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My opinion, as in I think this is true but I can't claim it's an immutable law of nature: You don't get a billion dollars by leaving pennies on the table. You n

My opinion, as in I think this is true but I can't claim it's an immutable law of nature: You don't get a billion dollars by leaving pennies on the table. You need a ruthless focus on money über alles. And that focus never turns off, and doesn't exclude anything. Everything is an investment. Everything is about how it can make you more money, or potentially make you more money. Everything is about increasing that lifetime high score. So it's not that you care about your property value per se, it's that you care about every value, obsessively, all the time.

sbf501 4y ago
- skavi 4y ago
  if anyone else is confused, blue-haired is an expression that means apparently just means old.
  - denkmoon 4y ago
    For further context, "A blue rinse is a dilute hair dye used to reduce the yellowed appearance of grey or white hair."
    - potatochup 4y ago
      Funny, it was always "purple rise" where I grew up, but the meaning is the same
- bluebit 4y ago
  - refulgentis 4y ago
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  You seem really angry at your employers. Because they whine and don't give away their money? Is it really partly because of their race? Hardly seems that serious. Or was it the contrast with your own wealth that hurt so much? Perhaps better for poor people not to live too close to rich people, for their own sanity?
  - denkmoon 4y ago
    I agree, "the rich" should be segmented from wider society so as not to induce social discord. Since one is clearly a highly productive individual to have earned such money, I have no doubt they will manage to look after their own needs and desires without the poors.
- baybal2 4y ago
- deepdriver 4y ago
  I was with you until you called them "white shit," using an immutable physical characteristic as a pejorative. This has no place on HN.
cratermoon 4y ago
Wealthy people hoard money. It's an obsession. If it was food, newspapers, boxes, or old clothes, their homes would be overrun with stuff and would likely be considered a problem. But because it's not (usually) physical junk, it's not apparent. Remember the end of Citizen Kane, where the workers toss piles of stuff into a furnace? I knew a guy who had to know the price of everything and calculated everything by its monetary value. Whether or not he ended up really wealthy I don't know, but he was already pretty well off when I knew him.
- gonzo41 4y ago
  I know a man who isn't a billionaire but probably in the 50-100 million range. He sat down with me at a recent party we were at and talked about saving money on fuel with dockets via apps he uses when shopping. I was polite and interested. It was not a thing I expected to hear. My take away was to just keep driving my small car, and not require such hustle to fill up a Range Rover. :D
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    Sounds very similar to the guy I knew. Always talking about all the effort he put into shaving off pennies here and there.
- imtringued 4y ago
  This is basically the Silvio Gesell argument. People don't hoard excessive amounts of potatoes, etc so in a barter economy there wouldn't be an absurd level of wealth inequality as there is a limit to how much wealth a single individual can store by themselves. Meanwhile money doesn't spoil, takes up almost no space even if you hold it as cash, it is also risk free, it can be traded and turned into almost anything. There is no downside to having money, there is no upside to not having money, not having money is a terrible thing actually. So anytime you earn money, you just keep it until you die and then you give it to your children. The fact that money is actually meant to be a medium of exchange, not a status symbol was completely forgotten.
  - 4y ago
throwawaylinux 4y ago
I don't think it is. Or that's not the only reason, because I've seen rich people waste vast amounts of money on frivolity and vanity. It's power and superiority. It's not that they care about a relatively insignificant amount of money they might lose on paper, it's that someone else might have caused that or might have gained from it. Doubly so if that someone else is a little person.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  > Doubly so if that someone else is a little person. Maybe true in some cases, but I don't think this is generally true. I think the typical behavior is to focus on oneself and not think about the little peoples interest at all.
- kelnos 4y ago
  It is power and superiority, and hyper focus on making all values go up is a part of that. Frivolity and vanity are social signals that have value, albeit not in a monetary way. Regardless, Andreessen probably doesn't care about his property value all that much. But it's a lot more socially acceptable to say that than to say he doesn't want poor people too close to his neighborhood. (Or even just mere single- and double-digit millionaires.)
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    As I said, I don't think hyper focus on value is always what it is. Some people sure have that optimizing mindset, but far from all. In any case that's not part of the power and superiority complex as I see it. For some at least, that's not the driver, the driver is exerting their power over others and preventing someone else getting one over them. These people would happily lose money if it meant preventing that.
imtringued 4y ago
Yes this is actually the problem. In theory, once you have enough you just stop working and enjoy leisure for the rest of your life. This is why Keynes predicted a 15 hour work week, people are so obscenely wealthy they don't care anymore. In practice, becoming wealthy is alost a social darwinist selection process where you need an extreme adaptation to your environment to end up at the top, anything less and you end up in the upper middle class at best. Once you have structured your entire life around becoming wealthy it is hard to quit. This is problematic because human wants and needs aren't actually infinite. One workaholic can do the work of four people, making three out of four people redundant, but the workaholic would never give up the wealth he obtained this way, so three people end up unemployed instead of everyone working 10 hours a week. Because of this all or nothing mentality, everyone feels compelled to outdo the workaholic just to stay in their job, not because they actually need all of the money. The absurd part though is that the workaholic blames others for not doing their share, while he himself insists on doing everything, in fact, he absolutely despises anyone taking his workload off his shoulders. Somehow charity i.e. doing others work for them turned into a one sided relationship where the recipient is now the sinner through no fault of his own. People start hating each other for no reason.

sbf501 4y ago

skavi 4y ago
if anyone else is confused, blue-haired is an expression that means apparently just means old.
- denkmoon 4y ago
  For further context, "A blue rinse is a dilute hair dye used to reduce the yellowed appearance of grey or white hair."
  - potatochup 4y ago
    Funny, it was always "purple rise" where I grew up, but the meaning is the same
bluebit 4y ago
- refulgentis 4y ago
sacrosancty 4y ago
You seem really angry at your employers. Because they whine and don't give away their money? Is it really partly because of their race? Hardly seems that serious. Or was it the contrast with your own wealth that hurt so much? Perhaps better for poor people not to live too close to rich people, for their own sanity?
- denkmoon 4y ago
  I agree, "the rich" should be segmented from wider society so as not to induce social discord. Since one is clearly a highly productive individual to have earned such money, I have no doubt they will manage to look after their own needs and desires without the poors.
baybal2 4y ago
deepdriver 4y ago
I was with you until you called them "white shit," using an immutable physical characteristic as a pejorative. This has no place on HN.

cratermoon 4y ago

Wealthy people hoard money. It's an obsession. If it was food, newspapers, boxes, or old clothes, their homes would be overrun with stuff and would likely be considered a problem. But because it's not (usually) physical junk, it's not apparent. Remember the end of Citizen Kane, where the workers toss piles of stuff into a furnace? I knew a guy who had to know the price of everything and calculated everything by its monetary value. Whether or not he ended up really wealthy I don't know, but he was already pretty well off when I knew him.

gonzo41 4y ago
I know a man who isn't a billionaire but probably in the 50-100 million range. He sat down with me at a recent party we were at and talked about saving money on fuel with dockets via apps he uses when shopping. I was polite and interested. It was not a thing I expected to hear. My take away was to just keep driving my small car, and not require such hustle to fill up a Range Rover. :D
- cratermoon 4y ago
  Sounds very similar to the guy I knew. Always talking about all the effort he put into shaving off pennies here and there.
imtringued 4y ago
This is basically the Silvio Gesell argument. People don't hoard excessive amounts of potatoes, etc so in a barter economy there wouldn't be an absurd level of wealth inequality as there is a limit to how much wealth a single individual can store by themselves. Meanwhile money doesn't spoil, takes up almost no space even if you hold it as cash, it is also risk free, it can be traded and turned into almost anything. There is no downside to having money, there is no upside to not having money, not having money is a terrible thing actually. So anytime you earn money, you just keep it until you die and then you give it to your children. The fact that money is actually meant to be a medium of exchange, not a status symbol was completely forgotten.
- 4y ago

throwawaylinux 4y ago

I don't think it is. Or that's not the only reason, because I've seen rich people waste vast amounts of money on frivolity and vanity. It's power and superiority. It's not that they care about a relatively insignificant amount of money they might lose on paper, it's that someone else might have caused that or might have gained from it. Doubly so if that someone else is a little person.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
> Doubly so if that someone else is a little person. Maybe true in some cases, but I don't think this is generally true. I think the typical behavior is to focus on oneself and not think about the little peoples interest at all.
kelnos 4y ago
It is power and superiority, and hyper focus on making all values go up is a part of that. Frivolity and vanity are social signals that have value, albeit not in a monetary way. Regardless, Andreessen probably doesn't care about his property value all that much. But it's a lot more socially acceptable to say that than to say he doesn't want poor people too close to his neighborhood. (Or even just mere single- and double-digit millionaires.)
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  As I said, I don't think hyper focus on value is always what it is. Some people sure have that optimizing mindset, but far from all. In any case that's not part of the power and superiority complex as I see it. For some at least, that's not the driver, the driver is exerting their power over others and preventing someone else getting one over them. These people would happily lose money if it meant preventing that.

imtringued 4y ago

Yes this is actually the problem. In theory, once you have enough you just stop working and enjoy leisure for the rest of your life. This is why Keynes predicted a 15 hour work week, people are so obscenely wealthy they don't care anymore. In practice, becoming wealthy is alost a social darwinist selection process where you need an extreme adaptation to your environment to end up at the top, anything less and you end up in the upper middle class at best. Once you have structured your entire life around becoming wealthy it is hard to quit. This is problematic because human wants and needs aren't actually infinite. One workaholic can do the work of four people, making three out of four people redundant, but the workaholic would never give up the wealth he obtained this way, so three people end up unemployed instead of everyone working 10 hours a week. Because of this all or nothing mentality, everyone feels compelled to outdo the workaholic just to stay in their job, not because they actually need all of the money. The absurd part though is that the workaholic blames others for not doing their share, while he himself insists on doing everything, in fact, he absolutely despises anyone taking his workload off his shoulders. Somehow charity i.e. doing others work for them turned into a one sided relationship where the recipient is now the sinner through no fault of his own. People start hating each other for no reason.