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A Few Laws of Getting Rich
- greatpostman 3y agoI made a significant amount of money at once. It ended up destroying a few long term friendships. In hindsight, maybe that was my fault. But human nature is a funny thing, and rapid changes in social status will reap havoc on social equilibriums built over decades
- Consultant32452 3y agoIt happened to me at much lower $. I grew up poor, all my friends are solidly blue collar middle class. I live in one of the nicer areas in my city, one tier down from the where the people live whose name you would know. When you're poor, getting some extra $ means maybe you boost your 401k or something. But once you are doing the max, or maybe you make so much you can't legally put money in 401k, it's very confusing. My lifestyle didn't even change but I asked one of my friends for advice, if they had any family or something who had some money and I immediately lost that friend.
- ghaff 3y agoWell, it's probably hard to not let sufficiently large differences in wealth not affect the type of activities you want to do and some attitudes. Sure, you might still like to cook a lot of your own meals and go on cheap roadtrips. But absent money as a real consideration you're very possibly also going to want to do things that a person with a lot less money just can't reasonably afford--and while you can pick up a night out here and there it's not something that it's going to be comfortable to do all the time in general.
- williadc 3y agoNot sure if that was a one-time mistake, but "wreak havoc" is typically how that phrase is written.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoHow might you do things different, if you were to have a second chance at that experience?
- throwaway98797 3y agomoney makes you more of yourself no one knows which drink will turn you into an alcoholic… it could be your next one same with money your next or first million might the thing that will disconnect you from all that you hold dear
- haltist 3y agoDid you know that money is entirely a social construction?
- supportengineer 3y agoIt's awfully real when you are hungry.
- haltist 3y agoYou can't eat money, it doesn't grow on trees. Well, I guess you can eat it but it has no nutritional value.
- mrmincent 3y agoThere are a lot of things you can’t eat, but are very important tools to help you get food. Words, ideas, friendships, jobs. None of them are edible, but very useful. Money is another one.
- ssivark 3y agoSo is sanity :-P
- haltist 3y agoIndeed.
- DonaldTruck 3y agoI can't wait to try that one on the salesperson at the Lamborghini dealership.
- svnt 3y agoDisappointed they landed on the hero worship bus of “there’s no way a billion dollars at 18 would have stopped Bill Gates.” Yes, it absolutely would have. Inflation-adjusted that would be nearly $10 B in cash. He might not have gone and rested on an island but he almost certainly would have done something like pump wild amounts of money into Traf-O-Data and spin out before Microsoft could become a thing.
- paulpauper 3y agoI think only $6 but your point stands https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1974?amount=1 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1974?amount=1
- teucris 3y agoUgh. All these articles conflate the idea of “getting rich” with the kind of wealth that most people don’t know what to do with, eg billions of dollars. What about just reaching the point where you never need to work again? Can we talk about how that’s a reasonable goal for people to push for rather than accumulating the net worth of a small country?
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoThen it will sound like there’s a continuum of wealth, rather than the black-and-white, soapy-journalism-primed “haves and have-nots” that modern media can’t stop talking about
- galaxyLogic 3y agoMost billionaires still work I think. I personally believe that true contentment in life is if you can do something meaningful to help others. The human connection is such a basic thing in life. We want love, not just sex. You might think that getting lots of money would make other people like you more but I think that is the opposite. Billionaires really aren't that "likable" are they?
- samuria 3y agoThey are very much liked by people who are interested in their wealth. Which I think is the wrong reason to "like" someone for.
- galaxyLogic 3y agoRight but I think they know it themselves, so they cannot be sure whether people really like them for other things besides money. The point I was trying to make was that people want to get rich really because they want to be truly liked and appreciated by others. Whether we suck up to a billionaire or try to perhaps con them somehow WE know that we don't "like" them very much. But really I don't know any billionaires, I've only seen them on TV, so I may be wrong.
- WalterBright 3y ago
- paulpauper 3y agoThere are 13 divorces among the 10 richest men in the world. Seven of the top ten have been divorced at least once. and over how long of a time period? compared to national average? so what Money is good for solving problem which have a price tag. Is this all problems? No, but its's a lot. Fun fact: Medicare and Medicaid exclude a lot of things, like teeth implants, hearing aids, glasses, elective procedures. having money helps in that regard. 3. The richer you become, the less likely people around you are to tell you when you’re wrong, crazy, mean, or oblivious. Hmm..elon musk? People are always telling him how crazy he is. But maybe not the people close to him, who should have talked him out of buying Twitter for $44 billion, which was dumb. “Because if you don’t give them the money they’ll hate you,” Charlie said. lol Munger so old his kids gonna die before he does, so I guess that solves that problem This is especially true when what made you rich was some form of advertising your success in a way that made others want to help and support you. When admiration turns to envy, that support dwindles, and people’s tolerance for your errors shrinks. If a no-name journalist wrote a book obliquely defending Sam Bankman-Fried, no one would care – they may have actually congratulated the author. But since Michael Lewis did, the pitchforks came out. The pitchforks came out not because of a low-tolerance for errors, but his trying to whitewash an obvious fraud and general lack of basic understanding and rewriting of history of the FTX scam.
- marcus_holmes 3y ago"Money won't make you happy, but poverty will make you miserable"
- paulpauper 3y agothis is it. the fact people who are successful have to constantly downplay money has stuck me as odd. Except for that Sky Mall guy, afik exactly zero very wealthy people have voluntarily relinquished all or most of their money while alive.
- medler 3y agoI remember reading an article* a few years ago about how the world’s richest men, including Gates and Bezos, all had very stable marriages. That take didn’t age too well. * this isn’t the article I read but it’s similar https://www.ft.com/content/13cf5fc2-e9cb-11e4-ae1c-00144feab7de https://www.ft.com/content/13cf5fc2-e9cb-11e4-ae1c-00144feab...
- paulpauper 3y agoThe Bill Gates marriage lasted a long time -27 years. I think that is longer than most
- traviswingo 3y ago> When the benefits of money are so obvious but the downsides are so subtle, the downsides you didn’t anticipate can be more jarring than the benefits you expected. This is a really important aspect of seeking wealth that many people don’t understand. The jump from poverty to no longer missing bills is much more significant than the jump from middle class to upper class. It’s the reason why so many studies exist showing that past $75,000 per year (not inflation adjusted, so try $120k or so), more money doesn’t tend to make you happier. Instead, you trade freedom and happiness for the money you thought would bring you freedom and happiness. Also, trying to become a billionaire is most definitely a lonely and sad path. A somewhat healthier goal would be to become “financially free,” whatever that means to you. No longer needing to work, allows you to do the work you actually love.
- paulpauper 3y agoIt’s the reason why so many studies exist showing that past $75,000 per year (not inflation adjusted, so try $120k or so) I believe this was debunked https://www.verywellmind.com/happiness-doesn-t-top-out-at-usd75-000-study-says-5097098 https://www.verywellmind.com/happiness-doesn-t-top-out-at-us...
- andyferris 3y agoFollowing the links, we arrive at Fig. 1 of https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2016976118 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2016976118.
- cipheredStones 3y agoI'd caution against saying one study was "debunked" because another one disagrees with it. Later does not necessarily mean better. However, in this particular case, the author of the $75k study (Daniel Kahneman, one of the founders of the field of behavioral economics) did an "adversarial collaboration" with the author of the later paper, and found that emotional well-being did continue to rise with income - except for the least happy 20% of people. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120
- m3kw9 3y agoPeople that is trying to be “rich” will fantasize and will always look at all the positives of having “lots” of money but cannot imagine it’s unavoidable downsides if you don’t prepare your mind for it.
- smitty1e 3y agoGreat article. One point hinted at but missed is that joy is a theistic proposition. Nothing wrong or right about money as such; one's attitude toward it is key.
- sprior 3y agoIn point 1 where Will Smith is quoted reminded me of about the year after I graduated college. I wasn't anywhere close to rich, but I had just achieved every goal I had set for myself: I got hired by the company I was hoping for, was living in a reasonably nice place and was in a relationship with my future (ex) wife. I was in a good place, but also slightly lost while I figured out my next set of goals.