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Just a heads up, this only works well if you have a nice cushion of cash to do it on. Someone with 30% tech ability will easily out-earn someone with 100% ranc

Just a heads up, this only works well if you have a nice cushion of cash to do it on. Someone with 30% tech ability will easily out-earn someone with 100% ranching ability. And have way more free time. And live way more comfortably. Don't be fooled, the greenest grass is in the tech sector (and finance too).

jonnybgood 2y ago
Not everything is about how much money you’ll make.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Yes. But we all have an addiction to food and shelter.
  - SirMaster 2y ago
    You don't need much money to have food and shelter...
    - ge96 2y ago
      That homesteader life
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - rurp 2y ago
    Most people obtain those just fine without a tech salary.
  - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
    In the US, only the poorest of the poor don't have shelter, and even they mostly have food.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      13.5% is a small number? http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics...
    - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
      > In the US, only the poorest of the poor don't have shelter, and even they mostly have food. Me+kids spent a decade in hunger-level poverty while staying housed. We usually got basic living expenses covered and what was left over might buy a bag of white rice - but not always. Our situation was far from uncommon.
bluGill 2y ago
Ranchers make far more money than you think. They have to manage years where they are losing $100,000 per month, but the good years they make more than enough to make up for that. The hard part is getting started. You can't make a ranch work on just a little bit of land, you need thousands of acres of land in an area where you can get to all those plots every day. Getting bank loans on that means most ranchers start at 20 with a few acres (that is a ranching/farming hobby) and a full time job to pay the bills - the ranch itself isn't even paying for the land loans, but it is close and their job pays the rest. Then they build trust with the bank and buy more land as it becomes possible. At 40 they have paid off the initial land (or at least inflation means the payments are tiny in current money) and so they are generating enough income to quit the full time job and farm. At 60 they have paid off most of the land which is now worth millions and so are rich by any measure in ways most tech jobs cannot get to (though if you happen to be one of the lucky early people in in a successful startup you are doing much better, your odds as a rancher are probably better than that). Beware though that ranching is physically hard on the body. Farming is one of the most dangerous jobs humans do, there is a real risk you will die before you get rich. Even if you do get rich there is real risk that you will be in poor health and unable to do it. Or you could end up like my uncle who loved the ranch so much he basically never left it - he died with millions in the bank while wearing clothes he had been patching for 40 years.
- iwontberude 2y ago
  But they have to actually do work, in tech we get to hang out and eat lunch and drink coffee together while we talk about stocks.
- nostrademons 2y ago
  I figured that the best way to own a ranch is to start a successful tech company, sell it (or parts of it), buy a bunch of ranchland, and then hire ranch hands that always wanted to get into the business but didn't have the capital for it. That seems to be what all the tech billionaires do. Gates, Bezos, and several old-line tech company heirs are all big ranch holders.
  - 2y ago
rurp 2y ago
I think their whole point was that it's not just about the money to them. If they love being outside and working with their hands far more than being in an office and can make a living ranching it seems like a smart move to me, regardless of the salary difference.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  Yes, there are people like that. Their numbers are greater than zero, but not much more. Overwhelmingly though, people are romanticizing an existence where the only contact they have with it is through a conduit of financial security and drive by experience. They like hiking and once did an Air bnb experience weekend on a farm.
mathgladiator 2y ago
Yeah, but I already mowed that grass. It was nice, and I could retire in the burbs... now, I'm just going to give up on civilization and become a rancher. Maybe, I'll start an egg subscription business for my friends that is 100% cash base. I don't know. It's going to be great.

jonnybgood 2y ago

Not everything is about how much money you’ll make.

scarface_74 2y ago
Yes. But we all have an addiction to food and shelter.
- SirMaster 2y ago
  You don't need much money to have food and shelter...
  - ge96 2y ago
    That homesteader life
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- rurp 2y ago
  Most people obtain those just fine without a tech salary.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  In the US, only the poorest of the poor don't have shelter, and even they mostly have food.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    13.5% is a small number? http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics...
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    > In the US, only the poorest of the poor don't have shelter, and even they mostly have food. Me+kids spent a decade in hunger-level poverty while staying housed. We usually got basic living expenses covered and what was left over might buy a bag of white rice - but not always. Our situation was far from uncommon.

bluGill 2y ago

Ranchers make far more money than you think. They have to manage years where they are losing $100,000 per month, but the good years they make more than enough to make up for that. The hard part is getting started. You can't make a ranch work on just a little bit of land, you need thousands of acres of land in an area where you can get to all those plots every day. Getting bank loans on that means most ranchers start at 20 with a few acres (that is a ranching/farming hobby) and a full time job to pay the bills - the ranch itself isn't even paying for the land loans, but it is close and their job pays the rest. Then they build trust with the bank and buy more land as it becomes possible. At 40 they have paid off the initial land (or at least inflation means the payments are tiny in current money) and so they are generating enough income to quit the full time job and farm. At 60 they have paid off most of the land which is now worth millions and so are rich by any measure in ways most tech jobs cannot get to (though if you happen to be one of the lucky early people in in a successful startup you are doing much better, your odds as a rancher are probably better than that). Beware though that ranching is physically hard on the body. Farming is one of the most dangerous jobs humans do, there is a real risk you will die before you get rich. Even if you do get rich there is real risk that you will be in poor health and unable to do it. Or you could end up like my uncle who loved the ranch so much he basically never left it - he died with millions in the bank while wearing clothes he had been patching for 40 years.

iwontberude 2y ago
But they have to actually do work, in tech we get to hang out and eat lunch and drink coffee together while we talk about stocks.
nostrademons 2y ago
I figured that the best way to own a ranch is to start a successful tech company, sell it (or parts of it), buy a bunch of ranchland, and then hire ranch hands that always wanted to get into the business but didn't have the capital for it. That seems to be what all the tech billionaires do. Gates, Bezos, and several old-line tech company heirs are all big ranch holders.
- 2y ago

rurp 2y ago

I think their whole point was that it's not just about the money to them. If they love being outside and working with their hands far more than being in an office and can make a living ranching it seems like a smart move to me, regardless of the salary difference.

Workaccount2 2y ago
Yes, there are people like that. Their numbers are greater than zero, but not much more. Overwhelmingly though, people are romanticizing an existence where the only contact they have with it is through a conduit of financial security and drive by experience. They like hiking and once did an Air bnb experience weekend on a farm.

mathgladiator 2y ago

Yeah, but I already mowed that grass. It was nice, and I could retire in the burbs... now, I'm just going to give up on civilization and become a rancher. Maybe, I'll start an egg subscription business for my friends that is 100% cash base. I don't know. It's going to be great.