is. If you get pleasure from other things, then kudos to you! Not everybody can be mega rich, and if you're content doing what you're doing without millions I think you're doing swell as it is.

Tyrannosaurs2• 14 years ago

Why would you want it?

I'd suggest if having more money doesn't motivate you then the difference between your life now and this hypothetical life you might have isn't that great.

Lots of people are motivated to make money for different reasons, some good, some bad but if you're not one of them you're better off focusing on the things that do make you happy.

scotty7910• 14 years ago

I have no idea how my life would look if I had this hunger. Maybe it would be better? I just feel I'm missing on something. I have high iq, about 10 years of commercial experience in coding, nearly 20 years of personal experience in coding so I feel I'm fairly well prepared to make some money. What I lack is constant motivator. Money works as such for a lot of people. Hence my question: How do you get hunger for money? Is that something you have to be born with? Is that something you have to be raised to feel? Do you have to hit the rock bottom and feel actual hunger to get this money hunger?

paulhauggis2• 14 years ago

want to travel? that requires money want a house? you need money Want to have kids? more money

Almost every hobby also requires money. Money buys you freedom. I have a hunger for freedom, which requires money.

I also don't want some asshole boss making decisions for me.

scotty7910• 14 years ago

I hate inconveniences of travelling and after I have travelled I quickly forget almost all of the things I've seen or experienced. Nearly same amount of memories remain in my head regardless of whether I've been into 3 or 30 places.

I don't want a house. I prefer flats. While living in a flat you just have to bother with what's inside. House is much greater burden.

You don't buy kids. Kids happen. If I had kids then probably I'd need more money than I do now, but kids didn't happen to me yet.

Every hobby also requires time. And time is neatly eaten up by all my hobbies that don't require money and by some work I do. If I wanted to take up some new hobby I'd have to reduce time I devote to my current hobbies so that wouldn't be a huge gain. Especially because to fund the new hobby I'd have to increase time devoted to work and reduce time devoted to current hobbies further.

My freedom does not require a lot of money. I'm 33 and I never had a boss.

I could travel much more than I like. I could get a house. I could replace my hobbies with new paid ones. I could have kids. But isn't this a bit much to just get "money hunger"? I want to increase my motivation but not at the cost of doing things that would tire me to tears.

oz3• 14 years ago

I don't know. I for one enjoy many material things that I'm not yet able to afford on a consistent basis, and that keeps me pretty motivated.

scotty7910• 14 years ago

For a moment I wanted to make this: http://www.robotis.com/xe/bioloid_en into a dangling carrot for myself, since I love robots and recent achievements in robot bipedal movement.

But it failed. Goal was too far from me at my current hourly rate and instead of stubbornly inching my way towards it I just started to want it less and less.

bhousel3• 14 years ago

Money == Freedom

Don't you want freedom?

scotty7910• 14 years ago

http://dreamflesh.com/blog/2007/06/the-millionaire-and-the-f...

cgag• 14 years ago

Exactly. I never want to work on someone else's terms. I want to be able to travel on a whim. I want to be able to stay up all night and sleep all day. I want to enjoy things that require sunlight more than just two days a week.

I just hope I can buy my freedom while I'm still young.

mgkimsal• 14 years ago

I can't find the quote, but I think it was Dave Ramsey who said (says?) something like "You can't help others from a position of weakness". Broadly true, although even moreso from a financial point of view, and one which guides much of my views on money/work/business.

meric• 14 years ago

The article does not say want to make money at any cost. It just says want to make money. I want to make money doing things I love. For any job I am willing to do, I want to make sure my pay is as high as possible, for that job.

Lots of people saying how many jobs does not add value to society, and so people who want to make money are evil. That's not what the article is talking about! If you want to make money and don't want to do those jobs, then make money through other means!

ajuc• 14 years ago

It's ok to want to be rich, but wanting something you won't get is unplesant, so people often rationalize they are there just for fun.

Certainly for me it works that way - if it's hobby project, I can't fail at it. If it's business I do to be rich, and I'm not rich in 5 years, I've failed.

Having fun seems to be easier to achieve than commercial success, and for some people (like me) it's easier to do sth, if it seems achievable.

overshard• 14 years ago

It depends on what you want to make that money for. To live a stress-free, comfortable, happy life and help your community/world in return with that money? Or to just spend all of that money on yourself in expensive cars, big houses and drugs. It all depends on what you use the money for...

digitalengineer2• 14 years ago

No it doesn't really matter. Let them buy expensive cars, big houses and what not. If they've earned it, they get to spend it. (And I'm sure the local business owners, car sales man, builders... won't disagree). Besides, they'll pay taxes on everything they spend. Would it be nice for others if they were to invest in their own community? Sure! But they're not required to do so.

michaelochurch2• 14 years ago

Answer: yes, sure. It's far more honorable to want to be wealthy than, for example, to vie for social status or power over other people. I want to be wealthy; I wish everyone were.

I feel like I'm an old (28) knight, having learned the hard way that people are not honorable. For the record, I've seen more disgusting behavior in supposedly "world-changing" startups than many people see in their lives, and far more than I saw in finance, which is supposed to be unethical and full of greed but (quite honestly) doesn't look very different from anywhere else. The most ethical of the 5 companies where I've worked was in finance.

First, it's not about what you want, it's about what you do. There's nothing wrong with wanting to have money. You should want to have money if you're smart. Why? Because money is a vote and the World's First Problem is that most decisions aren't being made my smart or competent people. So get out there, do great work, and see if you can make a mark. You're only doing wrong if you start making moral compromises to get money or influence. If you turn unethical, then you become part of the more severe World's Second Problem, which is that the few genuinely smart people in positions of power and influence are generally unethical.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to have financial freedom and autonomy. If you don't have these things, chances are that your life will amount to very little. That's not the same thing as wanting to be a billionaire, though. If your net worth is $3 billion and you're trying to get to $6B to show up that other guy, then your motives are probably not good.

Social climbers I find pretty revolting, but the desire to do good work and be well paid for it is, I've come to realize, honorable.

Now, bad people do slimy things for all kinds of reasons, and often those reasons have little to do with material gain. Sometimes it's status or vengeance, and sometimes it's just a desire "to see what happens". Malevolent curiosity is a powerful motivator having nothing to do with money or measurable personal benefit. Again, it's not peoples' motivations that make them bad or good. It's what they actually do.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I encountered far more sleaze in VC-funded startups than in finance, and I think I figured it out. False poverty. Now, I'd he hard-pressed to call a startup CEO making $150,000 per year "poor", but a lot of these people feel poor, given that a 27-year-old venture capitalist with no accomplishments to his name is making twice that, just because his daddy got him into Harvard Business School. When people get a sense that they "should" be doing so much better (being VCs instead of being founders with their hands out) they feel poor, they feel desperate, and they act desperate.

Finance has its share of slime, for sure, but the false poverty is less prevalent. Bankers know they aren't poor and that they're not allowed to act that way.

This might also explain why the politics and in-fighting in low-paying but "glamorous" industries like fashion and UES nonprofitistan are so much worse. Because these people are paid poorly, they have a sense of living on a precipice and will do anything to avoid falling off. Although this is also a false poverty (because most of these people could change industries and do OK) it has the same effect.

The conclusion of all this should be the obvious one. Greed isn't good, but hunger is worse.

swombat7• 14 years ago

> You should want to have money if you're smart. Why? Because money is a vote and the World's First Problem is that most decisions aren't being made my smart or competent people. So get out there, do great work, and see if you can make a mark.

Well put!

sopooneo• 14 years ago

Buy a better world. Frankly I agree. The "golden rule" is that you should treat others as you would like to be treated. But then there is a very old joke that "You know what the golden rule is? He who has the gold makes the rules! HAAA!!"

But I think the neo-post-contemporary response to that is: so get some gold and make some better rules.

pushingbits• 14 years ago

"Because these people are paid poorly, they have a sense of living on a precipice and will do anything to avoid falling off."

This is actually a positive externality (well, depending on how you look at it) of providing some sort of social security net. You get to live in a society where people are less incentivized to stab each other in the back. Of course, they are also less incentivized to work themselves out of being-close-to-the-cliff.

On the other hand, in societies where, if you don't have any money, you are starving on the street as well as ostracized, you can hardly ever trust anyone not to carve you up if there is anything to be gained by it.

I once heard of a doctor working for an NGO in a major Indian city (I think it was Calcutta), who talked about how it was virtually impossible for a white person to make a friend there, because everyone he met was just trying to use him to gain status/money in some fashion.

michaelochurch2• 14 years ago

I agree completely. Why does the US have so much crime? Because there's no safety net. (The War on Drugs also contributes in a major way.) This ends up being foolish, because we pay more to keep people in prison (over $30,000 per year) than we would by providing them with education and training. We have the resources to get rid of poverty, but we're spending what we have in phenomenally stupid ways.

timwiseman• 14 years ago

Very well said. As long as you do not compromise your ethics in the process, it is probably good to seek money.

Its worth pointing out that one of the best ethical ways to make money is provide people things or services they want at prices they are willing to pay. As long as you are doing that in an ethical way for people that are also generally ethical, you are probably improving the world while earning money for yourself.

refurb• 14 years ago

> There's nothing wrong with wanting to have financial freedom and autonomy. If you don't have these things, chances are that your life will amount to very little.

I can think of a long list of people that have had a huge impact on improving people's lives who never had much of either: Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Gandhi, etc, etc

People who have had more impact on people's lives than anyone who has come out of SV.

FreeFull• 14 years ago

Money is not inherently evil. What really matters is how you make it, and where you spend it. If you make money making people better off, and spend it making people better off, there is nothing wrong at all. Unfortunately some people make money making people worse off, which is where money might get it's bad reputation. This might happen if the people think maximising income is more important than anything else (which might or might not lead them onto a path detrimental to other people, but immoral practices are often so profitable). The people who make a lot of money making people happy on the other hand probably care about their income, but also care strongly enough about other things for it to influence their decisions.

srconstantin• 14 years ago

I don't trust people who start businesses and say they're not interested in money. Money is one of your best gauges of whether you're doing things right. Not being interested in money when you're working on a for-profit enterprise makes me worry you're either unserious or disingenuous. That said, hardly anybody only cares about money. We all trade off money against other things -- free time, independence, and so on. I care about money, but I'd rather make a little less working on a project that'll genuinely make the world better than a little more working on something unimportant.

robforman• 14 years ago

Don't strive to make money for money sake alone. There doesn't appear to be any correlation between money and happiness.

But I, like most hackers, enjoy building things of value. And people are used to paying for what they value (there are exceptions of course). I use making money, especially early on, as a validator and indicator of progress.

toomanysecrets• 14 years ago

yes

digitalengineer2• 14 years ago

Relevant (and fun): F*ck You, Pay me. http://vimeo.com/22053820

Making money is difficult enough. Don't leave all that money on the table.

chpolk• 14 years ago

Good article, let money enrich your life and not define it.

oz3• 14 years ago

TL;DR: Yes. Get that money. Get lots of it. Poverty sucks.

I left rural Jamaica to come to Kingston, the capital, in 2005. After my first year in college, I got a summer job with a telecom startup run by an American. My student loan was not renewed for the 2nd year, so I had to drop out, and got a permanent position as a sysadmin at the company. The pay sucked, but I didn't care: The family member I was living with wasn't charging me rent, and I was having tons of fun setting up IPSec VPNs with other telecom providers, configuring pfSense firewalls, creating SIP trunks, etc. I'd sometimes stay at work till midnight, just exploring and learning, and be back at work at 8:30 the next morning.

I was transferred to another arm of the company 6 months later, but wasn't getting along with the management there, and was fired. But it was ok (I thought): I had no living expenses. I spent the next two years pottering about, trying my hand at a few different freelance initiatives, none of which really stuck. That was also when I discovered that I was very creative, at least design-wise. After those 2 years, my father died. No life insurance.

This, dear reader, is when reality started to set in. This is when I got the slap upside the head that said, "Hey! Fool! You need to start making money."

I'd applied for a job a few weeks before his death, and I got the job, doing a mixture of bizdev, system administration, and graphic design (perhaps I'm one of those fabled 'designgineermarketers' :) ).

Immediately, I began getting strange brown envelopes in the mail, containing sheets with tabulated data on them, and a strange claim that somehow, I owed them money.

I was later to find out that they were called 'bills.'

The family member also started charging rent. About time.

The student loan people called. Time to pay the piper.

I'd been bitch-slapped. By reality. It hurt.

I was 23.

I looked back at all the time I'd wasted. All the money I'd wasted. How I'd been a burden to family.

I'd been a typical HN-reading, Ayn Rand-quoting, John Galt aspiring-libertarian. Slowly, I began to realize the role of luck and circumstance. I used to look down on the poor, writing them all off as lazy and not willing to work. "How dare they be poor and have a TV!", I used to think.

I changed my tune. A bitch-slap will do that to you.

I knew what real wealth looked like. The startup I had worked for had tanked, but the founder and I were good friends, and he was independently wealthy. He owned 4 Mercedes, and lived in a house so far up in the hills that the road wasn't even paved. We would drive around and he would tell me about his life, how he had been rich as a teen pop star in Britain, but squandered it all and was broke by 20. He went to America with nothing, but built himself up through determination and cleverness. He built a telecom switch for the cost of a PC, and loaded Asterisk (open source telecom software) on it. Re-sold it for US$6,000. It felt 'wrong' to me, but he taught me that it doesn't matter what you think it's worth, it only matters what they think it's worth.

He died 4 months after my father. His family didn't know where all the money was. To this day, he has not been buried. That was over 2 years ago.

Money.

Money affects our lives in so many ways that it's difficult to overstate. Wanna help out that friend? It's gonna cost ya. Wanna take care of your parents? Ditto. How many great relationships have been ruined because one party had to leave due to work? How many marital squabbles are about money? How many friendships are ruined? And don't gimme that crap that if they were good relationships, they would last. If you have a friend that is down on his luck for an extended period (say a year or more), that gets old real fast. He'll expect you to pay for dinner. And movies. And gas. And liquor at parties. Soon you're gonna start resenting him. If he had money, it wouldn't be a problem. It's just circumstances.

How many lives are wasted in poverty?

Is it any surprise that I want money? Is it any surprise that I have dedicated the next few years to the getting of money?

Whew. I need to stop. Or this will happen again: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2025537

Edit: grammar

gonehome• 14 years ago

Money may not be 'everything', but it does seem to be the universal prerequisite.

newbie122• 14 years ago

Money is just a representation of work...it is a means of storing and exchanging things with one another.

illumin8• 14 years ago

> I'd been a typical HN-reading, Ayn Rand-quoting, John Galt aspiring-libertarian. Slowly, I began to realize the role of luck and circumstance. I used to look down on the poor, writing them all off as lazy and not willing to work. "How dare they be poor and have a TV!", I used to think.

Wow. I've come to expect a certain level of hypocrisy from a lot of libertarians, but this is a pretty stark example of it. By all rights, you qualified as one of the "moochers," yet you were perfectly happy to denounce those like you.

Thanks for sharing your story.

cobrausn2• 14 years ago

I've come to expect hypocrisy from anyone with a strongly held value set. Progressives touting 'diversity' while living in the suburbs and paying exorbitant amounts to send their kids to all-white private schools, conservatives railing about government overreach while trying to enact 'morality' laws, libertarians looking down on moochers while living under a different safety net.

This happens because we hold values. The easiest way not to be a hypocrite is not to have any. I find it's better to have values, get called out on violating them, and try to improve, than it is to have none. YMMV.

oz3• 14 years ago

Glad to share it. And don't make me quote Francisco's Money Speech! :)

>By all rights, you qualified as one of the "moochers," yet you were perfectly happy to denounce those like you.

This is one of the things that worries me the most about human nature. Luckily, I've stumbled upon LessWrong which has dramatically improved my thinking. But I constantly have to ask myself, "Where are my blind spots?"

DanielBMarkham• 14 years ago

I think what swombat's calling out here is the difference between the social nature of startups, where everybody wants to look cool and do and say the right thing, and the actual nature of startups, where if you're not growing eyeballs exponentially or making something somebody actually pays you for then you're dead.

The startup world is a social community just like any other guild or clan. We have leaders, common dreams, mantras, and so on. It's become quite popular for really rich guys to tell us how it's not about the money. When I first heard this I took it at face value. Then I realized what they were really saying was you can't just focus on the money. That's a big difference!

Part of the danger in hanging out in places like HN is that it's easy to pick up on all the social cues of the startup world and miss out on the practical nuts and bolts of it. So we'll get our nerd on and discuss esoteric programming concepts. Or we'll rant at company X and praise company Y for basically doing the same thing. Or we'll vote up an essay by famous startup icon even if it's not that worthwhile. More to the point we'll praise one startup idea because it's "cool", then we'll shun another because it's unpopular in our social group.

I love making things people want. People show me they want them by paying me. I need the money, so this works well for everybody. Once I don't need the money, I'll still love making things people want. At that point, however, I need to be really damn sure I'm actually doing something that has value aside from just a bunch of people in my peer group telling me how awesome my idea is. And before I get there, the last thing I want to do is use their opinions as any sort of useful metric at all on what I should be doing. Money is a much better temporary proxy.

sparknlaunch12• 14 years ago

Amen!

Whenever I ask "startup" people - "how does it make money?" - I often get odd looks. The same people are usually on the look out for funding.

Yes, it is honourable to run a business for love and passion of the idea. However money pays the bills and keeps you in the game longer.

It is not so honourable to ask for money from investors when you haven't considered how your idea will generate revenue.

pcvarmint• 14 years ago

Is it okay to want food?

Then you have your answer.

drostie• 14 years ago

After seeing many responses which contain many paragraphs, I tried to condense this one down as short as possible:

Readers may find it interesting to reflect that this question, "is it okay to want to make money?", is not really much of a question in other religions, and ultimately stems from the Christian background of the Western cultures. In Indian religions, for example, doing well in business and earning a bunch of money are considered good actions, good karma, and will bring you a better rebirth. Being good at what you do is just part of being good. Now, it won't allow you to end the cycle of rebirth to achieve moksha/mukti/nirvana, because all karma binds you to the cycle of rebirth, but it will let you "climb the ladder" to a life where you are better suited to pursue these ultimate goals of self-annihilation.

So if you're a Christian the answer is probably "no" -- "harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" and all that. But the linked post is trying to utter something more Confucian or Hindu; it's your duty to make money to support your family, go and do your duty.

radikalus• 14 years ago

You need to make a lot of money to finance your spaceship startup.

Lucadg• 14 years ago

I am trying hard to get of out of the "don't need to make money" mindset. It served me very well for years: the decision that money was less important than time allowed me to travel the world for 10 years while having a small online business.

But now that I want my business to grow, I am really struggling with the fact that I can live with little money. This is fine with me, but the people who joined my project deserve better: they deserve a strong and stable company.

I am trying to find a way to "go for the money" even though my nature is not to. It's not easy. Thanks for the article.

king_jester• 14 years ago

A lot of people here have said that their is nothing wrong with wanting to make money, but I have the opposite opinion: I do not think it is ok to WANT to make money.

I recognize that making money is required in order to live in a capitalist society, since that is the primary way you will acquire food, shelter, clothing, etc. I make money personally and recognize that it is necessary. How could I create software or volunteer if I can't even feed or clothe myself?

However, I do not WANT to make money. I recognize that capitalism is a system that depends on the exploitation of others, usually people I do not see or interact with unless I go out of my way to find them. We live in a world where there are many people who cannot feed or clothe themselves, cannot afford shelter, cannot have determination in what they do or the work they must take on. This is a world that I want to sincerely change to no longer require money. Isn't this the great future promise of sci-fi like Star Trek, that humanity will give up capitalism and exploitation and provide for every human?

The primary many readers here engage in software development is in a commercial context (myself included). However, I would much prefer to gather with like minded individuals to create software because I love to create software, not because there is a promise of a payout. Many others here feel the same way, but never forget that we benefit from capitalism while others suffer from it. I would rather remove money altogether than worry about acquiring more of it.

j45• 14 years ago

Building something smaller to feed the family increases your longevity in the startup game. You can play longer with new ideas, let them develop as they mature, and lots more. Pay attention to whether people who look down on lifestyle businesses already have that lifestyle of not worrying about money.. easier said when that's the case.

Initially having something that pays the bills for you can be an important step learning the first business and marketing skills of ones life. Having these makes you more valuable and capable of not only fetching funding should it be something you want, but a lot more of it because you preemptively make business considerations as you go.

tehansen• 14 years ago

Money is not an end, it is the means

mseebach• 14 years ago

The Economist had a very good column on this subject a little while ago:

> In living memory, some middle-class Britons would not allow delivery boys to come to their front door; the tradesmen’s entrance was at the side. [....] And their modern descendants, the middle-class intelligentsia who populate the continent’s universities and staff its public sector, have a tendency to despise the businesspeople who generate the wealth needed to fund their way of living. There is great distaste at the idea that political choices should be dictated by “the markets”; investors should just hand over their money and not ask whether it will be paid back.

http://www.economist.com/node/21541857

jakejake• 14 years ago

I find there are three types of people who will try to make you feel guilty about wanting money. The first are people who have chosen non-lucrative careers and will want you to feel that your work is shallow. The second are people who have an invested interest in paying workers lower wages in order to make their money. The third are people who are young, in school and not yet working full time and paying bills.

Living your life based on money is probably not the way to find happiness. But it's good to know the motivations of people who would judge you for wanting money.

mindcruzer• 14 years ago

Of course it's OK to want to make money. Your desires don't require the approval of other people.

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

Asking if its ok to want to make money is analogous to asking if its ok to marry someone because they look beautiful.

simonbarker87• 14 years ago

This is one of our main points in a presentation my co founder and I give when asked to speak at events.

Our product has useful features for people who struggle to heat their home (our product isn't software, its made of plastic) and our VC sat us down (before they invested) and said that we needed to focus more on the making money side of things and not helping poor people - helping poor people would come as a result of being successful, staying in business and delivering on customer demand. His main point was that without aiming to make money then we wouldn't stay in business very long as no one would invest in us and ultimately no one would benefit from our product.

How you make that money on the other hand, well that's up for discussion, there are a multitude of unethical business practices that make the desire to make money seem unpleasant. Avoid those and wanting to make money is fine.

gouranga• 14 years ago

There is nothing wrong with making money as long as in the process you do not hurt anyone directly or indirectly.

The latter is hard if not impossible which is where the system breaks.

ExpiredLink• 14 years ago

> Some people have an aversion to making money.

Those people have culture. Obviously 99.95% of the Silicon valley have no culture.

Symmetry• 14 years ago

To quote someone who said it better than me:

"If you don't make at least a little money in the process, how can you be sure that you're creating value?"

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ux/traditional_capitalist_values/

cjmauthor• 14 years ago

I believe this question is relative to an individual's current position in life. Let's face it, if you have been living in a really challenged position always hiding from creditors and living meagerly for some time the pressure to just get "Family Money" is at the forefront of every venture. There is nothing wrong with that. I am working 7 days a week on my startup and I have yet to get the family money. I want to make a difference in the world with all my heart and soul, and I would really love to get the family money out of the way so I can focus on making that difference. It is ok to want a little bit of comfort, that will give you the physical presence you need to make a difference.

shmerl• 14 years ago

> you need the opposite temperament: a hunger for money.

Wrong. It's easily leads one to make money a self goal, which a grave pitfall.

gautamsomani• 14 years ago

A simple and straight to the point thought. Nothing wrong about it for sure. After all, how long can you be creative and bold if you ain't got enough to "feed your family"?

kamaal2• 14 years ago

"When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is." - Oscar Wilde

Like it or not money matters. It matters more than you think, even if you take into account this statement.

While you are young you can go sleep anywhere, eat two minute noodles and go from hand to mouth without getting much into the rougher side of life. As you age, you get a family, you get kids, you fall sick, you need to tend to a thousand responsibilities and bills.

Want to put a dent in the universe? good! Sure do it. But before that ensure you have enough cash before you are 40-45 to not worry about getting up every morning and run to make ends meet.

Life can be a lot more rewarding if you have a financial comfort pillow to rest on and not to worry about getting fired, or loosing a job, or a market crash or you kids leaving you to stay away from you.

Just have enough cash in you pocket, you will be a lot more happier. Even if you are not, you can be comfortable sad with money than without.

gaisturiz• 14 years ago

Money is a means, not an end (unless of course you’re a rare coins collector.) I don’t consider myself a Silicon Valley insider by any measure, but from the outside it doesn’t seem like there’s an “It’s not about the money” culture. Billion dollar acquisitions and multi-billion dollar IPOs certainly reflect Silicon Valley’s acknowledgement that money is fundamental in any business process. Which brings me back to my first point: to reach any meaningful scale, anyone who wants to solve a problem or make the world more interconnected needs a myriad of resources. It would seem that making money is not only OK, but up to a certain point necessary; not to splurge on yachts and mansions, but rather to acquire the best tools and talent said money can procure.

Is it OK to Want to Make Money?

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