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This was an important thing for me to read. For the past several years I have been trying hard to deprogram myself of the "richer is better" mindset. Part of

This was an important thing for me to read. For the past several years I have been trying hard to deprogram myself of the "richer is better" mindset. Part of my problem has been the assumption that richer people believe themselves to be better than those less rich, to the point that someone like Bill Gates would think less of someone who "only" had a couple million dollars. I'm slowly weaning myself off of this damaging viewpoint. Something that has really helped have been TED Talks: it's awesome to see a room full of people - some of them hugely wealthy and successful - looking with absolute respect and awe at the presenter on stage talking about (say) the intelligence of crows. This answer by Gates really helps further cement the idea in my mind that, yes, having more money is great to a point, but in the end, what have you DONE with your life? What have you MADE that brings value to the rest of the world? Those are the kind of things that bring true respect to you, from the rich and non-rich alike.

alexhaefner 15y ago
I find it increasingly bizarre, day by day, that people are so fixated on money and not value, or meaningfulness. There's something about the way that money is discussed on HN that I find odd, but I haven't quite put my finger on it yet. Maybe it's that there can sometimes feel like a larger emphasis on politics or money than the things people have actually created... maybe. I'm not sure. I'm still working on figuring it out. Anyways, cheers to you!
- nickpinkston 15y ago
  Totally - the startup scene now seems to be trending more Hollywood than real meaning. There's so much awesome talent going to optimizing coupons, and not to improving the human condition.
  - cynest 15y ago
    But would they even be in the startup scene if it weren't for the profits? The chance at being the next x or y and making enough money to retire in luxury before the age of 30 is a nontrivial motivator when considering creating a startup. Looking at certain startups it's patently obvious that helping humanity was not a primary concern.
    - slowpoke 15y ago
      > it's patently obvious that helping humanity was not a primary concern. But that's exactly what your parent is criticizing. There are genius people in the startup scene whose talents would be better applied to solve problems that actually matter, and not "optimize coupons".
      - mattgreenrocks 15y ago
        The problem is the inanity of the culture is glorified. Techcrunch is often just entrepeneurial porn. The community could do so much more if it first asked, "what does this do for people?" rather than "does it make us a billion dollars?" There's plenty of opportunity out there -- especially if you focus on delighting your customers.
- cma 15y ago
  >There's something about the way that money is discussed on HN that I find odd, but I haven't quite put my finger on it yet. I haven't frequented Slashdot in years, but this is definitely the most striking difference between it (as I remember it) an HN.
  - mistermann 15y ago
    That's right, I haven't been there for years either, but money was never discussed there. Simpler times I guess. Maybe a person should go bac to see what it's like?
    - cobrausn 15y ago
      Having been there a bit recently, I can't really say things have changed for the better. A lot of discussion and sigs are focusing on money these days. Politics surrounding money is a more common topic than tech.
- Homunculiheaded 15y ago
  I think the fixation on money is mostly because it's quantifiable. Most people, at least at some point in their lives, feel the need to compare themselves to those around them. There's 2 problems with value and meaning. First when you have a life that is fulfilled and meaningful you tend to be less interested in demonstrating that you are provably superior others or even ranking yourself, after all if you are fulfilled what gain is there? And more practically, it's a qualitative thing, there is no ordered relation on the set of value and meaning in ones life, so you can't really compare in an absolute manner. Having gone through several large pay increases in my life, the really strange thing is that salary doesn't really affect that much. It slightly reduces stress about 'having enough' though most middle class (upper and lower) people can always be wiped out by disasters, and it only slightly improves your day to day life. When I was younger I'm sure I dreamed about making what I do today, but having gotten there I realize that if I were ever to arrive at my revised dream salary today it probably wouldn't change all that much.
- mousa 15y ago
  There is a small but vocal subset of people on HN who find it hard to believe anyone cares about anything besides money. I think some people just want a simple way of deciding how good they are doing at life.
  - johnyzee 15y ago
    Jack Welch said something like "I don't care about money, I care about winning. Money is just a way of keeping score." Indeed, in the game of business, it does seem the most appropriate way to keep score. That doesn't mean business is the only game in town.
- mattm 15y ago
  > I find it increasingly bizarre, day by day, that people are so fixated on money and not value, or meaningfulness. ...or happiness. I recently read "Stumbling on Happiness" which had an interesting discussion on the fact that there are several studies that show that pay raises up to around $45k per year result in an increase in happiness. But after that, an increases in salary brings only a marginal increase in happiness, if that. So the question he raised is that if one doesn't receive additional happiness from earning more than $45k, what is the reason for doing so? Most other human actions are geared towards happiness. It really got me thinking about the subject.
  - mistermann 15y ago
    Security?
    - gujk 15y ago
      Eh. Anyone who piled up a hunk of savings and invested it in the 2000s saw it get decimated or hemimated and took a hit against happiness. Taking more vacation or a fun lower paying job might well have been higher utility. But yeah, having a savings cushion while unemployment is rampant is satisfying.
      - thomaslangston 15y ago
        A fluffy savings cushion sounds luxurious. I want a ladder to climb out of debt and 45k a year doesn't do much towards that.
        mattm 15y ago
        I paid off $35k worth of student loan debt within 3 years of graduating. While I was in debt, earning more to pay it off was a great motivator. Now that I'm debt free and have my basic living costs covered without worry, more money just does not motivate me anymore. The most depressing comment I read on HN was one guy telling a story about a sales manager he knew that encouraged his sales people to go into debt so they would be more motivated to earn more and therefore, make more sales.
davidjohnstone 15y ago
I found it interesting that Steve Jobs was worth "only" about $6B when he died, and more of that wealth came from Pixar than Apple. But, the driving force behind wealthy and successful people is very rarely money.
- mattm 15y ago
  I don't quite believe that. Look at periods of history where high taxes on wealth have led to a drastic decrease in entrepreneurship activity. I think the dream of becoming wealthy is what does drive people initially, however, (not through experience but from what I've learned from others) once wealthy the pursuit of earning more money does not become the motivation - although I did work for someone who had sold a previous company for a lot of money who went against this. It seems you do need that initial dream to be about wealth in order to get some people to reach for success.
  - adaml_623 15y ago
    Any chance you could elaborate on the periods of history that you are talking about?
    - mattm 15y ago
      Off the top of my head, I believe before Margaret Thatcher took office in Britain, taxes reached 99% at the top level which stagnated the economy. There are other periods I have read about but can't remember the specifics at the moment.
WalterBright 15y ago
If you make a billion dollars in a free market economy, you have also created a billion dollars in value for others.
- breckinloggins 15y ago
  Agreed. I'm not claiming I wouldn't love to make a billion dollars, but I have a feeling that fixating on it is not the winning strategy.
- gjm11 15y ago
  No. If you make $1B in a free market economy, you have also provided (at least) $1B in value to others. You need not have created it: you might simply have arranged for them to have it rather than other people. An obvious example would be an extraordinarily effective thief, but one needn't be so blatant. For instance, the main effect of a successful investment advisor's work may be to transfer money from people who haven't taken her advice to people who have. (There may be some benefit to the -- presumably better-than-average -- companies she suggests investing in, but there's no reason why that should be large.) I think one grievance of the OWS protestors is, roughly, that many of the richest people have got that way simply by arranging for their clients to have money at others' expense, rather than by creating value. Though they probably mostly wouldn't put it that way.
  - WalterBright 15y ago
    The reason I mentioned "free market" was to not consider gaining money through theft, fraud, extortion, blackmail, etc. In a free market economy, one creates value and then exchanges that value for money. This means that in order for one person to get wealthy, it is not necessary for them to drain wealth from others. Equal value is exchanged. In other words, one gets wealthy by making the pie bigger, not taking other peoples' pie.
    - gjm11 15y ago
      At least one of us is very confused. In a free market, of course one can get wealthy by growing the pie. But one can also get wealthy without growing the pie, even when illegal or blatantly unethical actions are not involved. For instance, consider a country with a perfectly free market, in which many of the people enjoy betting on horse races. These bets use a tote system, which means in effect that the odds are set automatically according to how betters are betting (and the owner takes a small cut from every bet, makes a steady profit, and gets rich). There are some professional betting advisors, who watch lots of races and monitor the appearance and performance of the horses. Some of them are very good at evaluating how likely a given horse is to win in a given race. They charge large fees. Clients of a very good betting advisor will win more of their bets; they will, on average, lose less money at the races. They may even gain on average, if the other people betting haven't been well advised. If you bet without such good advice (or equivalent horse-assessing skills of your own) then you will, on average, lose more at the races than if the well-advised people weren't betting. The immediate effect of the betting advisors' work, on average, is simply to transfer money from people who aren't their clients to people who are. (And to themselves.) These betting advisors certainly provide value to their clients. They may, if they're good enough and have many clients who bet a lot, be very handsomely paid and deserve every bit, in the sense that their clients gain more from the advice than they pay for it. But they have added no value at all to the world; they have not grown the pie. If the advisors' advice is very good, they charge very large fees, and extremely cheap credit is not readily available, then someone wealthy can engage a betting advisor and reap a profit at the races that exceeds the advisor's fees, while someone less wealthy can't afford to pay an advisor. This may become an appealing investment activity for the wealthy. Effectively, what the advisors are then doing is to increase the price (for the majority) of betting on the horses, while diverting some of the profits to themselves and their clients. If the effective price increase is too large, no one unadvised will bet any more, the horse-racing business will collapse, and lots of people will be in trouble. (The people who actually organize the races and the betting will probably lower their prices to maximize their profits in the new situation, which will postpone that disaster.) But as long as that doesn't happen, everyone's still reasonably content. Compared with not having the betting advisors: (1) the people who organize the races will take less profit, (2) the betting advisors and their clients will take more profit, (3) ordinary betters will lose more, and (4) the actual results of the horse races will be entirely unaltered. Again, the advisors have not grown the pie; they and their clients gain at the expense of the unadvised betters and the people who organize the races and betting (the latter being the only ones who are actually adding any value in this scenario, by providing an activity that people enjoy more than they pay for it). So, in this hypothetical scenario, betting advisors get wealthy neither by making the pie bigger nor by taking other people's pie, but by arranging for their clients to get more pie while other people get less. (You might feel inclined to draw an analogy with, say, hedge funds in the real world. But the situations are not precisely equivalent, and I am not claiming that they are.)

alexhaefner 15y ago

I find it increasingly bizarre, day by day, that people are so fixated on money and not value, or meaningfulness. There's something about the way that money is discussed on HN that I find odd, but I haven't quite put my finger on it yet. Maybe it's that there can sometimes feel like a larger emphasis on politics or money than the things people have actually created... maybe. I'm not sure. I'm still working on figuring it out. Anyways, cheers to you!

nickpinkston 15y ago
Totally - the startup scene now seems to be trending more Hollywood than real meaning. There's so much awesome talent going to optimizing coupons, and not to improving the human condition.
- cynest 15y ago
  But would they even be in the startup scene if it weren't for the profits? The chance at being the next x or y and making enough money to retire in luxury before the age of 30 is a nontrivial motivator when considering creating a startup. Looking at certain startups it's patently obvious that helping humanity was not a primary concern.
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    > it's patently obvious that helping humanity was not a primary concern. But that's exactly what your parent is criticizing. There are genius people in the startup scene whose talents would be better applied to solve problems that actually matter, and not "optimize coupons".
    - mattgreenrocks 15y ago
      The problem is the inanity of the culture is glorified. Techcrunch is often just entrepeneurial porn. The community could do so much more if it first asked, "what does this do for people?" rather than "does it make us a billion dollars?" There's plenty of opportunity out there -- especially if you focus on delighting your customers.
cma 15y ago
>There's something about the way that money is discussed on HN that I find odd, but I haven't quite put my finger on it yet. I haven't frequented Slashdot in years, but this is definitely the most striking difference between it (as I remember it) an HN.
- mistermann 15y ago
  That's right, I haven't been there for years either, but money was never discussed there. Simpler times I guess. Maybe a person should go bac to see what it's like?
  - cobrausn 15y ago
    Having been there a bit recently, I can't really say things have changed for the better. A lot of discussion and sigs are focusing on money these days. Politics surrounding money is a more common topic than tech.
Homunculiheaded 15y ago
I think the fixation on money is mostly because it's quantifiable. Most people, at least at some point in their lives, feel the need to compare themselves to those around them. There's 2 problems with value and meaning. First when you have a life that is fulfilled and meaningful you tend to be less interested in demonstrating that you are provably superior others or even ranking yourself, after all if you are fulfilled what gain is there? And more practically, it's a qualitative thing, there is no ordered relation on the set of value and meaning in ones life, so you can't really compare in an absolute manner. Having gone through several large pay increases in my life, the really strange thing is that salary doesn't really affect that much. It slightly reduces stress about 'having enough' though most middle class (upper and lower) people can always be wiped out by disasters, and it only slightly improves your day to day life. When I was younger I'm sure I dreamed about making what I do today, but having gotten there I realize that if I were ever to arrive at my revised dream salary today it probably wouldn't change all that much.
mousa 15y ago
There is a small but vocal subset of people on HN who find it hard to believe anyone cares about anything besides money. I think some people just want a simple way of deciding how good they are doing at life.
- johnyzee 15y ago
  Jack Welch said something like "I don't care about money, I care about winning. Money is just a way of keeping score." Indeed, in the game of business, it does seem the most appropriate way to keep score. That doesn't mean business is the only game in town.
mattm 15y ago
> I find it increasingly bizarre, day by day, that people are so fixated on money and not value, or meaningfulness. ...or happiness. I recently read "Stumbling on Happiness" which had an interesting discussion on the fact that there are several studies that show that pay raises up to around $45k per year result in an increase in happiness. But after that, an increases in salary brings only a marginal increase in happiness, if that. So the question he raised is that if one doesn't receive additional happiness from earning more than $45k, what is the reason for doing so? Most other human actions are geared towards happiness. It really got me thinking about the subject.
- mistermann 15y ago
  Security?
  - gujk 15y ago
    Eh. Anyone who piled up a hunk of savings and invested it in the 2000s saw it get decimated or hemimated and took a hit against happiness. Taking more vacation or a fun lower paying job might well have been higher utility. But yeah, having a savings cushion while unemployment is rampant is satisfying.
    - thomaslangston 15y ago
      A fluffy savings cushion sounds luxurious. I want a ladder to climb out of debt and 45k a year doesn't do much towards that.
      - mattm 15y ago
        I paid off $35k worth of student loan debt within 3 years of graduating. While I was in debt, earning more to pay it off was a great motivator. Now that I'm debt free and have my basic living costs covered without worry, more money just does not motivate me anymore. The most depressing comment I read on HN was one guy telling a story about a sales manager he knew that encouraged his sales people to go into debt so they would be more motivated to earn more and therefore, make more sales.

davidjohnstone 15y ago

I found it interesting that Steve Jobs was worth "only" about $6B when he died, and more of that wealth came from Pixar than Apple. But, the driving force behind wealthy and successful people is very rarely money.

mattm 15y ago
I don't quite believe that. Look at periods of history where high taxes on wealth have led to a drastic decrease in entrepreneurship activity. I think the dream of becoming wealthy is what does drive people initially, however, (not through experience but from what I've learned from others) once wealthy the pursuit of earning more money does not become the motivation - although I did work for someone who had sold a previous company for a lot of money who went against this. It seems you do need that initial dream to be about wealth in order to get some people to reach for success.
- adaml_623 15y ago
  Any chance you could elaborate on the periods of history that you are talking about?
  - mattm 15y ago
    Off the top of my head, I believe before Margaret Thatcher took office in Britain, taxes reached 99% at the top level which stagnated the economy. There are other periods I have read about but can't remember the specifics at the moment.

WalterBright 15y ago

If you make a billion dollars in a free market economy, you have also created a billion dollars in value for others.

breckinloggins 15y ago
Agreed. I'm not claiming I wouldn't love to make a billion dollars, but I have a feeling that fixating on it is not the winning strategy.
gjm11 15y ago
No. If you make $1B in a free market economy, you have also provided (at least) $1B in value to others. You need not have created it: you might simply have arranged for them to have it rather than other people. An obvious example would be an extraordinarily effective thief, but one needn't be so blatant. For instance, the main effect of a successful investment advisor's work may be to transfer money from people who haven't taken her advice to people who have. (There may be some benefit to the -- presumably better-than-average -- companies she suggests investing in, but there's no reason why that should be large.) I think one grievance of the OWS protestors is, roughly, that many of the richest people have got that way simply by arranging for their clients to have money at others' expense, rather than by creating value. Though they probably mostly wouldn't put it that way.
- WalterBright 15y ago
  The reason I mentioned "free market" was to not consider gaining money through theft, fraud, extortion, blackmail, etc. In a free market economy, one creates value and then exchanges that value for money. This means that in order for one person to get wealthy, it is not necessary for them to drain wealth from others. Equal value is exchanged. In other words, one gets wealthy by making the pie bigger, not taking other peoples' pie.
  - gjm11 15y ago
    At least one of us is very confused. In a free market, of course one can get wealthy by growing the pie. But one can also get wealthy without growing the pie, even when illegal or blatantly unethical actions are not involved. For instance, consider a country with a perfectly free market, in which many of the people enjoy betting on horse races. These bets use a tote system, which means in effect that the odds are set automatically according to how betters are betting (and the owner takes a small cut from every bet, makes a steady profit, and gets rich). There are some professional betting advisors, who watch lots of races and monitor the appearance and performance of the horses. Some of them are very good at evaluating how likely a given horse is to win in a given race. They charge large fees. Clients of a very good betting advisor will win more of their bets; they will, on average, lose less money at the races. They may even gain on average, if the other people betting haven't been well advised. If you bet without such good advice (or equivalent horse-assessing skills of your own) then you will, on average, lose more at the races than if the well-advised people weren't betting. The immediate effect of the betting advisors' work, on average, is simply to transfer money from people who aren't their clients to people who are. (And to themselves.) These betting advisors certainly provide value to their clients. They may, if they're good enough and have many clients who bet a lot, be very handsomely paid and deserve every bit, in the sense that their clients gain more from the advice than they pay for it. But they have added no value at all to the world; they have not grown the pie. If the advisors' advice is very good, they charge very large fees, and extremely cheap credit is not readily available, then someone wealthy can engage a betting advisor and reap a profit at the races that exceeds the advisor's fees, while someone less wealthy can't afford to pay an advisor. This may become an appealing investment activity for the wealthy. Effectively, what the advisors are then doing is to increase the price (for the majority) of betting on the horses, while diverting some of the profits to themselves and their clients. If the effective price increase is too large, no one unadvised will bet any more, the horse-racing business will collapse, and lots of people will be in trouble. (The people who actually organize the races and the betting will probably lower their prices to maximize their profits in the new situation, which will postpone that disaster.) But as long as that doesn't happen, everyone's still reasonably content. Compared with not having the betting advisors: (1) the people who organize the races will take less profit, (2) the betting advisors and their clients will take more profit, (3) ordinary betters will lose more, and (4) the actual results of the horse races will be entirely unaltered. Again, the advisors have not grown the pie; they and their clients gain at the expense of the unadvised betters and the people who organize the races and betting (the latter being the only ones who are actually adding any value in this scenario, by providing an activity that people enjoy more than they pay for it). So, in this hypothetical scenario, betting advisors get wealthy neither by making the pie bigger nor by taking other people's pie, but by arranging for their clients to get more pie while other people get less. (You might feel inclined to draw an analogy with, say, hedge funds in the real world. But the situations are not precisely equivalent, and I am not claiming that they are.)