5 ms·

Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

68 points by cl3m 5y ago

Cu3PO42 5y ago
One thing that immediately stood out to me was the following quote at the beginning of the article: > You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing I'm happy for the author that $200,000 isn't and wasn't a life-changing amount of money for her, but to so many people it would be incredibly life-changing. I could very comfortably live off that amount of money for 10 years. As an alternative view, that's more than four years of my net income. Obviously my cost of living is also dramatically lower than it is in SF. For someone working minimum wage where I live it would be more like 11 or 12 years, that's an incredible amount of money and I think it's important not to forget about that entirely. EDIT: I've said this in a grand-child comment, but I just want to clarify this here since it has come up more than once. I don't mean to say that $200,000 is or should be a life-changing amount of money to her. I just think it's easy to forget the scales sometimes. I've had the same "whatever" reaction to smaller amounts of money that would have been life-changing to someone else. My point is: those of use who are fortunate (and I include myself in this group), let's not forget it.
- 131012 5y ago
  A rich kid getting richer? How boring.
- kwyjobojoe 5y ago
  The rich and powerful have no idea on the cost of living, and yet they control the world for the majority. The Australian Gov floated making people pay for doctor visits that are currently free, and bagged out disagreement that it was 'only the price of a coffee'. Those on benefits cannot afford a coffee, as that would be almost 10% of money they had to per day to pay for everything. Meanwhile they use government flights costing $60000+, or give themselves raises more that a minimum wage earner gets per year. Bill Gates was on a show and they made fun of him because he had no idea what bread and milk costs. Yet people like him are the ones that politicians listen to.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    > Yet people like him are the ones that politicians listen to. Isn't this often the case? Rich people looking at even richer people as something to aspire to. Middle-class people look up at the rich as something to aspire to. And the poor / working class look up at middle class as something to aspire to. Everybody wants to move up in the world.
- partisan 5y ago
  For your life circumstances, is there an amount of money that is large enough to celebrate, but not so large as to be life changing? If so, then you can relate to the author's point, but for a different value of N. The author is speaking from their experience. I think if they were to caveat every point like this, it would be a much longer read and one would get tired of reading the disclaimers. In the past few years, I've received bonuses that were massive and I could only have dreamed of some years ago. Since then I've come to realize that sums like that were not life changing. When I dreamed of them some time ago, I imagined they would have been. I would have bought the car I really wanted or bought a bigger apartment or something. But in the end, I would have still had a car and somewhere to live, working to sustain that quality of life. Is it life changing?
  - mam2 5y ago
    The most important is time. Working 3 or 4 days instead of 5 IS life changing. And if you wouldnt know what to do with that time.. well thats sad.
  - ckdarby 5y ago
    Life changing is a moving goal post and it is contextual for the individual. Roughly 10 years ago when I first started in software development I was making ~$40k and thought I had made it and I'd be able to achieve everything I wanted on that amount assuming I just kept up with inflation. Fast forward, I bought $500 of Basic Attention Tokens at $0.17 and after currency conversion it is over $5k. The money has 10x'ed but in the present I wouldn't describe it as life changing at all. The impact isn't notable at all to the point I'm like, either it goes to $0 or it goes to $50k to be "worthwhile". It's all percentages. If the author's lifetime earnings were already going to be $5M than $200k might not seem like a life changing amount but anyone's who lifetime earnings are going to be $1M could see that as a life changing amount.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      >anyone's who lifetime earnings are going to be $1M could see that as a life changing amount. I would define life changing as being able to have kids if you couldn't before, moving to a radically different environment than before, or being able to stop working if you were working before. So probably it needs to double what you were expected to make without it.
- McScroogy 5y ago
  Moving to where you live would probably be unpleasant for her, as she would lose all her friends and family. Where she lives now, 200k may not be life changing. Maybe the smart thing to do would be to take the money and move to a cheap place. But there would be another price besides the money. And after 10 years, you would have a problem.
- mclouts91 5y ago
  I think she means you couldn’t just leave your job, especially in San Fran
  - ac29 5y ago
    No, but even in an ultra high cost of living area, on a high salary, $200k would let you retire a year or two earlier than you would have otherwise. Might not be life changing today, but personally I get excited at the prospect of money that would give me the option to retire even a few weeks earlier than I would have otherwise, even though that's likely 25 years out for me.
- Pelic4n 5y ago
  The worldwide median anual household income per capita is about $3000: https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-household-income-000.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househo... Which means most humans won't make $200K in their entire lives. Considering that it's not a life changing amount of money just shows how the 1% has lost touch with reality.
  - blackoil 5y ago
    Looking at everything as a global stat, also doesn't make any sense. If I spend a 100 USD on dinner, that is all earned/spent by me on my experience in my time-space bubble. Farmer in Africa on an orphan in Gaza wouldn't be directly impacted by that.
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      >Farmer in Africa on an orphan in Gaza wouldn't be directly impacted by that. I think they probably would albeit in a small way. No doubt your dinner will include ingredients that are traded globally, cooked using energy and fuels bought in international markets, served by an immigrant from a poorer country, eaten using cutlery made in another. Driving your car to the restaurant will emit CO2 that is going to impact the poorest countries first. For better or worse we live in a globalised world where commodities are freely traded and some people are inevitably outbid.
  - supportlocal4h 5y ago
    Whether you are a 1%er or an 80%er, there is some amount of money that wouldn't mean much to you but would mean a lot to somebody else. If it rubs you that wealthier people aren't more gracious with their wealth, please try to make a point of being gracious with your wealth. Figure out how to use $100 to change somebody else's life in a positive way. I think you'll find it is life changing for you after all. If $100 seems steep, try it with $20. Your life will get better quickly.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  I think it's life-changing in the sense that for 99% of people they would have enough time to at least look for a better job over the course of a year. For a fair few people it would even give you enough time to get a qualification. All depends on what you mean by life-changing though.
McScroogy 5y ago
Is that person even real? The ending made me doubt it, as it was just a list of things leftists want rich people to do with their money. Like donate it all somehow, and under no circumstances give anything to their kids. Wtf? I worry so much about the world my kids are going to grow up them, that I am trying to give them as much of a financial head start as possible. I don't want them to have to suffer through discrimination because of their skin colour or gender, or having to bow to the office politics of the day. As for donating money, why not wait until you die, and donate what is left (and your family can spare). Why the rush? Even the 6 million dollars that hypothetical woman has may amount to not much, with the crazy amount of money printing and inflating costs for housing.
- ilkkao 5y ago
  Got the similar feeling. At least the author is not far yet with her thinking process. If it's 6 million after taxes, there are so many possibilities. No mention of considering stop working and doing what she truly likes to do.
  - sumtechguy 5y ago
    I got from the article that she does not really know. She had been so set on the particular career and 'getting to know the right' people she did not think through what happens when you are 'the man'. Now 6 mil sounds like a lot (it is). But it is also easy to get in a habit of 'not worrying about money'. It sounds like she is setting herself up for that too (the cheese thing). It is ok to splurge but doing it every time and you will quickly find that money depleting. One lady I know got 15,000. In her social circles that was life changing. Along the lines of not worrying about many bills for a few years. It was gone in 3 weeks. I also feel that ladies assessment of wealth managers. Many are fairly weak at it. My advice to the young new millionaire. Do nothing yet. Finding people to help manage your new burden is going to take time. Also watch out for the richer sharks. Many of them realized the best place to get money is from the newly rich with schemes of investing. Many investment advisors seem really fixated on what % of your money they are going to get per year. All the while telling you how they will grow it. Then drop you into index funds (that they get a kickback on). You could also think 'i know i will donate it' well that is an option. But take the time and evaluate them like the wealth management people. You will find the same people there. Ask around wait and see, do not let the money burn a hole in your pocket, evaluate. The best way to grow your own wealth and help out is to build things. Start a business. Maybe become a landlord that specializes in low income? Help create jobs in that segment? Instead of dumping it into some wealth management fund who is trying to build yet another 5k per unit per month condo building. Creating jobs and helping people level up is the best thing you can do with your money social wise. Giving it to someone else and hoping they get it right may or may not work.
celticninja 5y ago
The author does not seem like a decent well adjusted person,now they are rich. I doubt that will make things better for them.
harryf 5y ago
There was a great analysis of what happens when you win the lottery on reddit some years back - https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/whats_the_happiest_5word_sentence_you_could_hear/chb38xf/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/whats_the... > Nearly one third of multi-million dollar jackpot winners eventually declare bankruptcy. Some end up worse. Of course many of the issues related to winning the lottery are caused by the attention you suddenly receive. But a related story from someone that was able to retire early thanks to Bitcoin - https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lz4x37/ive_retired_thanks_to_crypto_but_theres_something/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lz4x37/ive_... > my advice is that you need to get prepared to deal with boredom. We grow up with our parents telling us to go to school, have a job, a car, a house and that this is life. But when you suddenly have the car, the house and everything else, what's left? Do something for yourself and have this in mind. Most of the planet works for money because they have to. That means the majority of their time is consumed by earning money. Once you take away that imperative, you suddenly have a lot more time on your hands. That in turn effectively triggers an existential crisis - what do with all this extra time? Some people will be able to turn into taking their lives in a new direction but others are going address with drugs and alcohol.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  That in turn effectively triggers an existential crisis - what do with all this extra time? Give your money to me. I have a million things I want/need to do. So many things to do in the world. How can you possibly get bored?
  - harryf 5y ago
    That's exactly the right perspective but if you've spent the last 20 years doing some job purely for the money, it's not an easy mental state to transition to and whether you're able will likely have a large part to do with your education and upbringing. For example your social network may be largely people you work with - if you stop working, you lose those connections. And lockdown has shown what impact social isolation can have.
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
This person sounds like she should take some of that money and spend it on therapy. Talking to someone would probably be better than this navel gazing and thought-spiraling.
- ilkkao 5y ago
  There is indeed some contradiction in concluding that your situation is a special enough to write an article about it to New York magazine and then say in the article that "At this point in my life, nothing is going to change"
- listless 5y ago
  The article struck me the same way. Instead of being thankful and thinking of all the ways that money could benefit herself, her family and they myriad of ways that she could alter the future in a positive way, she bemoans her situation. It certainly has whiffs of "I'm the victim here". I know culture encourages this, but I hope she's able to overcome it so she can find some peace and do some real good with what she's been given.
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amelius 5y ago
> I’ve been obsessed with men who are smarter than me. (Even when I was younger, at sleepaway camp, I was fixated on the boys who went to the magnet public schools, because I knew they were hard to get into.) Part of it comes from an obsession that my kid has to be intelligent, but part of it is about earning potential, because smart men tend to earn a lot of money. Ugh.
- philangist 5y ago
  Said with zero self-awareness several paragraphs after humblebragging about how frugal and low maintenance of a person she is. The entire article is so myopic but I think her transactional view of relationships, and framing of them entirely in terms of competition and power dynamics was the saddest part. > My mom has gotten bitter. She said, “You’re going to have more money than your dad and I combined, and we’ve worked all our lives.” I guess her thinking comes from somewhere
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    The average apple rarely falls far from the tree. It can happen, but it certainly isn't the typical case.
  - pr0zac 5y ago
    I had the opposite reaction, that it was said with full self-awareness of the conflicting nature of those thoughts. The entire article IS myopic, but that's the point. Its a self-exploration of the feelings and emotions experienced by someone in their 20s who just received a lot of money unexpectedly for reasons largely outside their control. In a lot of ways it reads like conversations I've had with my therapist about other (non-money related) topics. She does a good job explaining her anxieties around finances and the power dynamics in relationships caused by money as well as explaining the personal experiences in her childhood (her friend's parents' and her parents' divorce, the financial collapse of 2008) and the shared experiences of her generation (the first to have less money than their parents) that created those anxieties. She literally says what your last sentence implies. Yes shes humble-bragging and talking about feeling shes low-maintenance and frugal. She also talks about feelings of bitterness and imposter syndrome and concerns about the future and feeling like she needs to give it all back because she doesn't deserve it. Shes being honest and open because most people aren't. I mean its titled "Confessions of". I think shes aware. The most important lines in the article are these: > there are people who feel like they don’t know what they’re doing with the money, and what the money means, and they’re encompassed by anxiety. They don’t realize that nobody else knows what they’re doing either.
throwawaaays 5y ago
I'm in a similar situation, but it's like 1/3 of what she'll make. And I have literally no idea what to do now. I have a good feeling for how to manage it. But not a good feeling about what it means for my life. In the SF area, it's not enough to live with a family. Where my wife and I are from, it's enough to early-retire with average incomes (4% of 2M$ ~= 80k$/y, 40k$/y median income). But do I want to do this? Or do I keep working my job? My job is alright, and I make pretty good money. I've been progressing along so far and doing well. But would I rather not have to attend meetings I don't feel like? Yes. But would I rather ride a bike everyday that I want? Yes. Would I rather play games for hours? Yes. Would I rather learn to machine stuff with a CNC? Yes. Would I rather learn new maths, sciences, engineering fields? Yes. Would I rather go sailing around the world? Yes. Or at least for a while. But then I'd probably get tired of it. And then I can't do too crazy stuff because we have young kids that need to grow up. And then I couldn't afford the sustained expenses, and then want to go back to work. But then I'd have a gap in my resume and worry about having lost touch with my network and career. We're already debt free and save a large amount of our income every pay-check. We're not interested in buying a house or living in a fancier place. Not interested in a fancier car. We don't want to flash like we're wealthy. We want to be able to hangout with our friends without making them uncomfortable. So what do I even do with this money? I've never been taught how to be "wealthy". Before all this became reality, I thought I knew what I'd do, I had so many ideas. Now that it's there... crickets.
- marcinzm 5y ago
  I'd say you can now find a job that best aligns with what makes you happy. The money a job pays you is no longer the most important aspect but merely a secondary one. Want to work 20 hours a week, you probably can. Want to help the world, you probably can at a non-profit. Want to learn a new technical skill set, you probably can at a job where you take a lower level. And so on and so on. You can now trade off salary from a company for whatever you want.
- arbol 5y ago
  I took two years off after a big windfall. It's fine to stay out of work permanently but those two years taught me that you need to to have a group of people to work with and bounce ideas off. Trying to sit and do things on your own is way less productive and not good mentally.
xwolfi 5y ago
> Being a tech worker is not like banking, where you know you’re not doing good for society I... I work in banking and I think I'm doing good for society :D It's weird how deep this belief banks are an artificial parasite that built itself on top of normal people became. If people don't like banks and think they're really bad, they could really try removing them... it's not like I'd disobey a law or anything that says we can't work in banks anymore...
- cryptica 5y ago
  Do you know how banking works? Banks keep injecting new fiat money into the economy via loans and thus dilute everyone's salaries (buying power) by inflating asset prices artificially and thus make them increasingly out of reach for salary earners. Loans are also used to facilitate thousands of different financial schemes to inflate stock prices, distort the markets and drive honest people into corporate servitude and ensure that they will never be able to afford a house or any passive-income asset. At a global scale, it converts salary earners into slaves and asset owners to into masters. Intelligence and skill are entirely factored out of the equation, success is all a socially-oriented scheme of who is who and who knows who; not much different from Stalin's USSR. The banking sector is the main reason why there is growing wealth inequality and why jobs are getting increasingly useless. It atrophies people's useful skills and replaces them with useless bureaucratic skills as they are forced into the highly inefficient, monopolistic corporate sector and are shielded from essential competitive pressure. For many smart, ambitious, passionate, hard-working people, it has turned their lives into an absolute Kafkaesque hell. Once you can see what the monetary system is doing, you cannot enjoy any work. You cannot enjoy well paid intellectual office work because you know that your job is useless and you're making your money on the back of financial exploitation. You also cannot enjoy real useful, meaningful work because you get paid less and you know you're being taken advantage of by those who do the useless work. You can either be a crooked winner or an honest loser. The only meaningful job I could find was in blockchain space, but because financing is all driven by fiat monetary policy (driven by banks and governments who have no idea what the problems are), the industry is a complete centralized brainfuck. The reality for many people is beyond what even Franz Kafka could have imagined.
lnsru 5y ago
My dad came to 7 digit figures in his account twice. It wasn’t really easy money, he worked both times decade long for it to happen. Both times he wasted it. I guess, one needs a decent financial literacy to be able to control such amount of money. Both times he listened to some charlatans and invested into some weird shit. I don’t think he will make it for the 3rd time, but let’s see. On the other hand I could retire after inheriting all the assets from my mother alone. At first glance it would be really cool, I would retire to Croatia, have a small house and a boat, but after a while it would be boring for sure.
- arbol 5y ago
  Retiring is not a thing you "do"really. You need to have other interests to keep yourself occupied and a good network of friends.
borishn 5y ago
This is not overnight! This person worked for a startup for likely several years to get her grant sufficiently vested to be valued at $6M.
bodandly 5y ago
You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing. I think the start of this shows just how out of touch this human is before they became a millionaire.
jdauriemma 5y ago
I was under the impression that a personal narrative should have some sort of value to a reader to merit publication.
- after_care 5y ago
  It was basically cash-windfall porn for our capitalistic society.
williamtwild 5y ago
> You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing. So it sounds like this person had assets or capital before the IPO. $200,000 post tax is certainly enough to pay off either a large potion of a mortgage if not all of it for a large majority of people . Hell where I live it can get you a very nice house in a good neighborhood ( I live outside of Philly ). That is certainly life changing,
- McScroogy 5y ago
  In many places it isn't.
  - reph2097 5y ago
    Then maybe you're just in the wrong place
kova12 5y ago
That's because humans were designed to start adult life with becoming parents, then do the rest of life chores. That's the only thing that matters really. Life is short, and once you are dead, money don't matter. Procreating is how you outlive yourself. Go get kids, and your boredom will evaporate. No matter how much money you got, you will never have time for middle age crises
- arbol 5y ago
  You never have time for anything really...
jl2718 5y ago
The woman in this essay is having her moment of peripeteia. It’s just bits in a database. From an alien looking down on earth, there is no difference between the people with big numbers and the people with small numbers. They all spend their entire lives under the same set of beliefs, namely: 1. Any decrease in my number would be horrible. The best part of my life was when my number was zero, and other people are happier with lower numbers, but that is irrelevant. I need a big number or else I will suffer immensely. 2. People with bigger numbers than me are more important than anybody else in my life. I worship them, or I hate them, but either way, I think about them all the time. 3. I must commit my entire life to increasing this number. I am willing to do things I hate, or stupid risky things for no other reason. Note that I’m not claiming to be any exception. It really is stupid though. Even people that hate the fiat system still worship it. Maybe it’s necessary for our civilization to follow these rules, but it seems to me that a fiat system would work best if people were thinking least about the ‘meta’ aspects of money, such as investments. It seems to me that, historically, public frenzy over financial topics has been a reliable predictor of collapse, and generally this starts with an attempt to use the financial system for some social engineering purpose other than the three primary purposes: store of value, unit of account, medium of exchange.
- tpoacher 5y ago
  As a greek person, for whom the word 'peripeteia' is totally mundane, I was very suprised to see it used in English in such a literary fashion. Thanks for that!
deleted 5y ago
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david38 5y ago
For all her money, she has a paralyzing view of relationships. She can’t make more than him, because then he’s not a real man, but she can’t make less, because real men want power.
- wenincode 5y ago
  I stopped reading shortly after that part. They sound insufferable.
inter_netuser 5y ago
it's amusing to read about wealth management interviews. 6 mil is just over the minimum to qualify for private banking these days. Of course they couldn't care less about the account, it's tiny.
joeman1000 5y ago
This person needs a lot of work on relationships. Sounds very unhealthy and difficult. I think only an American can gain $5m and still complain.

68 points by cl3m 5y ago

One thing that immediately stood out to me was the following quote at the beginning of the article: > You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing I'm happy for the author that $200,000 isn't and wasn't a life-changing amount of money for her, but to so many people it would be incredibly life-changing. I could very comfortably live off that amount of money for 10 years. As an alternative view, that's more than four years of my net income. Obviously my cost of living is also dramatically lower than it is in SF. For someone working minimum wage where I live it would be more like 11 or 12 years, that's an incredible amount of money and I think it's important not to forget about that entirely. EDIT: I've said this in a grand-child comment, but I just want to clarify this here since it has come up more than once. I don't mean to say that $200,000 is or should be a life-changing amount of money to her. I just think it's easy to forget the scales sometimes. I've had the same "whatever" reaction to smaller amounts of money that would have been life-changing to someone else. My point is: those of use who are fortunate (and I include myself in this group), let's not forget it.

131012 5y ago
A rich kid getting richer? How boring.
kwyjobojoe 5y ago
The rich and powerful have no idea on the cost of living, and yet they control the world for the majority. The Australian Gov floated making people pay for doctor visits that are currently free, and bagged out disagreement that it was 'only the price of a coffee'. Those on benefits cannot afford a coffee, as that would be almost 10% of money they had to per day to pay for everything. Meanwhile they use government flights costing $60000+, or give themselves raises more that a minimum wage earner gets per year. Bill Gates was on a show and they made fun of him because he had no idea what bread and milk costs. Yet people like him are the ones that politicians listen to.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  > Yet people like him are the ones that politicians listen to. Isn't this often the case? Rich people looking at even richer people as something to aspire to. Middle-class people look up at the rich as something to aspire to. And the poor / working class look up at middle class as something to aspire to. Everybody wants to move up in the world.
partisan 5y ago
For your life circumstances, is there an amount of money that is large enough to celebrate, but not so large as to be life changing? If so, then you can relate to the author's point, but for a different value of N. The author is speaking from their experience. I think if they were to caveat every point like this, it would be a much longer read and one would get tired of reading the disclaimers. In the past few years, I've received bonuses that were massive and I could only have dreamed of some years ago. Since then I've come to realize that sums like that were not life changing. When I dreamed of them some time ago, I imagined they would have been. I would have bought the car I really wanted or bought a bigger apartment or something. But in the end, I would have still had a car and somewhere to live, working to sustain that quality of life. Is it life changing?
- mam2 5y ago
  The most important is time. Working 3 or 4 days instead of 5 IS life changing. And if you wouldnt know what to do with that time.. well thats sad.
- ckdarby 5y ago
  Life changing is a moving goal post and it is contextual for the individual. Roughly 10 years ago when I first started in software development I was making ~$40k and thought I had made it and I'd be able to achieve everything I wanted on that amount assuming I just kept up with inflation. Fast forward, I bought $500 of Basic Attention Tokens at $0.17 and after currency conversion it is over $5k. The money has 10x'ed but in the present I wouldn't describe it as life changing at all. The impact isn't notable at all to the point I'm like, either it goes to $0 or it goes to $50k to be "worthwhile". It's all percentages. If the author's lifetime earnings were already going to be $5M than $200k might not seem like a life changing amount but anyone's who lifetime earnings are going to be $1M could see that as a life changing amount.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    >anyone's who lifetime earnings are going to be $1M could see that as a life changing amount. I would define life changing as being able to have kids if you couldn't before, moving to a radically different environment than before, or being able to stop working if you were working before. So probably it needs to double what you were expected to make without it.
McScroogy 5y ago
Moving to where you live would probably be unpleasant for her, as she would lose all her friends and family. Where she lives now, 200k may not be life changing. Maybe the smart thing to do would be to take the money and move to a cheap place. But there would be another price besides the money. And after 10 years, you would have a problem.
mclouts91 5y ago
I think she means you couldn’t just leave your job, especially in San Fran
- ac29 5y ago
  No, but even in an ultra high cost of living area, on a high salary, $200k would let you retire a year or two earlier than you would have otherwise. Might not be life changing today, but personally I get excited at the prospect of money that would give me the option to retire even a few weeks earlier than I would have otherwise, even though that's likely 25 years out for me.
Pelic4n 5y ago
The worldwide median anual household income per capita is about $3000: https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-household-income-000.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househo... Which means most humans won't make $200K in their entire lives. Considering that it's not a life changing amount of money just shows how the 1% has lost touch with reality.
- blackoil 5y ago
  Looking at everything as a global stat, also doesn't make any sense. If I spend a 100 USD on dinner, that is all earned/spent by me on my experience in my time-space bubble. Farmer in Africa on an orphan in Gaza wouldn't be directly impacted by that.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >Farmer in Africa on an orphan in Gaza wouldn't be directly impacted by that. I think they probably would albeit in a small way. No doubt your dinner will include ingredients that are traded globally, cooked using energy and fuels bought in international markets, served by an immigrant from a poorer country, eaten using cutlery made in another. Driving your car to the restaurant will emit CO2 that is going to impact the poorest countries first. For better or worse we live in a globalised world where commodities are freely traded and some people are inevitably outbid.
- supportlocal4h 5y ago
  Whether you are a 1%er or an 80%er, there is some amount of money that wouldn't mean much to you but would mean a lot to somebody else. If it rubs you that wealthier people aren't more gracious with their wealth, please try to make a point of being gracious with your wealth. Figure out how to use $100 to change somebody else's life in a positive way. I think you'll find it is life changing for you after all. If $100 seems steep, try it with $20. Your life will get better quickly.
lordnacho 5y ago
I think it's life-changing in the sense that for 99% of people they would have enough time to at least look for a better job over the course of a year. For a fair few people it would even give you enough time to get a qualification. All depends on what you mean by life-changing though.

McScroogy 5y ago

Is that person even real? The ending made me doubt it, as it was just a list of things leftists want rich people to do with their money. Like donate it all somehow, and under no circumstances give anything to their kids. Wtf? I worry so much about the world my kids are going to grow up them, that I am trying to give them as much of a financial head start as possible. I don't want them to have to suffer through discrimination because of their skin colour or gender, or having to bow to the office politics of the day. As for donating money, why not wait until you die, and donate what is left (and your family can spare). Why the rush? Even the 6 million dollars that hypothetical woman has may amount to not much, with the crazy amount of money printing and inflating costs for housing.

ilkkao 5y ago
Got the similar feeling. At least the author is not far yet with her thinking process. If it's 6 million after taxes, there are so many possibilities. No mention of considering stop working and doing what she truly likes to do.
- sumtechguy 5y ago
  I got from the article that she does not really know. She had been so set on the particular career and 'getting to know the right' people she did not think through what happens when you are 'the man'. Now 6 mil sounds like a lot (it is). But it is also easy to get in a habit of 'not worrying about money'. It sounds like she is setting herself up for that too (the cheese thing). It is ok to splurge but doing it every time and you will quickly find that money depleting. One lady I know got 15,000. In her social circles that was life changing. Along the lines of not worrying about many bills for a few years. It was gone in 3 weeks. I also feel that ladies assessment of wealth managers. Many are fairly weak at it. My advice to the young new millionaire. Do nothing yet. Finding people to help manage your new burden is going to take time. Also watch out for the richer sharks. Many of them realized the best place to get money is from the newly rich with schemes of investing. Many investment advisors seem really fixated on what % of your money they are going to get per year. All the while telling you how they will grow it. Then drop you into index funds (that they get a kickback on). You could also think 'i know i will donate it' well that is an option. But take the time and evaluate them like the wealth management people. You will find the same people there. Ask around wait and see, do not let the money burn a hole in your pocket, evaluate. The best way to grow your own wealth and help out is to build things. Start a business. Maybe become a landlord that specializes in low income? Help create jobs in that segment? Instead of dumping it into some wealth management fund who is trying to build yet another 5k per unit per month condo building. Creating jobs and helping people level up is the best thing you can do with your money social wise. Giving it to someone else and hoping they get it right may or may not work.

celticninja 5y ago

The author does not seem like a decent well adjusted person,now they are rich. I doubt that will make things better for them.

harryf 5y ago

There was a great analysis of what happens when you win the lottery on reddit some years back - https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/whats_the_happiest_5word_sentence_you_could_hear/chb38xf/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/whats_the... > Nearly one third of multi-million dollar jackpot winners eventually declare bankruptcy. Some end up worse. Of course many of the issues related to winning the lottery are caused by the attention you suddenly receive. But a related story from someone that was able to retire early thanks to Bitcoin - https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lz4x37/ive_retired_thanks_to_crypto_but_theres_something/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lz4x37/ive_... > my advice is that you need to get prepared to deal with boredom. We grow up with our parents telling us to go to school, have a job, a car, a house and that this is life. But when you suddenly have the car, the house and everything else, what's left? Do something for yourself and have this in mind. Most of the planet works for money because they have to. That means the majority of their time is consumed by earning money. Once you take away that imperative, you suddenly have a lot more time on your hands. That in turn effectively triggers an existential crisis - what do with all this extra time? Some people will be able to turn into taking their lives in a new direction but others are going address with drugs and alcohol.

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
That in turn effectively triggers an existential crisis - what do with all this extra time? Give your money to me. I have a million things I want/need to do. So many things to do in the world. How can you possibly get bored?
- harryf 5y ago
  That's exactly the right perspective but if you've spent the last 20 years doing some job purely for the money, it's not an easy mental state to transition to and whether you're able will likely have a large part to do with your education and upbringing. For example your social network may be largely people you work with - if you stop working, you lose those connections. And lockdown has shown what impact social isolation can have.

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago

This person sounds like she should take some of that money and spend it on therapy. Talking to someone would probably be better than this navel gazing and thought-spiraling.

ilkkao 5y ago
There is indeed some contradiction in concluding that your situation is a special enough to write an article about it to New York magazine and then say in the article that "At this point in my life, nothing is going to change"
listless 5y ago
The article struck me the same way. Instead of being thankful and thinking of all the ways that money could benefit herself, her family and they myriad of ways that she could alter the future in a positive way, she bemoans her situation. It certainly has whiffs of "I'm the victim here". I know culture encourages this, but I hope she's able to overcome it so she can find some peace and do some real good with what she's been given.

applepple 5y ago

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amelius 5y ago

> I’ve been obsessed with men who are smarter than me. (Even when I was younger, at sleepaway camp, I was fixated on the boys who went to the magnet public schools, because I knew they were hard to get into.) Part of it comes from an obsession that my kid has to be intelligent, but part of it is about earning potential, because smart men tend to earn a lot of money. Ugh.

philangist 5y ago
Said with zero self-awareness several paragraphs after humblebragging about how frugal and low maintenance of a person she is. The entire article is so myopic but I think her transactional view of relationships, and framing of them entirely in terms of competition and power dynamics was the saddest part. > My mom has gotten bitter. She said, “You’re going to have more money than your dad and I combined, and we’ve worked all our lives.” I guess her thinking comes from somewhere
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  The average apple rarely falls far from the tree. It can happen, but it certainly isn't the typical case.
- pr0zac 5y ago
  I had the opposite reaction, that it was said with full self-awareness of the conflicting nature of those thoughts. The entire article IS myopic, but that's the point. Its a self-exploration of the feelings and emotions experienced by someone in their 20s who just received a lot of money unexpectedly for reasons largely outside their control. In a lot of ways it reads like conversations I've had with my therapist about other (non-money related) topics. She does a good job explaining her anxieties around finances and the power dynamics in relationships caused by money as well as explaining the personal experiences in her childhood (her friend's parents' and her parents' divorce, the financial collapse of 2008) and the shared experiences of her generation (the first to have less money than their parents) that created those anxieties. She literally says what your last sentence implies. Yes shes humble-bragging and talking about feeling shes low-maintenance and frugal. She also talks about feelings of bitterness and imposter syndrome and concerns about the future and feeling like she needs to give it all back because she doesn't deserve it. Shes being honest and open because most people aren't. I mean its titled "Confessions of". I think shes aware. The most important lines in the article are these: > there are people who feel like they don’t know what they’re doing with the money, and what the money means, and they’re encompassed by anxiety. They don’t realize that nobody else knows what they’re doing either.

throwawaaays 5y ago

I'm in a similar situation, but it's like 1/3 of what she'll make. And I have literally no idea what to do now. I have a good feeling for how to manage it. But not a good feeling about what it means for my life. In the SF area, it's not enough to live with a family. Where my wife and I are from, it's enough to early-retire with average incomes (4% of 2M$ ~= 80k$/y, 40k$/y median income). But do I want to do this? Or do I keep working my job? My job is alright, and I make pretty good money. I've been progressing along so far and doing well. But would I rather not have to attend meetings I don't feel like? Yes. But would I rather ride a bike everyday that I want? Yes. Would I rather play games for hours? Yes. Would I rather learn to machine stuff with a CNC? Yes. Would I rather learn new maths, sciences, engineering fields? Yes. Would I rather go sailing around the world? Yes. Or at least for a while. But then I'd probably get tired of it. And then I can't do too crazy stuff because we have young kids that need to grow up. And then I couldn't afford the sustained expenses, and then want to go back to work. But then I'd have a gap in my resume and worry about having lost touch with my network and career. We're already debt free and save a large amount of our income every pay-check. We're not interested in buying a house or living in a fancier place. Not interested in a fancier car. We don't want to flash like we're wealthy. We want to be able to hangout with our friends without making them uncomfortable. So what do I even do with this money? I've never been taught how to be "wealthy". Before all this became reality, I thought I knew what I'd do, I had so many ideas. Now that it's there... crickets.

marcinzm 5y ago
I'd say you can now find a job that best aligns with what makes you happy. The money a job pays you is no longer the most important aspect but merely a secondary one. Want to work 20 hours a week, you probably can. Want to help the world, you probably can at a non-profit. Want to learn a new technical skill set, you probably can at a job where you take a lower level. And so on and so on. You can now trade off salary from a company for whatever you want.
arbol 5y ago
I took two years off after a big windfall. It's fine to stay out of work permanently but those two years taught me that you need to to have a group of people to work with and bounce ideas off. Trying to sit and do things on your own is way less productive and not good mentally.

xwolfi 5y ago

> Being a tech worker is not like banking, where you know you’re not doing good for society I... I work in banking and I think I'm doing good for society :D It's weird how deep this belief banks are an artificial parasite that built itself on top of normal people became. If people don't like banks and think they're really bad, they could really try removing them... it's not like I'd disobey a law or anything that says we can't work in banks anymore...

cryptica 5y ago
Do you know how banking works? Banks keep injecting new fiat money into the economy via loans and thus dilute everyone's salaries (buying power) by inflating asset prices artificially and thus make them increasingly out of reach for salary earners. Loans are also used to facilitate thousands of different financial schemes to inflate stock prices, distort the markets and drive honest people into corporate servitude and ensure that they will never be able to afford a house or any passive-income asset. At a global scale, it converts salary earners into slaves and asset owners to into masters. Intelligence and skill are entirely factored out of the equation, success is all a socially-oriented scheme of who is who and who knows who; not much different from Stalin's USSR. The banking sector is the main reason why there is growing wealth inequality and why jobs are getting increasingly useless. It atrophies people's useful skills and replaces them with useless bureaucratic skills as they are forced into the highly inefficient, monopolistic corporate sector and are shielded from essential competitive pressure. For many smart, ambitious, passionate, hard-working people, it has turned their lives into an absolute Kafkaesque hell. Once you can see what the monetary system is doing, you cannot enjoy any work. You cannot enjoy well paid intellectual office work because you know that your job is useless and you're making your money on the back of financial exploitation. You also cannot enjoy real useful, meaningful work because you get paid less and you know you're being taken advantage of by those who do the useless work. You can either be a crooked winner or an honest loser. The only meaningful job I could find was in blockchain space, but because financing is all driven by fiat monetary policy (driven by banks and governments who have no idea what the problems are), the industry is a complete centralized brainfuck. The reality for many people is beyond what even Franz Kafka could have imagined.

lnsru 5y ago

My dad came to 7 digit figures in his account twice. It wasn’t really easy money, he worked both times decade long for it to happen. Both times he wasted it. I guess, one needs a decent financial literacy to be able to control such amount of money. Both times he listened to some charlatans and invested into some weird shit. I don’t think he will make it for the 3rd time, but let’s see. On the other hand I could retire after inheriting all the assets from my mother alone. At first glance it would be really cool, I would retire to Croatia, have a small house and a boat, but after a while it would be boring for sure.

arbol 5y ago
Retiring is not a thing you "do"really. You need to have other interests to keep yourself occupied and a good network of friends.

borishn 5y ago

This is not overnight! This person worked for a startup for likely several years to get her grant sufficiently vested to be valued at $6M.

bodandly 5y ago

You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing. I think the start of this shows just how out of touch this human is before they became a millionaire.

jdauriemma 5y ago

I was under the impression that a personal narrative should have some sort of value to a reader to merit publication.

after_care 5y ago
It was basically cash-windfall porn for our capitalistic society.

williamtwild 5y ago

> You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing. So it sounds like this person had assets or capital before the IPO. $200,000 post tax is certainly enough to pay off either a large potion of a mortgage if not all of it for a large majority of people . Hell where I live it can get you a very nice house in a good neighborhood ( I live outside of Philly ). That is certainly life changing,

McScroogy 5y ago
In many places it isn't.
- reph2097 5y ago
  Then maybe you're just in the wrong place

kova12 5y ago

That's because humans were designed to start adult life with becoming parents, then do the rest of life chores. That's the only thing that matters really. Life is short, and once you are dead, money don't matter. Procreating is how you outlive yourself. Go get kids, and your boredom will evaporate. No matter how much money you got, you will never have time for middle age crises

arbol 5y ago
You never have time for anything really...

jl2718 5y ago

The woman in this essay is having her moment of peripeteia. It’s just bits in a database. From an alien looking down on earth, there is no difference between the people with big numbers and the people with small numbers. They all spend their entire lives under the same set of beliefs, namely: 1. Any decrease in my number would be horrible. The best part of my life was when my number was zero, and other people are happier with lower numbers, but that is irrelevant. I need a big number or else I will suffer immensely. 2. People with bigger numbers than me are more important than anybody else in my life. I worship them, or I hate them, but either way, I think about them all the time. 3. I must commit my entire life to increasing this number. I am willing to do things I hate, or stupid risky things for no other reason. Note that I’m not claiming to be any exception. It really is stupid though. Even people that hate the fiat system still worship it. Maybe it’s necessary for our civilization to follow these rules, but it seems to me that a fiat system would work best if people were thinking least about the ‘meta’ aspects of money, such as investments. It seems to me that, historically, public frenzy over financial topics has been a reliable predictor of collapse, and generally this starts with an attempt to use the financial system for some social engineering purpose other than the three primary purposes: store of value, unit of account, medium of exchange.

tpoacher 5y ago
As a greek person, for whom the word 'peripeteia' is totally mundane, I was very suprised to see it used in English in such a literary fashion. Thanks for that!

deleted 5y ago

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david38 5y ago

For all her money, she has a paralyzing view of relationships. She can’t make more than him, because then he’s not a real man, but she can’t make less, because real men want power.

wenincode 5y ago
I stopped reading shortly after that part. They sound insufferable.

inter_netuser 5y ago

it's amusing to read about wealth management interviews. 6 mil is just over the minimum to qualify for private banking these days. Of course they couldn't care less about the account, it's tiny.

joeman1000 5y ago

This person needs a lot of work on relationships. Sounds very unhealthy and difficult. I think only an American can gain $5m and still complain.