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Ask HN: What is your solution to Micheal Seibel's thought?

• nostrademons 9y ago
  I actually haven't observed this in my own life - I saved a pretty consistent 80% of my take-home compensation the whole time I was at Google, and my lifestyle now is basically the same as when I moved to California 8 years ago. I know a handful of other people in the same position, as well as a fair number of people whose expenses did creep up to meet their income. The common behavior among the people whose expenses didn't creep up: they decided, at an early age and when they were still poor, what sort of lifestyle they needed to make themselves happy, and they didn't deviate from that, regardless of whatever other messages society sends them. Or in slightly different terms: build your lifestyle up from zero and default to "No" when asking yourself "Do I need X?", rather than working you way down from your current income and defaulting to "Yes" when asking yourself "Can I afford X?" Another side benefit of this approach is that it makes you immune to advertising & scams, and tends to result in a lot less clutter around the house. If your answer is always "No" unless you've sat on any decision for at least a month, then everything that involves convincing you to open up your wallet isn't going to get very far. (The downside is that you don't develop much of a trade sense of what people will pay for, because you personally won't pay for anything, which is a whole other sort of problem if you want to found a startup.)
  • bsvalley 9y ago
    Living to work vs working to live. In your scenario I can see how you've dedicated 8 years of your life to your employer. Would we really value "time" in this case? 8 years is a lot of time living to work, getting all these perks not spending any money at all. Not investing in real estate, etc. I feel like you're living the entrepreneur life while being a full time employee at Google. It's a great backup plan to invest in real estate, build a family and enjoy traveling once in a while. I don't want to wake up at 50y old single with a large bank account. Cash isn't worth anything today.
    • nostrademons 9y ago
      It was actually only 5.5 years, the remaining 2.5 I've been working on a startup (or 10). I agree that time is more important than money. And for those 5.5 years, there wasn't anything more exciting than working at Google. Once there was, I left and did it instead. I wasn't living to work, I considered my work and my life to be part of the same inseparable whole. (There's also a point here about not letting other peoples' definitions of what's exciting or worthwhile influence you. I'm sure there are many people who will say "How sad that the most exciting thing in your life is working for a gigantic megacorp!" That's fine - they aren't living my life. I actually thought that the scale of the computing power and complexity of algorithms available to me was fascinating, and I joined them because I wanted to peek under the hood and contribute to what they were doing, not because I needed money.) [Edit: your comment was edited slightly after I replied, not sure if this makes any sense anymore. But responding to your edited version: if cash isn't worth anything and you don't want to wake up with a large bank account, then what's the problem? You aren't going to wake up with a large bank account when you're 50, which means that you're living exactly the life you want to live.]
      • bsvalley 9y ago
        In that case, that makes total sense.