5 ms·

> You absolutely want to attract people that want to make huge breakthroughs with unlikely odds of success. It's fine to want that and to attract those kind of

> You absolutely want to attract people that want to make huge breakthroughs with unlikely odds of success. It's fine to want that and to attract those kind of people. What you don't want is to attract people who want to do that in order to make a lot of money.

Juliate 2y ago
Yeah but you don’t spend 10s of years of your life studying if your primary goal is just « more money ». The incentive is waaay too far.
baq 2y ago
I used to think that too, but realized it’s very naive later in life. At some point people are good at what they do, but get tired, start a family, want to settle down. Money helps quite a bit to have those folks motivated. If you want innovators, motivate them with rewards. Money is a great reward since you can turn it into mostly anything you’d like. Want to buy a mansion? Fine. Want to travel around the world? Feel free. Want to give it away to charity? Great!
- BrenBarn 2y ago
  Maybe I should have been more explicit. There's a difference between "money" and "a lot of money". People are in this thread talking about the likelihood of getting $100 million. If someone does a thing because they want to start a family and settle down, great. You don't need $100 million to do that. You don't even need $10 million. What I'm saying is you don't want to attract people who are aiming at making vastly more than what is needed to handle the "settle down and live a comfortable life" situation that you described. But right now our society does incentivize and glamorize that, and I think we're worse off for it.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - gambiting 2y ago
      >>You absolutely need $10 million if you want to retire to any city in the US. And...people accept that as a natural state of being? New York has over 8M residents, do all of them have $10M saved for retirement? Or is your idea of retirement completely out of sync with what retirement really is for most people?
      - avmich 2y ago
        You surely want to retire comfortably. You want to do what you want - and spend money along, not some arbitrary amounts but just without thinking too much.
        gambiting 2y ago
        $10M sounds very much like an arbitrary amount for a very extravagant retired lifestyle.
        avmich 2y ago
        My numbers are like this: $10M over 50 years - $200k/yr or $16k/mo House in a rather expensive place - $5k/mo Food, travel, other things and especially projects can eat the rest $11k/mo Which number is wildly off?
        BrenBarn 2y ago
        Well, for starters I don't think most people's retirement lasts 50 years. Even if you retire fairly early at, say, 50, that's taking you to 100 years old. Also, your numbers assume you earn nothing in retirement, which is unnecessarily pessimistic. Also, $11k a month for "food travel and other things" seems like quite a lot to me. I mean sure someone can spend $11k a month on "projects" but that doesn't mean that's something we as a society necessarily need to support.
        avmich 2y ago
  - bad_haircut72 2y ago
    If the goal is financial security to the extent that you could not work (if you still need to work you're not really secure since you could lose that job) then I think you actually would need about $10M. By the time you buy a house, pay for your kids school (elementary through college) and medical insurance for the rest of your life theres not a lot of change left. That to me has always been the goal, I've never truly felt financially secure my entire life and even on a good tech salary I still dont cause I'm one layoff in a bad market away from being in a pretty dire situation, with a family to support too.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      > I've never truly felt financially secure my entire life and even on a good tech salary I still dont cause I'm one layoff in a bad market away from being in a pretty dire situation, with a family to support too. That's a very good point: You really do need a lot of money in the US to feel reasonably secure for the long term. This might be good for employers, entrepreneurs, investors etc., but since most people in society aren't that, I'd argue that the average quality of life is worse for it. > If the goal is financial security to the extent that you could not work This actually seems like an anti-goal to me, societally. Why would we want to disincentivize the people that arguably have the best track record of contributing to progress from continuing to do so?
      - bad_haircut72 2y ago
        If you are trying to say that society forces us to feel insecure in order to drive us to never stop working then yeah I agree and it sucks - doubly so because it may even be true that if we all felt financially secure, society would grind to a halt. Crabs in a bucket.
    - BrenBarn 2y ago
      There's certainly some truth in what you say. I see it as a societal problem that the only way to ensure you don't wind up with less than $X to live on per year is to amass some large multiple of $X. What would be better is a more robust social safety net program that ensure if that one layoff happens and you're out of work, your situation isn't that dire. Like maybe you tighten your belt a bit and maybe if you had stretched for a big house you have to move to a smaller one, but you don't wind up on the street. And in exchange for knowing that we will never wind up on the street, everyone accepts that no one will ever get to own a $100 million mansion or a superyacht or a company worth $100 billion. It seems like a fine trade to me.
matwood 2y ago
Until we fundamentally change how the world works, wanting to make a lot of money is no better or worse than any other reason to innovate.
hoseja 2y ago
What you really, really, REALLY REALLY don't want is to attract people who want to do it for free. Money is at least honest.

Juliate 2y ago

Yeah but you don’t spend 10s of years of your life studying if your primary goal is just « more money ». The incentive is waaay too far.

baq 2y ago

I used to think that too, but realized it’s very naive later in life. At some point people are good at what they do, but get tired, start a family, want to settle down. Money helps quite a bit to have those folks motivated. If you want innovators, motivate them with rewards. Money is a great reward since you can turn it into mostly anything you’d like. Want to buy a mansion? Fine. Want to travel around the world? Feel free. Want to give it away to charity? Great!

BrenBarn 2y ago
Maybe I should have been more explicit. There's a difference between "money" and "a lot of money". People are in this thread talking about the likelihood of getting $100 million. If someone does a thing because they want to start a family and settle down, great. You don't need $100 million to do that. You don't even need $10 million. What I'm saying is you don't want to attract people who are aiming at making vastly more than what is needed to handle the "settle down and live a comfortable life" situation that you described. But right now our society does incentivize and glamorize that, and I think we're worse off for it.
- kortilla 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - gambiting 2y ago
    >>You absolutely need $10 million if you want to retire to any city in the US. And...people accept that as a natural state of being? New York has over 8M residents, do all of them have $10M saved for retirement? Or is your idea of retirement completely out of sync with what retirement really is for most people?
    - avmich 2y ago
      You surely want to retire comfortably. You want to do what you want - and spend money along, not some arbitrary amounts but just without thinking too much.
      - gambiting 2y ago
        $10M sounds very much like an arbitrary amount for a very extravagant retired lifestyle.
        avmich 2y ago
        My numbers are like this: $10M over 50 years - $200k/yr or $16k/mo House in a rather expensive place - $5k/mo Food, travel, other things and especially projects can eat the rest $11k/mo Which number is wildly off?
        BrenBarn 2y ago
        Well, for starters I don't think most people's retirement lasts 50 years. Even if you retire fairly early at, say, 50, that's taking you to 100 years old. Also, your numbers assume you earn nothing in retirement, which is unnecessarily pessimistic. Also, $11k a month for "food travel and other things" seems like quite a lot to me. I mean sure someone can spend $11k a month on "projects" but that doesn't mean that's something we as a society necessarily need to support.
        avmich 2y ago
- bad_haircut72 2y ago
  If the goal is financial security to the extent that you could not work (if you still need to work you're not really secure since you could lose that job) then I think you actually would need about $10M. By the time you buy a house, pay for your kids school (elementary through college) and medical insurance for the rest of your life theres not a lot of change left. That to me has always been the goal, I've never truly felt financially secure my entire life and even on a good tech salary I still dont cause I'm one layoff in a bad market away from being in a pretty dire situation, with a family to support too.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    > I've never truly felt financially secure my entire life and even on a good tech salary I still dont cause I'm one layoff in a bad market away from being in a pretty dire situation, with a family to support too. That's a very good point: You really do need a lot of money in the US to feel reasonably secure for the long term. This might be good for employers, entrepreneurs, investors etc., but since most people in society aren't that, I'd argue that the average quality of life is worse for it. > If the goal is financial security to the extent that you could not work This actually seems like an anti-goal to me, societally. Why would we want to disincentivize the people that arguably have the best track record of contributing to progress from continuing to do so?
    - bad_haircut72 2y ago
      If you are trying to say that society forces us to feel insecure in order to drive us to never stop working then yeah I agree and it sucks - doubly so because it may even be true that if we all felt financially secure, society would grind to a halt. Crabs in a bucket.
  - BrenBarn 2y ago
    There's certainly some truth in what you say. I see it as a societal problem that the only way to ensure you don't wind up with less than $X to live on per year is to amass some large multiple of $X. What would be better is a more robust social safety net program that ensure if that one layoff happens and you're out of work, your situation isn't that dire. Like maybe you tighten your belt a bit and maybe if you had stretched for a big house you have to move to a smaller one, but you don't wind up on the street. And in exchange for knowing that we will never wind up on the street, everyone accepts that no one will ever get to own a $100 million mansion or a superyacht or a company worth $100 billion. It seems like a fine trade to me.

matwood 2y ago

Until we fundamentally change how the world works, wanting to make a lot of money is no better or worse than any other reason to innovate.

hoseja 2y ago

What you really, really, REALLY REALLY don't want is to attract people who want to do it for free. Money is at least honest.