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Same situation, I truly empathise because it really does seem to take a lot of purpose out of everything. What I’ve found is that you need to replace money/sala

• coldtea 2y ago
  >Same situation, I truly empathise because it really does seem to take a lot of purpose out of everything. Mainly though if all the purpose-giving focus was on just getting money and the related grinding to begin with. Getting mega-rich didn't take the purpose out of Steve Jobs, for example, which was focused on building stuff with some specific twist (his idea of good design). Or Steve Wozniak for that matter, he found hobbies aplenty. Or take the Rolling Stones. Filthy rich, but did they ever give the impression they got bored? Or Dylan, equally rich, which doesn't even have the extravagant lifestyle of models and exotic vacations and high life the Stones had, but is still content to record, jam, play concerts etc. into his 80s. If the person has other interests, from programming to mountaineering, and from politics to art, they can still be there with or without money. Like the "guitarist in the local jazz and blues scene" thing.
  • paulpauper 2y ago
    Paul Allen comes to mind. makes a hobby buying the most expensive artifacts known, as well as a bunch of other stuff like starting a band.
    • skeeter2020 2y ago
      Balmer (and Cuban) seem to love continuing to do other, big stuff.
  • benatkin 2y ago
    > but did they ever give the impression they got bored It often gets described as washed up rather than bored, but yes. Dylan is a good contrast.
    • metanonsense 2y ago
      Been on a Dylan concert a few months ago, and I really wondered why he did this to himself, at his age, with his money. He seemed so utterly bored.
      • coldtea 2y ago
        Little to do with age or boredom. He is like that in most concerts since he was 20. It's not being an "entertainer", as his is not Mick Jagger's song and dance style
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• 101008 2y ago
  This is my dream. Having enough money to be able to dedicate to things I like, trying to be good at something without worrying about money, or time, or being tired after work. Open a bookshop, being a rare book dealer, open a small museum about an author, research on a particular topic and write books... That would be the ultimate dream, though I am sure I won't ever be near to fulfill it.
  • david38 2y ago
    Problem then when you get bored, your bookstore still requires work. At a certain level of wealth, any job you can do can be done by someone else better and cheaper
    • codetrotter 2y ago
      After you have the bookstore up and running, you could hire a few people to take care of daily operations. It would still be your bookshop, and you could drop by every now and then and just hang out in the store read some of the books, or you could even whenever you felt like getting more involved on some days tell your staff that they can take the day off if they like and they will still get their pay for the day and you’ll handle the customers and the register. I dunno, this is just how I imagine it could work. I’m not rich, and I don’t own any bookstore or any other kind of shop for that matter so maybe my idea here is off the mark.
      • 101008 2y ago
        I had a similar idea in mind. Or worst case, if I get bored, I can sell it and do something else! I'd have a lot of money and time.
    • GaylordTuring 2y ago
      It does? What happens if you don’t show up for a month? Or just keep it open once a week? As long as you remember to clear out the fridge every now and then, you should be fine :)
  • steveBK123 2y ago
• user3939382 2y ago
  > For me, I am focused on proving myself as a guitarist in the local jazz and blues scene. So you’re Dickey from The Talented Mr. Ripely?
• ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
  That last point is salient. I grew very rich in the last 3 - 4 years and I funded a bunch of my friend's startup ideas. Now I cannot bear myself to reply to their happy new year wishes because how the relationships have soured.
  • whatshisface 2y ago
    If you're never getting that money back, you might as well forgive them and forget it. Then at least you'd keep the friends.
    • nodesocket 2y ago
      I had a friend who I lent money to his startup during Covid. He promised would be paid back within a year. Multiple hard conversations and it’s 4 years later and not one cent has been paid back to me. We currently don’t speak to each other. He’s delusional with his startup ideas, lives in lala fantasy land. Refuses to get a job and take any responsibility. He has zero track record of success, so it’s somewhat my fault for loaning him money.
      • jhghikvhu 2y ago
        It's your fault for lending money rather than asking for a % of profits (if any) like a normal early investor.
        • nodesocket 2y ago
          I tend to think having fiscal responsibility, morals and not being a shyster as the person who’s at fault.
          • llamaimperative 2y ago
            Never loan money to friends is like “having money 101.” You can gift it or you can invest it with appropriate caveats given to any external investor, but never lend it. This is common advice because it turns good relationships bad, that manifests as viewing former friends as shysters
• asdfman123 2y ago
  People need work to be happy. That doesn't have to be, say, office work necessarily: it can be making music full time, or volunteering at a hospital, or any number of other things. But you have to have something keeping you busy that makes you feel like you have a purpose.
  • j4coh 2y ago
    Totally agree. But it can be surprisingly hard to find what this is for yourself when you are used to climbing the school / corporate / startup ladder your whole life.
  • voisin 2y ago
    You’re on the right track, but I think it’s a bit deeper than just needing something to work on or stay busy with. I effectively retired a few years ago and have spent the time since engaging in various “work” across the kinds of categories you mention. Yet, all of these efforts have carried a sense of purposelessness—a lingering question of whether any of it truly matters, especially knowing I could stop tomorrow without significantly impacting my wellbeing. This contrasts sharply with the purpose I felt when I had less money and was struggling to build my business. Back then, everything felt deeply do-or-die meaningful. Now, no amount of exercise, goodwill, or intellectual pursuits compares in terms of providing that same sense of purpose. I don’t think humans need the pursuit of money itself to be happy, but once the foundational needs in Maslow’s hierarchy are met, the higher levels often feel less urgent—and, paradoxically, less fulfilling. There seems to be diminishing returns from “work” as a source of purpose.
    • porknubbins 2y ago
      As someone who kind of quasi temporarily retired early a few times this is the biggest problem I see. I learned foreign languages and programming languages out of pure necessity to survive and it was thrilling to succeed and make money with them. So everyone (at least me) has this fantasy of how much better it would be to learn things on their own schedule for pleasure without undue pressure, but they don’t realize the pressure to survive was what made it feel so meaningful without that they soon fall into dilletantism. For all his issues I think this is why Musk has gotten so much done, because he ups the ante enough to feel real risk if be fails.
• throwaway6734 2y ago
  Do you have children? If not, it's a great use of time, especially without financial pressure
  • tanvach 2y ago
    Children are giver of immense sense of satisfaction that’s totally disconnected to wealth (though being wealthy certainly helps). Just remember - no short cuts.
    • Aeolun 2y ago
      I'm fairly certain children are a much greater giver of satisfaction without wealth, because when you have money you suddenly feel like you need to provide them all the best, whereas if you have none, you only feel like you need to keep them alive.
      • skeeter2020 2y ago
        Like most things in life the need grows to just beyond the level you can supply. Maybe someone with nothing starts with "keep them alive" but once that's covered you move up the hierarchy.
    • prmoustache 2y ago
      > though being wealthy certainly helps I think it is worse actually.
    • ToDougie 2y ago
      Children are the best. The highs in life are orders of magnitude higher, and the lows are _so_ much lower. But the baseline is incalculably higher. My children have made me feel so much more fulfilled. And they have also made me better.
  • j4coh 2y ago
    I do, and I love being available for them. I have time to teach my kids music and things I know, which is awesome.
• jerojero 2y ago
  Seems weird that you have to advice people that they should hide their success from people they're befriending. Living a double life like that doesn't seem right to me. It has something to do, perhaps, with the type of people you're surrounding yourself with. If someone can't be friends with you without asking you for money why are you keeping such people around in the first place.
  • HKH2 2y ago
    Using discretion or being modest isn't necessarily living a double life. I'm sure there are plenty of things you're not open about; that doesn't necessarily make you fake, does it?
    • jerojero 2y ago
      I thought we were talking about friends? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the meaning of the word. I wouldn't imagine being friends with someone and not trusting them with knowing how successful I am. I think maybe, and this might be a cultural thing, a lot of people tend to use the word lightly. I simply wouldn't get to a stage of being friends with someone I am not able to trust in such a way that I have to hide how much money I have from them.
      • sokoloff 2y ago
        My friends can accurately assess my net worth within a factor of +/- 5, but where exactly in that range isn't necessary for them to know. Even my closest friends probably can't reliably put it within +/- a factor of 2 (nor do they need to for any valid purpose).
      • naming_the_user 2y ago
        I think the issue here is that with retirement levels of money existing friendships can become strained. If your high school friend earns 50k a year and you earn 100 then I mean sure, you have different toys, bigger house, whatever, but you're both existing in the same universe with similar constraints. If your high school friend earns 50k a year and you suddenly have 60 million like the guy in the post then it's more of a test because your lifestyle can just differ hugely. Some people can handle it but with others there will be an underlying resentment. There are lots of layers to it. They look for work - you look for suitable employees. Having said that, in my experience there are only really a few major cut-offs, one between homeless/terminally skint and working, one between working and being able to live off of investment income, _maybe_ one at the sort of bodyguard required super famous level. Inside those it's just sort of like, yeah ok, your car/yacht/jet/whatever is better than mine, cool.
• codetrotter 2y ago
  > I’m doing part time consulting, mainly for people I worked with in the past who have started companies, just to scratch the tech itch How do you pick you hourly rate? If a friend of yours of the past came to you and asked you to consult for him, and your friend offered you say $80 USD per hour, would you find it offensively low? For someone who doesn’t have a lot and wants to hire consultants for their small projects, I think offering $80 USD per hour is not bad. But I’m curious to know how that amount feels to a potential consultant if the consultant already had a lot. Or do you prefer taking a percentage of shares in your friend’s company as pay? Or something else?
  • j4coh 2y ago
    I am happy to take whatever they offer (including helping for free) depending on where they are at. I don’t need it really and I’m happy to help. But most people at least that I’ve worked with are happy to do what’s fair. I haven’t ended up in a hostile negotiation or anything close to it.
  • ska 2y ago
    FWIW I’ve done similar for friends who are on a tight budget , consulting for 1/2, 1/3 1/5 “regular” rate. Sometimes with equity but not always. I’m nowhere near rich, but when I was consulting full time of I had enough hours to hit my “ok” target for the year, it felt right to be flexible with some of the rest of my time …
  • rramadass 2y ago
    > How do you pick you hourly rate? A fair formula that i was given years ago is; Take the annual salary you would be paid if you were an employee, add 30% to it for overhead/profit and divide by 48 (working weeks in a year) to get your weekly rate. Divide by 40hrs to get the hourly rate. Another one is to take your annual salary, divide by 250 (working days in a year) to get your daily rate and increase that by 30%, billing in daily units. The above formula can and should be tweaked based on the project, client, your needs etc.
    • ska 2y ago
      The tricky thing about formulas like this is that it is very domain dependent. What you describe is a reasonable approach for a freelancer who expects to bill most working hours. It falls apart for a lot of consulting scenarios where you bill fewer hours and spend more time generating work. In that case you may be better off setting rates so that e.g. 1000 billed hours will reach your base target salary equivalent...
• elevatedastalt 2y ago
  > One big piece of advice I have is to try to avoid letting others in your social network know exactly how successful you’ve been. The time to do that was _before_ writing a blog post titled "I am rich" and submitting it to HN
  • satvikpendem 2y ago
    They already know who he is, he was a public figure executive that sold his company, everyone in his social circle would know what Loom was and would read in the news how much it sold for.
  • Aeolun 2y ago
    Well, you can make new friends. I have no idea what actual name is behind vinay.sh :?
    • YouWhy 2y ago
      The domain name is consistent with the name of one of the founders of the mentioned startup, Loom.
      • semitones 2y ago
        If you're running a popular company then people will easily have a good understanding of the ballpark of your net worth anyway
        • WalterBright 2y ago
          I'm not so sure. You can run it with 90% equity, or 10% equity.
          • herval 2y ago
            in this case (given it was reportedly sold for $975m cash), that would mean your friends think you either have $877m or $97m (he reportedly net $60m, which means your most pessimistic friend thinks you have more money than you actually have?)
• i_am_a_peasant 2y ago
  One thing you could do is give me 20k no strings attached so I can stop paying for my parents screw ups from when I was 20 :)) that will make me a lot less resentful towards life's stupid dice.
• justinclift 2y ago
  > you need to replace money/salary/financial success optimisation Kind of ironic, but that kind of sounds like the people who've been saying those things aren't the most important in life might have been right all along?
  • fakedang 2y ago
    To access the others, you need to have good money/salary/financial success, oftentimes. Heck even for good therapy, you need to have those.
    • justinclift 2y ago
      "Therapy" seems like mostly an American thing, so not sure how really universal the need for it is. For Americans though, sure.
      • fragmede 2y ago
        we'd have to come to am agreement on what constitutes a need for therapy, but accidents/mistakes happen, and people die in countries that aren't America, people commit crimes of all sorts; theft, rape, murder, etc. people have childhoods that are less than perfect. PTSD isn't a uniqely American military problem either, nor is it limited to the military of America. Neither is depression. So chances are the need for therapy is universal. Not that therapy necessarily precludes such actions, but it helps in the aftermath. Therapy requires there to be therapists, and for them to be recognized as a need, and for their expertise to be valued, and it's only in America, with it's patchwork of healthcare insurance, that therapy, as paid for by patients, could really take hold. Other counties have no such system, that individuals are used to paying $x00/session four times a month out of pocket. But in America, since other healthcare's expensive to access, paying for one out of pocket seems like par for the course. Most countries then simply don't spend the money on therapy, hence fewer therapists. That's not to say those country are poor, just that they have other priorities.
• homefree 2y ago
  There's something off about the post that I'm not sure I can pin point, but it's there. What are these oft referenced insecurities? It's hard to get a read on this without details, but dumping your girlfriend to do random selfish shit (climb mountain, go to Hawaii, etc.) - it's not a surprise he's unfulfilled (though working on doge would be exciting). This trap of 'working on yourself' that leads to endless mindfulness and narcissism leads you to become aloof. People tend to derive purpose from community, friends, and family. This is what religion used to give people independent of the pseudoscience. Being financially independent is great, but it doesn't bring fulfillment. A long way to say spend time with friends, work on a relationship, get married, have kids. People can do what they want, but most people will likely be the most content doing this. If you can find something to work on you're also excited about great, can do that too. You can only dick around traveling and 'finding yourself' for so long, it gets old and repetitive.
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • Tepix 2y ago
    How long have you travelled the world?
    • paganel 2y ago
      Not the OP, but after a certain age (mid 30s in my case) traveling just becomes cumbersome, i.e. when you realize that there are no big insights about oneself that can be gained via traveling that can’t also be gotten back at home, surrounded by friends/family and a couple of good books.
      • prmoustache 2y ago
        There are people traveling the world all their life because that is what they love to do.
      • Tainnor 2y ago
        This sounds an awful lot like you're generalising from your experiences to other people's. I'm also in my mid 30s and I still find travelling eye opening in a way that books are not (and I do read a lot, including when I travel). And on my last trip I met a retired couple who spent three weeks traveling in their car and they told me they used to have a boat with which they'd sail around the world.
• mrandish 2y ago
  > One big piece of advice I have is to try to avoid letting others in your social network know exactly how successful you’ve been. Having lived through this arc myself, this is excellent advice. While the most enlightened/mature people have no problem just being happy for you, this still leaves a lot people for who a significant disparity in wealth/success becomes a problem. It ends up impacting the nature of your relationship with them in subtle but significant ways and it can be very hard to get past. I've found it's just better to avoid the issue by being as stealth as possible about wealth (while still being honest and true to yourself).
  • tasuki 2y ago
    Or, stop being friends with those people? I'm good friends with some very rich people. Everyone knows they have money. They learned how to say no, and how to let go of people who just want to milk them for cash.
  • richiricho 2y ago
    [dead]
  • JumpinJack_Cash 2y ago
    Or alternatively it can be the start of a feud/rivalry with the "envious" , and I mean not at the political level but at the human to human level. Might seem counterproductive or even "toxic" but it's sure better than the nihlism that the author is expressing.
• survirtual 2y ago
  Anyone who has "more money than they know what to do with" is a fool. There is an unlimited set of things to do with large resource allocation. Depending on the magnitude of that resource allocation, the set increases exponentially. It shows a total lack of introspection as well as connections with the people, the Earth, and the universe as a whole. Go eat some psychedelics and travel inside yourself for a while. Listen to what a tree far in a forest has to say. You'll know what to do with your dragon hoard in no time, I guarantee it.
  • cwalv 2y ago
    It's true that there are infinite ways to waste a fortune, but that doesn't mean you're a fool for not having decided how to spend your money. I'd actually argue that it'd be more foolish to go figure out what to spend it on "in no time"
    • survirtual 2y ago
      Yes, it is foolish to hoard allocation aimlessly. Anyone who amasses resources without a vision or for the sake of amassing it is a fool. There is a sacred responsibility implicit in the acquisition of resources. It implicitly says "I know what to do better with these resources than others." To take on that responsibility then do nothing with it, and actually publicize you don't know what to do with it, is disgraceful. As long as there is suffering, there is more work to be done. Move aside and let people who know what to do take over. In the past, when people didn't know what to do with resources, the people would very loudly & painfully clawback the misallocated hoards and make better use of them. Recently, a CEO that didn't know what to do with resources & took active part in misusing them returned his misallocation to others. This kind of misallocation is a universal crime. A life is nothing compared to the magnitude of this crime. Ideas of "ownership" and "it's my money" are irrelevant. The crime stands, and the justice of balance for this crime always comes, one way or another. Escaping the responsibility of this duty, and the negligence of misusing funds, is easy; sell everything you own and reallocate resources to others who are better able to manage them. Revolution is the "final" reaction to misallocated funds. It is when a mass of misaligned, foolish resource allocators who collectively lost their way and lack all vision to allocate, hoard most wealth. This misallocation chokes out the society they've hoarded from, like a blood clot, and leads to a death of the society if not addressed. I would be very scared right now to be part of the group of people who have hoarded resources and mismanaged them, because this planet is on the cusp of a clawback. Alternatively, if visionary resource allocators are allowed to operate, it brings wealth to everyone. It raises the standards of existence, brings about lasting peace, and makes for a prosperous existence. These visionary allocators are most definitely not in operation in these times, and it shows. I will dream of a day when this changes. I hope that this change occurs peacefully, and with minimal suffering, even to those who has caused incomprehensible suffering due to their greed.
• lithocarpus 2y ago
  Music has been a huge discovery and joy for me too. I left the tech world seven years ago after a "career" of five years, not super wealthy but having enough saved/invested that I could live frugally and it would grow slowly on its own. I've been doing a wide variety of things mostly outdoors, but these last three years I've been learning to play the fiddle and it's took over my life in a good way. It's been a rich seven years and aside from occasional brief moments of doubt, I'm very glad I did what I did. I have had time to focus on: - health (most awesomely, my eyesight has improved dramatically) - family and community and relationships - simply being in the real world (nature) - learning about and changing my behaviors/habits to be more who I want to be - passions - particularly trying to protect habitats from being destroyed, which is very rewarding even if they might still get destroyed someday, they've gotten to exist for years longer than they would have. - each thing that's caught my curiosity: gardening, forest conservation, foraging and cooking, building and carpentry, learning various skills and now most of all, the fiddle. I won't say it's all been easy. I've wrestled with a lot of questioning of what matters and what to give myself to - because I have the choice and there is no obvious default path anymore. But I always feel my way into an answer - even if it has shifted around over time. I don't have kids, I want to, and I think about how I'll find someone to do that with. I bet it will happen, I live in a rural area though so I pretty much have to travel to meet someone. Meanwhile, I have a sweet nephew and I get to spend a lot of time actively being his uncle. The world is far more interesting and wild and beautiful than I think most of us have been led to believe.
• kirso 2y ago
  Isn't it basically separating your identity from your work and finding meaning in different parts of life (relationships, interests)?
• krosaen 2y ago
  > I am focused on proving myself as a guitarist in the local jazz and blues scene That sounds awesome - tell us more.