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Secret Fears of the Super-Rich

255 points by gammarator 16y ago

michaelochurch 16y ago
What I learned when I read this was that most rich people's lives are defined (just like most others' lives) by money, which is a depressing thought. A starving person's life will be defined by food-- organized around getting access to it, with constant intrusive thoughts about it-- but for most of us, it's not. We only think about food when we're hungry, we eat, and then we think about something else. Most people who want to be rich want escape from money's grip, and it seems like that rarely happens. Either that, or freedom from money is not a monotonically increasing function of one's allotment and these people have overshot some sort of "sweet spot" at the level of the middling wealthy. The grand takeaway was that living in a society ruled by money sucks even for those who have a lot of it. I wish the world were more like college in the sense that, when I was in college, I had no idea whether what my friends' grades were, and people weren't stratified into socially insular tiers based on GPA. The difference between a 3.9 and a 3.2 wasn't socially divisive in the way that the difference between $20 million and $7.50 net worth is.
- jdp23 16y ago
  > Either that, or freedom from money is not a monotonically increasing function of one's allotment Well said. Freedom from money is a combination of factors: how much you have and spend in the present, and how much you expect to make and spend in the future. As people get more money it's very easy to ramp up your lifestyle and expectations to put more pressure on the future (instead of less). On the other hand, I know people who by focusing on what's important to them and adjusting their lifestyle feel fairly free without having millions of dollars. So (once you get to a decent threashold of earning) a lot of it is attitude as well.
  - JonnieCache 16y ago
    >freedom from money is not a monotonically increasing function of one's allotment This is linked IMO to the studies mentioned in this video, which find that motivation and drive at work are similarly not a monotonically increasing function of pay, but in fact there is an optimal pay rate beyond which drive begins to decrease. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
    - michaelochurch 16y ago
      Relevant: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/pay-more-get-less/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/pay-more-get-... There are a lot reasons why executive overpay makes CEOs perform worse at their jobs. Foremost among them is that it enables them to make short-term plays that are risky or harmful to the company in the long run. A $500,000-per-year job is one that an executive desperately wants to keep. A $25 million-per-year job, with four years' pay as a golden parachute, is one that can safely be blown up after a couple years. (No CEO intentionally blows up, but many take stupid risks driven by ego and status-based avarice that they would be less inclined to take if paid modest salaries and thereby more attached to their jobs.) There are two reasons why executive overpay exists. The first is self-dealing by a small, socially closed elite. They do it because they can. The second is to motivate younger people who greatly overestimate their chances of ascending to such ranks: printing dreambucks, I call it. I would argue, were it not for the cultural corrosion the overpay causes, that executive pay is actually a very, very cheap mechanism for achieving the 2nd goal. Overpaying executives does motivate people to want to get to that rank. The problem is more subtle and cultural: what does it motivate them to do? Be more creative? No. Be more ethical? Certainly not. Be more ruthless? Sure, but "ruthless" is a hair's breadth away from psychopathic and workplace psychopaths (cf. Fiorina) can destroy companies.
      - JonnieCache 16y ago
        >Sure, but "ruthless" is a hair's breadth away from psychopathic The literal meanings are identical. "Ruth" is an archaic word for a feeling of pity, compassion or remorse.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        Why do you believe corporate risktaking is harmful to the company in the long run? If anything, I always thought the common criticism of big corporations is that they are far too risk averse. E.g., rather than taking a risk and betting it all on Maemo (an early linux-based smartphone OS), Nokia instead went the safe route and have now stagnated. Similarly, when problems arise, many big companies layer small fix after small fix on an existing system - it's much safer than investing $250M in a complete renovation.
  - michaelochurch 16y ago
    The way the money is made, and whether something must be done to sustain it, has an impact. If you're an executive in a traditional corporation, you're end up having to keep an absurd lifestyle because you're a professional social climber and, the minute you retire from the shenanigans, your earned income drops dramatically. If you made your money in a lump-sum acquisition, or have a high salary because of talent and skills rather than social advantage (it's rare, but it does happen) you're in more of a position to enjoy your money. At the upper tier of wealth you have people who aren't social climbers per se but are really competitive. Next down, you have most of the social climbers trying to turn their money into status (which begets more money).
    - jdp23 16y ago
      Actually I was an executive at a traditional corporation (a GM at Microsoft) and before that a founder/CTO at a venture-funded startup ... You're very right that there's a lot of competitive pressure (and social climbers) but we always avoided it.
- lutorm 16y ago
  I wonder if there's a selection effect at work here, in that the majority of people who end up being very rich are those whose lives are defined by money. After all, why would you work your ass off to make more money than possibly can have a meaningful influence on your life unless you were driven by the idea of money alone?
  - noahc 16y ago
    It depends on the person here. 1. Imagine a dude who just wanted to build something cool. Craig Newmark, of Craig's List fame, for example would fall under this category. He's got enough money to retire, yet he still works customer service, because that's what he enjoys. 2. Now imagine, someone who just wants more, more, more, more. It appears Donald Trump might fall into this category. I don't know for sure, but he seems to be purely driven by money and power. You can become wealthy 'organically' in the sense that you didn't set out to be wealthy. You can so get wealthy from the expressed intent to get wealthy.
    - hnal943 16y ago
      True, but I don't see Craig Newmark getting angsty because of his wealth.
    - lurker14 16y ago
      Are you agreeing or disagreeing with the post you responded to? It appears that you are expanding on the same point.
  - michaelochurch 16y ago
    I think people tend to go into that game being decent and come out of it corrupted. In high school and college, they wanted to be writers. But investment banking seemed safer. Some failed out, but others got all their promotions, their MBAs, their first millions at a ridiculously young age, and started drifting away from their "interesting" (but poor, by banker's standards) college friends and into a certain money-centered social circle. People don't like to admit this, clinging to the notion of an atomic "self", but a few years in that kind of environment changes a person into someone unrecognizable by the younger, better person who went in. People who were once fascinating to talk about about all kinds of topics with devolve into defectives only capable of talking about mergers and acquisitions, people who talk fast and sound intelligent but, if you actually listen to the words they are saying, have almost no content in anything they say. An unbroken pattern of severe wins and losses in the working world is usually corrosive to one's personality. Losses make people bitter and they either collapse or deeply desire, even at psychopathic cost, to win. Too many wins, especially those of the "windfall" kind and much less those that come from genuine hard work, make people shallow, childish, and impatient.
io 16y ago
"But just as the human body didn’t evolve to deal well with today’s easy access to abundant fat and sugars, and will crave an extra cheeseburger when it shouldn’t, the human mind, apparently, didn’t evolve to deal with excess money, and will desire more long after wealth has become a burden rather than a comfort."
- michaelochurch 16y ago
  s/money/power Power attracts the corrupt, and it does corrupt. This is why handguns are (for a certain type of person, i.e. those who are explosively impulsive) so dangerous. Holding one gives the power of life and death. Being in power tends to make people arrogant, short-sighted, and less creative than they'd otherwise be. Power relationships are generally negative on both sides, thus worse than zero-sum.
  - christonog 16y ago
    "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." -Abraham Lincoln
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
Nearly everyone who chases positional goods in a global context is bound to end up depressed. When you're in the habit of evaluating your wealth in comparison to people who are wealthier than you, two overarching considerations necessarily define your value: * You're not wealthy enough; and * There's always someone wealthier than you. [1] [1] Caveat: In principle, someone has to be the wealthiest in the world, which means the other ~7,000,000,000 people are not.
- michaelochurch 16y ago
  There seems to be a self-similarity at play where society looks roughly the same from a very wide range of vantage points. The elite see the elite within the elite and feel like outsiders in comparison. An important Buddhist meditation is a prayer of gratitude for being born human; how often do people remember how lucky they were to have human births, on a planet where we are 7 billion out of ~10^30 living beings (counting bacteria and plants, which Buddhists generally don't consider sentient but which are living). Anyway, at the three-digit millionaire and billionaire level, it's all about score-keeping and social status for those who care at all. Most billionaires are not quite at the pinnacle of the social elite, and no one stays at the tip-top of that for very long. Wealth is more stable, at the upper tiers, than social status, which is lost to age if nothing else takes it away.
  - mmcconnell1618 16y ago
    Has anyone ever studied wealth distribution to see if it's fractal based? It would be interesting if human interaction followed the same design principals as natural formations.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution#Applications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution#Application...
      - mmcconnell1618 16y ago
ChuckMcM 16y ago
I found it an interesting read, perhaps a cautionary tale. I suspect that if you are an entrepreneur 'to get rich' and you succeed and find you are depressed all the time because you don't know who your friends are, some (possibly material) portion of your new found wealth will go toward counseling. I had the non-unique experience of being a multi-millionaire for 2 weeks in the summer of 1999. Which is to say that on paper, in terms of options and restricted stock, and stock which was currently owned but embargoed (due to my companies acquisition) was 'worth' millions. I really had to sit back and think hard about what that meant, would I retire in 4 years?, keep working ? join a venture firm? The stock went from $120/share to $0.83/share before I could sell any of it so I never had to actually answer those questions but I found that how I felt when I was 'rich' was different than how I thought I would feel. I don't know if that is a common experience or not. I find the idea that someone wouldn't really feel financially secure unless they had $1b in the bank sad. But I looked at what Google paid for Eric Schmidt's 'security detail' and I realized that at some point you become a 'soft target' for people who would acquire money through violence or extortion. I would hope to avoid becoming one of those targets. I've heard that if you are ever in danger of acquiring too much wealth you can 'fix' that by buying an airline. (with props to Sir Richard Branson)
- westbywest 16y ago
  Reminds me of the evergreen Joseph Heller anecdote: "At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch 22 over its whole history. Heller responds, 'Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . Enough.'"
  - michaelochurch 16y ago
    That is an awesome quote. The viral r-factor here is at least 1.
    - pixelbath 16y ago
      What does that term mean?
ianhawes 16y ago
Also consider watching "The One Percent". It's about wealth and the expanding class differences. It's available to watch instantly on Netflix.
Inc82 16y ago
A quote attributed to Rudyard Kipling that's been floating around the internet: "Some day you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are."
6ren 16y ago
> The fact that most people imagine it would be paradise to never have to work does not make the experience any more pleasant in practice. The financially independent often choose to work anyway - so why not just choose work you enjoy (or rather, find worthwhile/meaningful) in the first place?
methodin 16y ago
This was one of the more intriguing and thought-provoking articles I've read in a while. As someone who always had enough to get by, but never enough to spend without consequence, the goal of "being successful and having money" was always one I sought to obtain. While younger I always assumed all my problems would be solved by such a venture. I've learned that will never be the case on my own, but the concerns the wealthy state are interestingly complex - much more so than the standard concerns of a middle-income family/person. I can imagine the shock of a life of toil to get rich, only to find that your life and problems are exactly the same or even more complex. The sole reason why being happy with the present will do more for you than anything else.
adovenmuehle 16y ago
The takeaway I have from this is that people are people, no matter their status: not sure if what they're doing is what they should be, insecure about other's love for them, never satisfied. It reminds me that we're all people, all human. Also reminds me of a bible verse (Ecclesiastes 9:10): "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." Whether rich or poor, happy or not, we all die.
- georgieporgie 16y ago
  we all die. That will probably be changing soon.
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    it will be changing to "some [ who can afford it] will not die"
    - michaelochurch 16y ago
      Anti-aging, once developed, will be cheaper than geriatric care: the "ounce of prevention" effect. Governments will be pushing the treatments on people and opt-outs may eventually be denied social services (especially once the knowledge of how to treat advanced pathologies that are now common geriatric conditions fades away). Very few people want to live to 100000, much less forever. What will produce the very long lifespans is the day-to-day iterated decision, which won't be life vs. death or stay-young vs. get-old, but well vs. sick, where there's an obvious victor: being well. There's the saying, "Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die." I disagree. Everyone wants to die (at some point in the future, possibly millions of years off) but no one wants to get sick.
      - kovar 16y ago
        Why would governments encourage people to stay alive longer? I can think of several reasons not to do so: -there is an associated cost per citizen that may not be offset by revenue/taxes -this will spur population growth, with all the associated problems
unohoo 16y ago
'A vast body of psychological evidence shows that the pleasures of consumption wear off through time and depend heavily on one’s frame of reference.' I loved this single,succinct line.
Tycho 16y ago
Remember that documentary from about 5+ years ago about spoilt rich teenagers? I think it was called Born Rich. Anyway one of the things that one boy said really stuck with me (not sure what his name was but he was generally unhappy, and I think he later sued the publishers): 'People think because I'm rich I must be happy. But they don't realize that my happiness is connected to so many material things, if just one of them goes wrong it can ruin my day.' Or something to that effect. More material comforts = more dependency for happiness = greater likelyhood of misery (or at least, 'peevement' or angst). He was talking about all the expensive toys that had to be maintained properly, special meals he liked to have, elaborate plans for essentially simple social occassions, and so on.
- DevX101 16y ago
  I highly recommend everyone watch this documentary. It was produced by Jamie Johnson (as in the heir to Johnson & Johnson) who interviewed his friends for their candid feedback on what it's like to be wealthy. None of them knew this would be a public documentary so they were pretty open without the typical political correctness. Somewhat surprisingly to me, I found the most mature amongst his peers to be Ivanka Trump. She acknowledged her wealth, but at the same time made it clear that given her head start in life, she planned to work hard to make her own path in life. And judging from accounts from a couple people who went to school with her at Penn, she's pretty sharp. I liked her. But most of the others seemed to fall into two groups: 1) At a loss for what they should do in life given the massive amount of wealth they knew they had at their disposal. One of the main concerns for this group is just not to lose the family's money. (Jamie Johnson himself and his father fell into this category) 2) An arrogant disdain for those not in their self-determined "class". This disdain is not necessarily reserved for the middle/low classes, but could also be applied to "new money" or those with just single/double digit million net worth. All around, great documentary. Go see it.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Just checked, it's on Netflix Instant Play. Just added it to my queue. Thanks for the recommendation.
maeon3 16y ago
The main difference between the stresses of the super-rich and the stresses of the super-poor is that the rich have problems that they choose to have, and the super-poor have problems that are forced on them. The rich people could eliminate 100% of their stresses if they simply chose to change their lifestyle. The super-poor can't really eliminate their stress by a simple change up their lifestyle, if the mortgage isn't getting paid, the car broke down and you need medical procedure you can't afford and have no options, then these stresses are WORSE stresses than the rich have. The rich may have it worse, but it's their own darn fault for making it worse.
- eru 16y ago
  The real poor would love to worry about mortgages and cars.
- michaelochurch 16y ago
  The rich people could eliminate 100% of their stresses if they simply chose to change their lifestyle. I generally agree with what you're saying, but how should they do this? They have reputations that could be ruined but can never be "given away" and friends with expensive tastes. How many people willingly uproot themselves, after age 30, and move to another country where they don't know a soul? Not many. Those who do may find the transition rewarding, but it's still stressful, and a lot of people would prefer to stay put. So the idea that rich people can just eliminate all their stresses with lifestyle changes is wrong. A lot of stresses aren't even financial. On the other hand, I agree that wealthy people who are willing to live more frugally can be happy.
spinboldok5567 16y ago
I wonder how this article would read if one were to substitute 'smart/intelligent/clever' for 'rich'. I think I do spend a lot of time chasing knowledge to compete with others, only to find that I don't have 'enough'. As much as I like it, it does feel like I am living 'a life of quiet desperation'.
- SergeyHack 16y ago
  The key to happiness for us grown unhappy is really good psychotherapy/ personal growth systems.
- sskates 16y ago
  Really? I think having a hunger for knowledge is great. Knowing I'll never be satisfied ensures I'm not going to drift aimlessly.
larrik 16y ago
The thing I kept thinking of, especially whenever they were talking about "enough to be financially secure" was a quote from Ted Turner just after he donated a billion dollars to the UN. (I can't find the quote online, I saw it on TV) It went something like this: "I've found that a person really can't spend more than $200 million dollars in their lifetime. Even if you make no attempts to save it or spend it wisely, it's very hard to squander $200 million so badly that you are left with nothing" (that was the gist, at least, but this is from memory)
- anagnorisis 16y ago
  The refutation to Ted would be to spend some quality time at the Bellagio poker room. Then again, Ted's likely just referencing people who at least have shreds of sanity in them.
- gersh 16y ago
  How did Mike Tyson do it? He reportedly blew $300 million.
  - gamble 16y ago
    Bad advisors, bad friends, and bad investments. If you've really got a fortune to squander, that's the way to do it.
    - elechi 16y ago
      That was only half of his problems. Divorce, a decent chunk of change. Battery assault? Rape? Decent chunk of change. People literally stealing money from you. Tyson's problems had nothing to do with money. Money just made his problems more expensive.
- lurker14 16y ago
  One could invest in something like Color 5 times in 5 years.
anagnorisis 16y ago
The issue is a non-issue, but still legitimate and interesting. Stress, poor decisions, emotional tumult, and being flung into life itself are inexorable, and as unavoidable as breathing when you have a pulse. Money is tangible, and as far as tangible things go..May well be at the top of the food chain. In day to day life, and superficial observation of others, the tangible is our primary prism of experience and thought. It's not that this issue isn't "real". The mind is so complex and our emotions so strong, we're (benignly) selfish and self-consumed to the point that day to day living and observation is done through the "tangible", as our primary prism of experience and thought. Money/wealth takes on significance. It simply is significant. And always will he for those with and without. But if we admit the ubiquitous behavioral pattern of our selves (as applicable to money as seeing an ultra good looking person walk down the street; or someone walk around with a 145 scored IQ test on their shirt..), we aren't dealing with wealth and money, per say. A deeper but likely impossible study would be having the recording of therapy sessions with these people; and then juxtaposed with therapy sessions of non-SuperRich. Dollars to donuts that those who are 'happy' and Super Rich bear striking resemblance, and actual distinct cross overs, to those 'happy' and not Super Rich. The converse being true for those 'unhappy' and all in between. Perhaps there is a tipping pt in both poor/rich directions, at certain extreme ends; but in these instances, what are we dealing with, aside from the perks or poisons of 'luck' in a distilled form, that is life's ace up the sleeve and trump card. And when it's just as possible to meet your wife while getting a latte, or choke on the biscotti you get with it...luck shouldn't be taken for granted, either. Cliff Notes: when I am Super-Rich and still neurotic, i will simply blame myself, and move on in finding a year or two respite while penning an epic book and psycho-behavorial study on the rich and poor, vis a vis therapy sessions.
DavidMcLaughlin 16y ago
"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/fiction http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/fiction
- schrototo 16y ago
  Btw, the best way to experience this is the original audio recording of DFW's speech: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAudiobook?id=374103756&s=143445 http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAudiob...
- crasshopper 16y ago
  I can't stand this platitude that there are no atheists in foxholes. I have been inches from death and never questioned my atheist beliefs.
  - erikpukinskis 16y ago
amitagrawal 16y ago
A little off-topic but can anyone tell me why this story never took off when I submitted it 16 days ago? (I've read the FAQ). Moderators please feel free to delete it if this is the wrong place.
- sundars 16y ago
  what time of the day did you submit it?
  - amitagrawal 16y ago
    In the early morning
VladRussian 16y ago
link bait. "Super-rich" in the title when it was only 25M threshold for the article. 25M is hardly getting one into "rich" category. At 4% draw it is 1M/year, just 5-10 times a salaried employee level and even less than that if a family of 2 earners is considered.
- euromix 16y ago
  Hey, out there, i'm cool and creative and you can feel a normal human being with me no matter how rich you are. feel free to contact me
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?
- keiferski 16y ago
  The average person in the united states makes 2-3 million over the course of their entire life.
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    yes, in 2004 the income was median - 44K/year, mean - 60K/year, which is only 25-16 times less than 1M/year (25M equivalent at 4% draw). 20 times more than average isn't "super-rich", it is even hardly just "rich"
dstein 16y ago
Has there been any research into why knowing this information in no way reduces my desire to be super-rich?
- tedunangst 16y ago
  It's going to be different for me.
- rchi 16y ago
  because most people secretly desire to be rich - that desire is in our cognitive makeup, so is the desire to bash rich people.
Eliezer 16y ago
We recently figured out that a major problem with the SIAI Visiting Fellows program has been that we don't give Visiting Fellows a context in which they know how well they're doing - they're picking up rationality tricks of the trade, but there's no counter that goes up when they do. I suspect that rich people who aren't just measuring their progress by net assets, acquire this problem with their entire lives - now that they're not holding down a job, they no longer have any sense of what constitutes "progress". Existential angst mostly just consists of having one or more problems you don't know how to identify ("My life lacks obvious progress indicators" having not even occurred to you as a hypothesis for describing what's wrong) and so you find that everything you do to try to address the problems you think you have, never solves the real problem. http://lesswrong.com/lw/sc/existential_angst_factory/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/sc/existential_angst_factory/. If there's anyone out there who's reading this and thinking "Yes, that's me", you can go ahead and email me (Eliezer Yudkowsky) because problems like this really should be solvable. Similarly, now that we've figured out what was wrong with the Visiting Fellows program we're going to try to fix it, etcetera.
- astrofinch 16y ago
  Another possible problem with the Visiting Fellows program is that you're selecting for fairly unambitious/non-driven people. See this Less Wrong thread: http://lesswrong.com/lw/4wm/rationality_boot_camp/3qmd http://lesswrong.com/lw/4wm/rationality_boot_camp/3qmd And this Robin Hanson blog post: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/lazy-hurt-less-than-stupid.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/lazy-hurt-less-than-st... (Which suggests that the personality development agenda the Visiting Fellows program is currently pursuing may not succeed in transforming Visiting Fellows in to folks who are more driven and productive.) I and at least 2 other people who have had a decent amount of direct contact with the Visiting Fellows agree on this. Of course, another possibility is to make being a Visiting Fellow more like having a job--even relatively non-driven folks seem to be able to frequently get stuff done in job-like contexts. It's just that the portion of the population that's able to succeed in deadline-free not-intrinsically-fun self-directed activity seems to be pretty low. (And FWIW Eliezer, I am pretty sure you are part of this portion of the population--the fact that you're frequently disappointed with the amount you get done is a strong indicator. The real problem is when a person isn't disappointed with the amount they get done because their bar for themselves isn't set very high.)
ezy 16y ago
I'm very suspicious of this piece. On the one hand, it's an interesting thing to read for those of us who aren't "super-rich" (if a bit... obvious). On the other, it feels like it's an apologia for the ever increasing class divide. "Don't worry about not having money, you wouldn't be happy anyway". Honestly, I would be quite fine with a shitload of money and a meandering purpose in life. I think that's true of most people, including the larger subset of the "super-rich" that didn't choose to whine in an article in the Atlantic. Most people have a meandering purpose in life anyway, and mixtures of reliable and unreliable friends. It's not something special royalty gets to lay claim to. The primary difference appears to be that the royalty can choose who they want to be, where-as not all of the plebeians have that luxury ("dream it, live it" self-help bullshit aside, one still has to pay for food and shelter and dependents). And the poor rich children are depressed because they have all their options open to them... I seem to be saying this a lot, but here it is again: cry me a fucking river. :-)
- gallamine 16y ago
  "Honestly, I would be quite fine with a shitload of money and a meandering purpose in life" I think part of the point of the article was to say, "no, you probably wouldn't."
  - ezy 16y ago
    And my point is that I understood what the article is saying on the surface, but there's a definite subtext here aimed at those who are not as fortunate enough to be able to (easily) discard one ill-fitting "purpose"(vocation) for another that fits better. Or in essence, I don't believe what the article is implying, and it has nothing substantial within it to make me believe it.
    - arn 16y ago
      How about this take. Happiness is relative, and your personal happiness likely settle down to the same place. So if you get a huge windfall (millions of dollars), you will be happier for a short term, but ultimately, your happiness will fall back to your normal levels. At that point you have different concerns, but you still have concerns.
futuremint 16y ago
My favorite part is towards the end, "rich stare into the abyss a bit more starkly than the rest of us." Not being rich, but being able to use my imagination and reason to figure out logical conclusions, I have come to realize that it is not about what you have, or who you are, but about how you're being. In the end everyone dies naked and alone regardless of how much or little money/friends/love/whatever you have.
sabat 16y ago
Enormous wealth takes care of so many day-to-day concerns, that the remaining ones grow that much more frustrating. It's hard for me to be sympathetic about this. They forget that the non-super-rich have all their same frustrations, plus the day-to-day "concerns" (read: money worries).
crasshopper 16y ago
Is this really "the first time" the super rich have spoken candidly about their lives? The film Born Rich is a counterexample. Actually, the article contradicts itself: the byline says "the first time" and paragraph 2 says the studies have gone on since 1970.
deleted 16y ago
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crasshopper 16y ago
^ Best argument for progressive taxation.
- anagnorisis 16y ago
  Even better argument for communism, no?
  - crasshopper 16y ago
    Not at all what I meant. I'm proud to live in a capitalist society with a safety net. You can take a chance on a business knowing that you have limited liability and food stamps awaiting you at the "bottom" rather than something much worse. I merely meant to imply that large amounts of wealth make a small (negligible?) improvement to the top .001%, and that much smaller amounts (like food stamps) can mean the difference between life and death to the poor. The productivity gains (due to dampening entrepreneurs' risk aversion) caused by refactoring wealth from the top to the bottom are another pro-transfer argument I meant to reference. Communism does not create wealth as well.
grellas 16y ago
There is nothing wrong with being rich and in many ways it can be a positive good in the life of any person to have the ability to shape one's time in optimal ways as opposed to being a slave of financial necessity. But the perils of being rich are legion, as detailed in this interesting piece. As I grew up, I always had to work for most anything I got and, in retrospect, I believe that the financial necessity that drove a good part of this was actually a big part of my character development. I always wonder what it would have been like on that front if I were continually faced with the temptation, as a rich kid, of bypassing the pain and difficulty of such challenges in favor of indulgences that were readily at hand. This must be an enormous problem for young people who have inherited significant wealth. In any case, this piece portrays those with some measure of wealth from an interesting angle and nicely highlights that all that glitters is not gold, even if it literally is gold.
- ZachPruckowski 16y ago
  "But the perils of being rich are legion," Your perils are legion when you're suddenly the target of a squad of ninjas, or surrounded by a hostile armed gang. There being a social stigma attached to being rich or there being higher expectations on you because you're rich are miles away from a legion of perils. "My friends look at me differently" or "I tend to take the easy road whens stuff gets hard" are drastically less severe of problems than "I can't afford my kid's medical bills" or "I'm having a hard time providing for my family while saving for retirement". Yeah, their lives have problems, but that inevitable - if our lives didn't have some risks or tradeoffs, we'd go insane from boredom. But their tradeoffs and risks are very far removed from their physiological and safety needs.
  - billybob 16y ago
    I think you're taking the situation too lightly. Is the threat of death worse than wanting to be dead, for instance? If something makes you intensely unhappy, you would resent somebody else saying "bah, that's not a problem."
arn 16y ago
Relevant discussion/quote from pg from previous thread on "fu money": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511104 "One thing you learn when you get rich, though, is how few of your problems were caused by not being rich. When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard."
- michaelochurch 16y ago
  When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard. That seems to be what college (esp. summers and spring break) is for, at least at a good school: giving you a sense of what life would be like if free from economic bullshit (as it is for the rich, the only people attending college 150 years ago). It's better in most ways, as only the most successful or wealthiest adults actually enjoy adulthood more than college, but college is not perfect. I had fun, but I wouldn't want to go back. And how many college students are writing novels, or even engaging in the amount of reading and writing that an aspiring novelist needs to be doing? A few, but not as many as who "want to write someday".
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    It's not the same, though: with summers, spring break, and even college, you know that you're time-limited, and have to scope your projects appropriately. With creative work, you have as much time as you're willing to pay the opportunity cost for.
astrofinch 16y ago
"He also reports that he wouldn’t feel financially secure until he had $1 billion in the bank." ... "Such complaints sound, on their face, preposterous." It may be preposterous for most anyone to feel financially insecure, given that it's possible to survive through couchsurfing and dumpster diving and what a high historical standard of living this would provide. The super-rich aren't the only ones who keep seeing their standards go up.
- sskates 16y ago
  Agreed. Coincidentally this high historical standard of living is why it's possible for so many people to start companies on their own without needing access to large amounts of capital. Although it might not seem like it compared to our super-rich peers, we are rolling in wealth.
cookiecaper 16y ago
"Why should we labor this unpleasant point? Because the Book of Mormon labors it, for our special benefit. Wealth is a jealous master who will not be served halfheartedly and will suffer no rival--not even God: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." (Matthew 6:24) In return for unquestioning obedience wealth promises security, power, position, and honors, in fact anything in this world. Above all, the Nephites like the Romans saw in it a mark of superiority and would do anything to get hold of it, for to them "money answereth all things." (Ecclesiastes 10:19) "Ye do always remember your riches," cried Samuel the Lamanite, ". . .unto great swelling, envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions, and murders, and all manner of iniquities." (Helaman 13:22) Along with this, of course, everyone dresses in the height of fashion, the main point being always that the proper clothes are expensive--the expression "costly apparel" occurs 14 times in the Book of Mormon. The more important wealth is, the less important it is how one gets it." - Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley “The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution and be true. But my greatest fear is that they cannot stand wealth” - Brigham Young "Men of wealth among us, as elsewhere, who command their tens and hundreds of thousands, who have their every want supplied, have more anxiety, care and perplexity than many of you, who have to struggle for a comfortable living. And if you were placed in their position you would be a great deal more uneasy than you are now." - John Taylor. Money is much more dangerous and troublesome than most people realize. These three quotes testify to that, as well as most of the production generated by rich people. Wealth destroys many who finally get it.
rythie 16y ago
Humans are natural born problem solvers and we can't deal with not having any problems to solve. It seems to make sense for people to continue working after getting rich, presumbably in a position of responsibilty, to give us a regular set of fresh chalenges. e.g. Steve Jobs doesn't quit even though he is extremely rich and also ill, he feels a responsibility to that position.
paul 16y ago
For the most part, money doesn't create problems, but it can certainly enable and magnify them.
athom 16y ago
I like this part: One respondent, the heir to an enormous fortune, says that what matters most to him is his Christianity, and that his greatest aspiration is “to love the Lord, my family, and my friends.” He also reports that he wouldn’t feel financially secure until he had $1 billion in the bank. I think this guy needs to crack open his Bible, and read a bit of Matthew 19:20-22... [20]The young man said, "I have obeyed all of these. What else must I do? [21]Jesus replied, "If you want to be perfect, go sell everything you own! Give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in Heaven. Then come and be my follower." [22]When the young man heard this, he was sad, because he was very rich. I can't think of anything more to say. I just hope I didn't just start a religeous flame war.
- billybob 16y ago
  I would add that most commentators on this passage don't draw the conclusion "having money is evil," but rather, that Jesus saw that this man's attachment to his wealth was a problem. In hearing this command, the man realized that his wealth was his god, and though he wanted to follow Jesus, he could bring himself to give up this rival god. This may sound like a "soft" interpretation because it allows for being rich and also spiritual, but then again, it also means that Jesus' implied indictment may apply to non-millionaires like me. If my focus is money or prestige or whatever, I'm in the same boat. You can't follow Jesus half-heartedly. To your point of advice: it does seem that if you've got $50 million and it's causing you anguish, you could certainly get rid of it and do a lot of good in the process. And I imagine the stigma from regular people would largely turn to respect.
joelrunyon 16y ago
the irony here is a lot of people will read this...nod their head...and then get busy trying to get rich :)
nl 16y ago
Worth noting that many Silicon Valley nouveau-rich seem to derive great satisfaction from their activities as angel investors. It seems to me this is similar to those in the article who "satisfactions of philanthropy", with the added bonus of having people who listen to your advice.
sethg 16y ago
Early in his academic career, Schervish was a committed Democratic Socialist. But around 1990, he began interviewing wealthy people and decided that his Marxist instinct to criticize the rich was misguided. If Schervish had felt this way, it’s because he didn’t read Marx carefully enough. The whole point of Marxism is not “rich people are bad”—the Communist Manifesto is brutally critical of those who think that capitalism could be reformed by making rich people nicer. The point is that capitalism as a social structure is bad, because even well-meaning members of the bourgeoisie have incentives to oppress the working class, and those who do not follow those incentives will eventually find themselves at the bottom of the heap. (I am not a Marxist myself, but this misreading is one of my pet peeves.)
TheBaron 16y ago
Great Read! I am experiencing the awkwardness of a change in personal wealth as we speak. I have a friend I met at 16 via a t-shirt venture. We would hang out & work on his company. As time progressed we would hang out off and on. After an extended gap in communication, I emailed him to get his number & he came by to pick me up. We drove for about 15 to 20 minutes until we reached an office warehouse. He then told me, "welcome to his company". He had started what is now one of the country's top promotional products companies. He now owns a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley, $3M home, and more. I feel awkward around him & I think he feels the same at times. We are both entrepreneurs but he has had more success financially. I've since taken a major interest in philanthropy. I recently asked for a contribution toward my non-profit & it was amazingly awkward as well. LOL, I was sweating... I felt like a panhandler. Lastly, when I ask how he's doing & about other things outside of business I feel fake. It's usually a general response as to not seem ungrateful as mentioned. But, I genuinely want to know. Anyway, that's my experience with this issue.
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255 points by gammarator 16y ago

What I learned when I read this was that most rich people's lives are defined (just like most others' lives) by money, which is a depressing thought. A starving person's life will be defined by food-- organized around getting access to it, with constant intrusive thoughts about it-- but for most of us, it's not. We only think about food when we're hungry, we eat, and then we think about something else. Most people who want to be rich want escape from money's grip, and it seems like that rarely happens. Either that, or freedom from money is not a monotonically increasing function of one's allotment and these people have overshot some sort of "sweet spot" at the level of the middling wealthy. The grand takeaway was that living in a society ruled by money sucks even for those who have a lot of it. I wish the world were more like college in the sense that, when I was in college, I had no idea whether what my friends' grades were, and people weren't stratified into socially insular tiers based on GPA. The difference between a 3.9 and a 3.2 wasn't socially divisive in the way that the difference between $20 million and $7.50 net worth is.

jdp23 16y ago
> Either that, or freedom from money is not a monotonically increasing function of one's allotment Well said. Freedom from money is a combination of factors: how much you have and spend in the present, and how much you expect to make and spend in the future. As people get more money it's very easy to ramp up your lifestyle and expectations to put more pressure on the future (instead of less). On the other hand, I know people who by focusing on what's important to them and adjusting their lifestyle feel fairly free without having millions of dollars. So (once you get to a decent threashold of earning) a lot of it is attitude as well.
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  >freedom from money is not a monotonically increasing function of one's allotment This is linked IMO to the studies mentioned in this video, which find that motivation and drive at work are similarly not a monotonically increasing function of pay, but in fact there is an optimal pay rate beyond which drive begins to decrease. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
  - michaelochurch 16y ago
    Relevant: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/pay-more-get-less/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/pay-more-get-... There are a lot reasons why executive overpay makes CEOs perform worse at their jobs. Foremost among them is that it enables them to make short-term plays that are risky or harmful to the company in the long run. A $500,000-per-year job is one that an executive desperately wants to keep. A $25 million-per-year job, with four years' pay as a golden parachute, is one that can safely be blown up after a couple years. (No CEO intentionally blows up, but many take stupid risks driven by ego and status-based avarice that they would be less inclined to take if paid modest salaries and thereby more attached to their jobs.) There are two reasons why executive overpay exists. The first is self-dealing by a small, socially closed elite. They do it because they can. The second is to motivate younger people who greatly overestimate their chances of ascending to such ranks: printing dreambucks, I call it. I would argue, were it not for the cultural corrosion the overpay causes, that executive pay is actually a very, very cheap mechanism for achieving the 2nd goal. Overpaying executives does motivate people to want to get to that rank. The problem is more subtle and cultural: what does it motivate them to do? Be more creative? No. Be more ethical? Certainly not. Be more ruthless? Sure, but "ruthless" is a hair's breadth away from psychopathic and workplace psychopaths (cf. Fiorina) can destroy companies.
    - JonnieCache 16y ago
      >Sure, but "ruthless" is a hair's breadth away from psychopathic The literal meanings are identical. "Ruth" is an archaic word for a feeling of pity, compassion or remorse.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Why do you believe corporate risktaking is harmful to the company in the long run? If anything, I always thought the common criticism of big corporations is that they are far too risk averse. E.g., rather than taking a risk and betting it all on Maemo (an early linux-based smartphone OS), Nokia instead went the safe route and have now stagnated. Similarly, when problems arise, many big companies layer small fix after small fix on an existing system - it's much safer than investing $250M in a complete renovation.
- michaelochurch 16y ago
  The way the money is made, and whether something must be done to sustain it, has an impact. If you're an executive in a traditional corporation, you're end up having to keep an absurd lifestyle because you're a professional social climber and, the minute you retire from the shenanigans, your earned income drops dramatically. If you made your money in a lump-sum acquisition, or have a high salary because of talent and skills rather than social advantage (it's rare, but it does happen) you're in more of a position to enjoy your money. At the upper tier of wealth you have people who aren't social climbers per se but are really competitive. Next down, you have most of the social climbers trying to turn their money into status (which begets more money).
  - jdp23 16y ago
    Actually I was an executive at a traditional corporation (a GM at Microsoft) and before that a founder/CTO at a venture-funded startup ... You're very right that there's a lot of competitive pressure (and social climbers) but we always avoided it.
lutorm 16y ago
I wonder if there's a selection effect at work here, in that the majority of people who end up being very rich are those whose lives are defined by money. After all, why would you work your ass off to make more money than possibly can have a meaningful influence on your life unless you were driven by the idea of money alone?
- noahc 16y ago
  It depends on the person here. 1. Imagine a dude who just wanted to build something cool. Craig Newmark, of Craig's List fame, for example would fall under this category. He's got enough money to retire, yet he still works customer service, because that's what he enjoys. 2. Now imagine, someone who just wants more, more, more, more. It appears Donald Trump might fall into this category. I don't know for sure, but he seems to be purely driven by money and power. You can become wealthy 'organically' in the sense that you didn't set out to be wealthy. You can so get wealthy from the expressed intent to get wealthy.
  - hnal943 16y ago
    True, but I don't see Craig Newmark getting angsty because of his wealth.
  - lurker14 16y ago
    Are you agreeing or disagreeing with the post you responded to? It appears that you are expanding on the same point.
- michaelochurch 16y ago
  I think people tend to go into that game being decent and come out of it corrupted. In high school and college, they wanted to be writers. But investment banking seemed safer. Some failed out, but others got all their promotions, their MBAs, their first millions at a ridiculously young age, and started drifting away from their "interesting" (but poor, by banker's standards) college friends and into a certain money-centered social circle. People don't like to admit this, clinging to the notion of an atomic "self", but a few years in that kind of environment changes a person into someone unrecognizable by the younger, better person who went in. People who were once fascinating to talk about about all kinds of topics with devolve into defectives only capable of talking about mergers and acquisitions, people who talk fast and sound intelligent but, if you actually listen to the words they are saying, have almost no content in anything they say. An unbroken pattern of severe wins and losses in the working world is usually corrosive to one's personality. Losses make people bitter and they either collapse or deeply desire, even at psychopathic cost, to win. Too many wins, especially those of the "windfall" kind and much less those that come from genuine hard work, make people shallow, childish, and impatient.

io 16y ago

"But just as the human body didn’t evolve to deal well with today’s easy access to abundant fat and sugars, and will crave an extra cheeseburger when it shouldn’t, the human mind, apparently, didn’t evolve to deal with excess money, and will desire more long after wealth has become a burden rather than a comfort."

michaelochurch 16y ago
s/money/power Power attracts the corrupt, and it does corrupt. This is why handguns are (for a certain type of person, i.e. those who are explosively impulsive) so dangerous. Holding one gives the power of life and death. Being in power tends to make people arrogant, short-sighted, and less creative than they'd otherwise be. Power relationships are generally negative on both sides, thus worse than zero-sum.
- christonog 16y ago
  "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." -Abraham Lincoln

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

Nearly everyone who chases positional goods in a global context is bound to end up depressed. When you're in the habit of evaluating your wealth in comparison to people who are wealthier than you, two overarching considerations necessarily define your value: * You're not wealthy enough; and * There's always someone wealthier than you. [1] [1] Caveat: In principle, someone has to be the wealthiest in the world, which means the other ~7,000,000,000 people are not.

michaelochurch 16y ago
There seems to be a self-similarity at play where society looks roughly the same from a very wide range of vantage points. The elite see the elite within the elite and feel like outsiders in comparison. An important Buddhist meditation is a prayer of gratitude for being born human; how often do people remember how lucky they were to have human births, on a planet where we are 7 billion out of ~10^30 living beings (counting bacteria and plants, which Buddhists generally don't consider sentient but which are living). Anyway, at the three-digit millionaire and billionaire level, it's all about score-keeping and social status for those who care at all. Most billionaires are not quite at the pinnacle of the social elite, and no one stays at the tip-top of that for very long. Wealth is more stable, at the upper tiers, than social status, which is lost to age if nothing else takes it away.
- mmcconnell1618 16y ago
  Has anyone ever studied wealth distribution to see if it's fractal based? It would be interesting if human interaction followed the same design principals as natural formations.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution#Applications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution#Application...
    - mmcconnell1618 16y ago

ChuckMcM 16y ago

I found it an interesting read, perhaps a cautionary tale. I suspect that if you are an entrepreneur 'to get rich' and you succeed and find you are depressed all the time because you don't know who your friends are, some (possibly material) portion of your new found wealth will go toward counseling. I had the non-unique experience of being a multi-millionaire for 2 weeks in the summer of 1999. Which is to say that on paper, in terms of options and restricted stock, and stock which was currently owned but embargoed (due to my companies acquisition) was 'worth' millions. I really had to sit back and think hard about what that meant, would I retire in 4 years?, keep working ? join a venture firm? The stock went from $120/share to $0.83/share before I could sell any of it so I never had to actually answer those questions but I found that how I felt when I was 'rich' was different than how I thought I would feel. I don't know if that is a common experience or not. I find the idea that someone wouldn't really feel financially secure unless they had $1b in the bank sad. But I looked at what Google paid for Eric Schmidt's 'security detail' and I realized that at some point you become a 'soft target' for people who would acquire money through violence or extortion. I would hope to avoid becoming one of those targets. I've heard that if you are ever in danger of acquiring too much wealth you can 'fix' that by buying an airline. (with props to Sir Richard Branson)

westbywest 16y ago
Reminds me of the evergreen Joseph Heller anecdote: "At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch 22 over its whole history. Heller responds, 'Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . Enough.'"
- michaelochurch 16y ago
  That is an awesome quote. The viral r-factor here is at least 1.
  - pixelbath 16y ago
    What does that term mean?

ianhawes 16y ago

Also consider watching "The One Percent". It's about wealth and the expanding class differences. It's available to watch instantly on Netflix.

Inc82 16y ago

A quote attributed to Rudyard Kipling that's been floating around the internet: "Some day you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are."

6ren 16y ago

> The fact that most people imagine it would be paradise to never have to work does not make the experience any more pleasant in practice. The financially independent often choose to work anyway - so why not just choose work you enjoy (or rather, find worthwhile/meaningful) in the first place?

methodin 16y ago

This was one of the more intriguing and thought-provoking articles I've read in a while. As someone who always had enough to get by, but never enough to spend without consequence, the goal of "being successful and having money" was always one I sought to obtain. While younger I always assumed all my problems would be solved by such a venture. I've learned that will never be the case on my own, but the concerns the wealthy state are interestingly complex - much more so than the standard concerns of a middle-income family/person. I can imagine the shock of a life of toil to get rich, only to find that your life and problems are exactly the same or even more complex. The sole reason why being happy with the present will do more for you than anything else.

adovenmuehle 16y ago

The takeaway I have from this is that people are people, no matter their status: not sure if what they're doing is what they should be, insecure about other's love for them, never satisfied. It reminds me that we're all people, all human. Also reminds me of a bible verse (Ecclesiastes 9:10): "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." Whether rich or poor, happy or not, we all die.

georgieporgie 16y ago
we all die. That will probably be changing soon.
- VladRussian 16y ago
  it will be changing to "some [ who can afford it] will not die"
  - michaelochurch 16y ago
    Anti-aging, once developed, will be cheaper than geriatric care: the "ounce of prevention" effect. Governments will be pushing the treatments on people and opt-outs may eventually be denied social services (especially once the knowledge of how to treat advanced pathologies that are now common geriatric conditions fades away). Very few people want to live to 100000, much less forever. What will produce the very long lifespans is the day-to-day iterated decision, which won't be life vs. death or stay-young vs. get-old, but well vs. sick, where there's an obvious victor: being well. There's the saying, "Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die." I disagree. Everyone wants to die (at some point in the future, possibly millions of years off) but no one wants to get sick.
    - kovar 16y ago
      Why would governments encourage people to stay alive longer? I can think of several reasons not to do so: -there is an associated cost per citizen that may not be offset by revenue/taxes -this will spur population growth, with all the associated problems

unohoo 16y ago

'A vast body of psychological evidence shows that the pleasures of consumption wear off through time and depend heavily on one’s frame of reference.' I loved this single,succinct line.

Tycho 16y ago

Remember that documentary from about 5+ years ago about spoilt rich teenagers? I think it was called Born Rich. Anyway one of the things that one boy said really stuck with me (not sure what his name was but he was generally unhappy, and I think he later sued the publishers): 'People think because I'm rich I must be happy. But they don't realize that my happiness is connected to so many material things, if just one of them goes wrong it can ruin my day.' Or something to that effect. More material comforts = more dependency for happiness = greater likelyhood of misery (or at least, 'peevement' or angst). He was talking about all the expensive toys that had to be maintained properly, special meals he liked to have, elaborate plans for essentially simple social occassions, and so on.

DevX101 16y ago
I highly recommend everyone watch this documentary. It was produced by Jamie Johnson (as in the heir to Johnson & Johnson) who interviewed his friends for their candid feedback on what it's like to be wealthy. None of them knew this would be a public documentary so they were pretty open without the typical political correctness. Somewhat surprisingly to me, I found the most mature amongst his peers to be Ivanka Trump. She acknowledged her wealth, but at the same time made it clear that given her head start in life, she planned to work hard to make her own path in life. And judging from accounts from a couple people who went to school with her at Penn, she's pretty sharp. I liked her. But most of the others seemed to fall into two groups: 1) At a loss for what they should do in life given the massive amount of wealth they knew they had at their disposal. One of the main concerns for this group is just not to lose the family's money. (Jamie Johnson himself and his father fell into this category) 2) An arrogant disdain for those not in their self-determined "class". This disdain is not necessarily reserved for the middle/low classes, but could also be applied to "new money" or those with just single/double digit million net worth. All around, great documentary. Go see it.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Just checked, it's on Netflix Instant Play. Just added it to my queue. Thanks for the recommendation.

maeon3 16y ago

The main difference between the stresses of the super-rich and the stresses of the super-poor is that the rich have problems that they choose to have, and the super-poor have problems that are forced on them. The rich people could eliminate 100% of their stresses if they simply chose to change their lifestyle. The super-poor can't really eliminate their stress by a simple change up their lifestyle, if the mortgage isn't getting paid, the car broke down and you need medical procedure you can't afford and have no options, then these stresses are WORSE stresses than the rich have. The rich may have it worse, but it's their own darn fault for making it worse.

eru 16y ago
The real poor would love to worry about mortgages and cars.
michaelochurch 16y ago
The rich people could eliminate 100% of their stresses if they simply chose to change their lifestyle. I generally agree with what you're saying, but how should they do this? They have reputations that could be ruined but can never be "given away" and friends with expensive tastes. How many people willingly uproot themselves, after age 30, and move to another country where they don't know a soul? Not many. Those who do may find the transition rewarding, but it's still stressful, and a lot of people would prefer to stay put. So the idea that rich people can just eliminate all their stresses with lifestyle changes is wrong. A lot of stresses aren't even financial. On the other hand, I agree that wealthy people who are willing to live more frugally can be happy.

spinboldok5567 16y ago

I wonder how this article would read if one were to substitute 'smart/intelligent/clever' for 'rich'. I think I do spend a lot of time chasing knowledge to compete with others, only to find that I don't have 'enough'. As much as I like it, it does feel like I am living 'a life of quiet desperation'.

SergeyHack 16y ago
The key to happiness for us grown unhappy is really good psychotherapy/ personal growth systems.
sskates 16y ago
Really? I think having a hunger for knowledge is great. Knowing I'll never be satisfied ensures I'm not going to drift aimlessly.

larrik 16y ago

The thing I kept thinking of, especially whenever they were talking about "enough to be financially secure" was a quote from Ted Turner just after he donated a billion dollars to the UN. (I can't find the quote online, I saw it on TV) It went something like this: "I've found that a person really can't spend more than $200 million dollars in their lifetime. Even if you make no attempts to save it or spend it wisely, it's very hard to squander $200 million so badly that you are left with nothing" (that was the gist, at least, but this is from memory)

anagnorisis 16y ago
The refutation to Ted would be to spend some quality time at the Bellagio poker room. Then again, Ted's likely just referencing people who at least have shreds of sanity in them.
gersh 16y ago
How did Mike Tyson do it? He reportedly blew $300 million.
- gamble 16y ago
  Bad advisors, bad friends, and bad investments. If you've really got a fortune to squander, that's the way to do it.
  - elechi 16y ago
    That was only half of his problems. Divorce, a decent chunk of change. Battery assault? Rape? Decent chunk of change. People literally stealing money from you. Tyson's problems had nothing to do with money. Money just made his problems more expensive.
lurker14 16y ago
One could invest in something like Color 5 times in 5 years.

anagnorisis 16y ago

The issue is a non-issue, but still legitimate and interesting. Stress, poor decisions, emotional tumult, and being flung into life itself are inexorable, and as unavoidable as breathing when you have a pulse. Money is tangible, and as far as tangible things go..May well be at the top of the food chain. In day to day life, and superficial observation of others, the tangible is our primary prism of experience and thought. It's not that this issue isn't "real". The mind is so complex and our emotions so strong, we're (benignly) selfish and self-consumed to the point that day to day living and observation is done through the "tangible", as our primary prism of experience and thought. Money/wealth takes on significance. It simply is significant. And always will he for those with and without. But if we admit the ubiquitous behavioral pattern of our selves (as applicable to money as seeing an ultra good looking person walk down the street; or someone walk around with a 145 scored IQ test on their shirt..), we aren't dealing with wealth and money, per say. A deeper but likely impossible study would be having the recording of therapy sessions with these people; and then juxtaposed with therapy sessions of non-SuperRich. Dollars to donuts that those who are 'happy' and Super Rich bear striking resemblance, and actual distinct cross overs, to those 'happy' and not Super Rich. The converse being true for those 'unhappy' and all in between. Perhaps there is a tipping pt in both poor/rich directions, at certain extreme ends; but in these instances, what are we dealing with, aside from the perks or poisons of 'luck' in a distilled form, that is life's ace up the sleeve and trump card. And when it's just as possible to meet your wife while getting a latte, or choke on the biscotti you get with it...luck shouldn't be taken for granted, either. Cliff Notes: when I am Super-Rich and still neurotic, i will simply blame myself, and move on in finding a year or two respite while penning an epic book and psycho-behavorial study on the rich and poor, vis a vis therapy sessions.

DavidMcLaughlin 16y ago

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/fiction http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/fiction

schrototo 16y ago
Btw, the best way to experience this is the original audio recording of DFW's speech: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAudiobook?id=374103756&s=143445 http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAudiob...
crasshopper 16y ago
I can't stand this platitude that there are no atheists in foxholes. I have been inches from death and never questioned my atheist beliefs.
- erikpukinskis 16y ago

amitagrawal 16y ago

A little off-topic but can anyone tell me why this story never took off when I submitted it 16 days ago? (I've read the FAQ). Moderators please feel free to delete it if this is the wrong place.

sundars 16y ago
what time of the day did you submit it?
- amitagrawal 16y ago
  In the early morning

VladRussian 16y ago

link bait. "Super-rich" in the title when it was only 25M threshold for the article. 25M is hardly getting one into "rich" category. At 4% draw it is 1M/year, just 5-10 times a salaried employee level and even less than that if a family of 2 earners is considered.

euromix 16y ago
Hey, out there, i'm cool and creative and you can feel a normal human being with me no matter how rich you are. feel free to contact me
- VladRussian 16y ago
  Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?
keiferski 16y ago
The average person in the united states makes 2-3 million over the course of their entire life.
- VladRussian 16y ago
  yes, in 2004 the income was median - 44K/year, mean - 60K/year, which is only 25-16 times less than 1M/year (25M equivalent at 4% draw). 20 times more than average isn't "super-rich", it is even hardly just "rich"

dstein 16y ago

Has there been any research into why knowing this information in no way reduces my desire to be super-rich?

tedunangst 16y ago
It's going to be different for me.
rchi 16y ago
because most people secretly desire to be rich - that desire is in our cognitive makeup, so is the desire to bash rich people.

Eliezer 16y ago

We recently figured out that a major problem with the SIAI Visiting Fellows program has been that we don't give Visiting Fellows a context in which they know how well they're doing - they're picking up rationality tricks of the trade, but there's no counter that goes up when they do. I suspect that rich people who aren't just measuring their progress by net assets, acquire this problem with their entire lives - now that they're not holding down a job, they no longer have any sense of what constitutes "progress". Existential angst mostly just consists of having one or more problems you don't know how to identify ("My life lacks obvious progress indicators" having not even occurred to you as a hypothesis for describing what's wrong) and so you find that everything you do to try to address the problems you think you have, never solves the real problem. http://lesswrong.com/lw/sc/existential_angst_factory/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/sc/existential_angst_factory/. If there's anyone out there who's reading this and thinking "Yes, that's me", you can go ahead and email me (Eliezer Yudkowsky) because problems like this really should be solvable. Similarly, now that we've figured out what was wrong with the Visiting Fellows program we're going to try to fix it, etcetera.

astrofinch 16y ago
Another possible problem with the Visiting Fellows program is that you're selecting for fairly unambitious/non-driven people. See this Less Wrong thread: http://lesswrong.com/lw/4wm/rationality_boot_camp/3qmd http://lesswrong.com/lw/4wm/rationality_boot_camp/3qmd And this Robin Hanson blog post: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/lazy-hurt-less-than-stupid.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/lazy-hurt-less-than-st... (Which suggests that the personality development agenda the Visiting Fellows program is currently pursuing may not succeed in transforming Visiting Fellows in to folks who are more driven and productive.) I and at least 2 other people who have had a decent amount of direct contact with the Visiting Fellows agree on this. Of course, another possibility is to make being a Visiting Fellow more like having a job--even relatively non-driven folks seem to be able to frequently get stuff done in job-like contexts. It's just that the portion of the population that's able to succeed in deadline-free not-intrinsically-fun self-directed activity seems to be pretty low. (And FWIW Eliezer, I am pretty sure you are part of this portion of the population--the fact that you're frequently disappointed with the amount you get done is a strong indicator. The real problem is when a person isn't disappointed with the amount they get done because their bar for themselves isn't set very high.)

ezy 16y ago

I'm very suspicious of this piece. On the one hand, it's an interesting thing to read for those of us who aren't "super-rich" (if a bit... obvious). On the other, it feels like it's an apologia for the ever increasing class divide. "Don't worry about not having money, you wouldn't be happy anyway". Honestly, I would be quite fine with a shitload of money and a meandering purpose in life. I think that's true of most people, including the larger subset of the "super-rich" that didn't choose to whine in an article in the Atlantic. Most people have a meandering purpose in life anyway, and mixtures of reliable and unreliable friends. It's not something special royalty gets to lay claim to. The primary difference appears to be that the royalty can choose who they want to be, where-as not all of the plebeians have that luxury ("dream it, live it" self-help bullshit aside, one still has to pay for food and shelter and dependents). And the poor rich children are depressed because they have all their options open to them... I seem to be saying this a lot, but here it is again: cry me a fucking river. :-)

gallamine 16y ago
"Honestly, I would be quite fine with a shitload of money and a meandering purpose in life" I think part of the point of the article was to say, "no, you probably wouldn't."
- ezy 16y ago
  And my point is that I understood what the article is saying on the surface, but there's a definite subtext here aimed at those who are not as fortunate enough to be able to (easily) discard one ill-fitting "purpose"(vocation) for another that fits better. Or in essence, I don't believe what the article is implying, and it has nothing substantial within it to make me believe it.
  - arn 16y ago
    How about this take. Happiness is relative, and your personal happiness likely settle down to the same place. So if you get a huge windfall (millions of dollars), you will be happier for a short term, but ultimately, your happiness will fall back to your normal levels. At that point you have different concerns, but you still have concerns.

futuremint 16y ago

My favorite part is towards the end, "rich stare into the abyss a bit more starkly than the rest of us." Not being rich, but being able to use my imagination and reason to figure out logical conclusions, I have come to realize that it is not about what you have, or who you are, but about how you're being. In the end everyone dies naked and alone regardless of how much or little money/friends/love/whatever you have.

sabat 16y ago

Enormous wealth takes care of so many day-to-day concerns, that the remaining ones grow that much more frustrating. It's hard for me to be sympathetic about this. They forget that the non-super-rich have all their same frustrations, plus the day-to-day "concerns" (read: money worries).

crasshopper 16y ago

Is this really "the first time" the super rich have spoken candidly about their lives? The film Born Rich is a counterexample. Actually, the article contradicts itself: the byline says "the first time" and paragraph 2 says the studies have gone on since 1970.

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crasshopper 16y ago

^ Best argument for progressive taxation.

anagnorisis 16y ago
Even better argument for communism, no?
- crasshopper 16y ago
  Not at all what I meant. I'm proud to live in a capitalist society with a safety net. You can take a chance on a business knowing that you have limited liability and food stamps awaiting you at the "bottom" rather than something much worse. I merely meant to imply that large amounts of wealth make a small (negligible?) improvement to the top .001%, and that much smaller amounts (like food stamps) can mean the difference between life and death to the poor. The productivity gains (due to dampening entrepreneurs' risk aversion) caused by refactoring wealth from the top to the bottom are another pro-transfer argument I meant to reference. Communism does not create wealth as well.

grellas 16y ago

There is nothing wrong with being rich and in many ways it can be a positive good in the life of any person to have the ability to shape one's time in optimal ways as opposed to being a slave of financial necessity. But the perils of being rich are legion, as detailed in this interesting piece. As I grew up, I always had to work for most anything I got and, in retrospect, I believe that the financial necessity that drove a good part of this was actually a big part of my character development. I always wonder what it would have been like on that front if I were continually faced with the temptation, as a rich kid, of bypassing the pain and difficulty of such challenges in favor of indulgences that were readily at hand. This must be an enormous problem for young people who have inherited significant wealth. In any case, this piece portrays those with some measure of wealth from an interesting angle and nicely highlights that all that glitters is not gold, even if it literally is gold.

ZachPruckowski 16y ago
"But the perils of being rich are legion," Your perils are legion when you're suddenly the target of a squad of ninjas, or surrounded by a hostile armed gang. There being a social stigma attached to being rich or there being higher expectations on you because you're rich are miles away from a legion of perils. "My friends look at me differently" or "I tend to take the easy road whens stuff gets hard" are drastically less severe of problems than "I can't afford my kid's medical bills" or "I'm having a hard time providing for my family while saving for retirement". Yeah, their lives have problems, but that inevitable - if our lives didn't have some risks or tradeoffs, we'd go insane from boredom. But their tradeoffs and risks are very far removed from their physiological and safety needs.
- billybob 16y ago
  I think you're taking the situation too lightly. Is the threat of death worse than wanting to be dead, for instance? If something makes you intensely unhappy, you would resent somebody else saying "bah, that's not a problem."

arn 16y ago

Relevant discussion/quote from pg from previous thread on "fu money": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511104 "One thing you learn when you get rich, though, is how few of your problems were caused by not being rich. When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard."

michaelochurch 16y ago
When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard. That seems to be what college (esp. summers and spring break) is for, at least at a good school: giving you a sense of what life would be like if free from economic bullshit (as it is for the rich, the only people attending college 150 years ago). It's better in most ways, as only the most successful or wealthiest adults actually enjoy adulthood more than college, but college is not perfect. I had fun, but I wouldn't want to go back. And how many college students are writing novels, or even engaging in the amount of reading and writing that an aspiring novelist needs to be doing? A few, but not as many as who "want to write someday".
- nostrademons 16y ago
  It's not the same, though: with summers, spring break, and even college, you know that you're time-limited, and have to scope your projects appropriately. With creative work, you have as much time as you're willing to pay the opportunity cost for.

astrofinch 16y ago

"He also reports that he wouldn’t feel financially secure until he had $1 billion in the bank." ... "Such complaints sound, on their face, preposterous." It may be preposterous for most anyone to feel financially insecure, given that it's possible to survive through couchsurfing and dumpster diving and what a high historical standard of living this would provide. The super-rich aren't the only ones who keep seeing their standards go up.

sskates 16y ago
Agreed. Coincidentally this high historical standard of living is why it's possible for so many people to start companies on their own without needing access to large amounts of capital. Although it might not seem like it compared to our super-rich peers, we are rolling in wealth.

cookiecaper 16y ago

"Why should we labor this unpleasant point? Because the Book of Mormon labors it, for our special benefit. Wealth is a jealous master who will not be served halfheartedly and will suffer no rival--not even God: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." (Matthew 6:24) In return for unquestioning obedience wealth promises security, power, position, and honors, in fact anything in this world. Above all, the Nephites like the Romans saw in it a mark of superiority and would do anything to get hold of it, for to them "money answereth all things." (Ecclesiastes 10:19) "Ye do always remember your riches," cried Samuel the Lamanite, ". . .unto great swelling, envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions, and murders, and all manner of iniquities." (Helaman 13:22) Along with this, of course, everyone dresses in the height of fashion, the main point being always that the proper clothes are expensive--the expression "costly apparel" occurs 14 times in the Book of Mormon. The more important wealth is, the less important it is how one gets it." - Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley “The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution and be true. But my greatest fear is that they cannot stand wealth” - Brigham Young "Men of wealth among us, as elsewhere, who command their tens and hundreds of thousands, who have their every want supplied, have more anxiety, care and perplexity than many of you, who have to struggle for a comfortable living. And if you were placed in their position you would be a great deal more uneasy than you are now." - John Taylor. Money is much more dangerous and troublesome than most people realize. These three quotes testify to that, as well as most of the production generated by rich people. Wealth destroys many who finally get it.

rythie 16y ago

Humans are natural born problem solvers and we can't deal with not having any problems to solve. It seems to make sense for people to continue working after getting rich, presumbably in a position of responsibilty, to give us a regular set of fresh chalenges. e.g. Steve Jobs doesn't quit even though he is extremely rich and also ill, he feels a responsibility to that position.

paul 16y ago

For the most part, money doesn't create problems, but it can certainly enable and magnify them.

athom 16y ago

I like this part: One respondent, the heir to an enormous fortune, says that what matters most to him is his Christianity, and that his greatest aspiration is “to love the Lord, my family, and my friends.” He also reports that he wouldn’t feel financially secure until he had $1 billion in the bank. I think this guy needs to crack open his Bible, and read a bit of Matthew 19:20-22... [20]The young man said, "I have obeyed all of these. What else must I do? [21]Jesus replied, "If you want to be perfect, go sell everything you own! Give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in Heaven. Then come and be my follower." [22]When the young man heard this, he was sad, because he was very rich. I can't think of anything more to say. I just hope I didn't just start a religeous flame war.

billybob 16y ago
I would add that most commentators on this passage don't draw the conclusion "having money is evil," but rather, that Jesus saw that this man's attachment to his wealth was a problem. In hearing this command, the man realized that his wealth was his god, and though he wanted to follow Jesus, he could bring himself to give up this rival god. This may sound like a "soft" interpretation because it allows for being rich and also spiritual, but then again, it also means that Jesus' implied indictment may apply to non-millionaires like me. If my focus is money or prestige or whatever, I'm in the same boat. You can't follow Jesus half-heartedly. To your point of advice: it does seem that if you've got $50 million and it's causing you anguish, you could certainly get rid of it and do a lot of good in the process. And I imagine the stigma from regular people would largely turn to respect.

joelrunyon 16y ago

the irony here is a lot of people will read this...nod their head...and then get busy trying to get rich :)

nl 16y ago

Worth noting that many Silicon Valley nouveau-rich seem to derive great satisfaction from their activities as angel investors. It seems to me this is similar to those in the article who "satisfactions of philanthropy", with the added bonus of having people who listen to your advice.

sethg 16y ago

Early in his academic career, Schervish was a committed Democratic Socialist. But around 1990, he began interviewing wealthy people and decided that his Marxist instinct to criticize the rich was misguided. If Schervish had felt this way, it’s because he didn’t read Marx carefully enough. The whole point of Marxism is not “rich people are bad”—the Communist Manifesto is brutally critical of those who think that capitalism could be reformed by making rich people nicer. The point is that capitalism as a social structure is bad, because even well-meaning members of the bourgeoisie have incentives to oppress the working class, and those who do not follow those incentives will eventually find themselves at the bottom of the heap. (I am not a Marxist myself, but this misreading is one of my pet peeves.)

TheBaron 16y ago

Great Read! I am experiencing the awkwardness of a change in personal wealth as we speak. I have a friend I met at 16 via a t-shirt venture. We would hang out & work on his company. As time progressed we would hang out off and on. After an extended gap in communication, I emailed him to get his number & he came by to pick me up. We drove for about 15 to 20 minutes until we reached an office warehouse. He then told me, "welcome to his company". He had started what is now one of the country's top promotional products companies. He now owns a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley, $3M home, and more. I feel awkward around him & I think he feels the same at times. We are both entrepreneurs but he has had more success financially. I've since taken a major interest in philanthropy. I recently asked for a contribution toward my non-profit & it was amazingly awkward as well. LOL, I was sweating... I felt like a panhandler. Lastly, when I ask how he's doing & about other things outside of business I feel fake. It's usually a general response as to not seem ungrateful as mentioned. But, I genuinely want to know. Anyway, that's my experience with this issue.

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