11 ms·

If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened (2006)

153 points by revorad 17y ago

revorad 17y ago
It's an interview of Felix Dennis I found on the yc website. Not sure if it's been posted before. As much as I enjoyed reading it, it also made me cringe. Oh and you got to love the wealth guide at the end of the article.
- deleted 17y ago
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inovica 17y ago
If you've not read his book its worth reading. Made me laugh anyway!
pwncat 17y ago
Two questions: 1. Why was this published at all, and: 2. Why is it #2 on Hacker News? Nothing is more repulsive than a rich person unable to admit that he owes a substantial share of his success to luck. Persistence, drive, and talent are all crucial as well, but there simply isn't enough room at the top for everyone with these traits, which is where the luck factor comes in.
edw519 17y ago
I love his book. I read it once a year whether I need to or not. http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Rich-Greatest-Entrepreneurs/dp/B001R23FN4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246363245&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Rich-Greatest-Entrepreneurs/dp... +1 for "If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it - it’s cheaper in the long run." I also think of Felix Dennis every time I hear the Pet Shop Boys - he has a great story about that.
- revorad 17y ago
  Right Sir. One more to go on that ever-rising pile of my reading list. One of these days, I'm going to quit my job and...
  - whatusername 17y ago
    put it high on that list. Definately worth reading
- sivers 17y ago
  You can read the cliffnotes from the book, here: http://sivers.org/book/HowToGetRich http://sivers.org/book/HowToGetRich (Though it's very worth getting the real book.) One of my favorite quotes: "Money is exactly like sex. You think of nothing else if you don't have it, and think of other things if you do."
  - icey 17y ago
    When will you be writing a book? Everyone knows you have one in you; and I bet more than a few people would buy it.
    - wallflower 17y ago
      In case you have not yet read it, Derek has written an e-Book that shares his insights and personal stories (it is about marketing your music but all marketing is marketing) http://sivers.org/pdf http://sivers.org/pdf "When I think about every big leap that happened in my career, it was always because of 'someone I knew.' Always friends of friends. People in some position of power who I kept in touch with, did favors for, and got the same in return." "You can break someone out of their drab life as an assistant sales rep for a manufacturing company. You might be the coolest thing that ever happened to a teenager going through an unpopular phase. You can give them a mission! If they’re a fan of your music, invite them over for pizza to spend a night doing a mailing to colleges."
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paulsingh 17y ago
+1 for "If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it - it’s cheaper in the long run."
- vaksel 17y ago
  I'd say it also applies to new cars too(leasing). if you plan to replace your car after 3-4 years, I found out that you end up losing the same amount of money, and in many cases you actually save money. i.e. you lease a car, you end up paying 10K in payments. But if you finance it, you end up paying 25K in payments, and get 15K back when you sell it privately. And the number is even less if you trade in, which you might consider since selling a car is a pain in the ass(unless you are sell it way below market value) But when you lease, you don't have to worry about selling it, you just turn it in. And even if you ever end up going over the limit, pretty much every dealer will forget the overcharges/damages, if you lease another car from them. And even if you plan to keep the car, leasing is the best option, since essential it's a 3-4 year test drive. You pretty much get to find out EVERYTHING about the car, before you decide to keep it long term. And in the end, you will be able to see what the market is like...in many cases when you lease a popular car that keeps it's value, the buyout is less than the current market value of the car.
  - teej 17y ago
    If your priority is to always drive a new car, then leasing might make sense. If your priority is building wealth at the expense of looking flashy, it is a terrible, terrible, terrible idea. My priority is to make my first $1M, then worry about the model year of my car.
    - msluyter 17y ago
      Indeed. Simple formula for minimizing car expenses: Buy a used (3-5 yr old) Honda or Toyota sedan. Drive it until total annual cost of repairs exceeds the cost of another used Honda/Toyota, and/or it falls apart. Repeat.
      - 17y ago
wheels 17y ago
I expected this to be crap given the title, but ended up being quite entertaining. The only annoyance in the style was that it started with the "everyone can be rich" and then followed with a bunch of stuff that very few people have the constitution to in fact do.
- fauigerzigerk 17y ago
  I felt the same. Also, there are some statistical issues with everyone being rich, unless being rich is about absolute numbers, in which case Zimbabweans are all super rich ;-) It boils down to the difference between "everyone" and "anyone" I guess.
  - randallsquared 17y ago
    There's also absolute wealth: the sense in which virtually all Americans today are rich compared to virtually all Americans in 1900.
    - fauigerzigerk 17y ago
      Ah, in that case I wasted my time reading about how to get rich. I am already rich! :) But if you include all people living in past times wouldn't it be consistent to include all people who will live in the future? Compared to them we might all be very poor and there is no way for anyone to become rich.
      - randallsquared 17y ago
        "Compared to them we might all be very poor" Seriously, I think that's likely. "and there is no way for anyone to become rich." Well, living longer. Also, you may improve your chances a bit with cryonics. :)
        dennisgorelik 17y ago
        Sorry, but cryonics is a scam. The chances of extending life using cryonics are so low, that any investment into cryonics would decrease you current quality of life, not improve it [by extending your life into future]. http://aidevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/12/cryonics.html http://aidevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/12/cryonics.html
bendtheblock 17y ago
If you haven't already seen it, here is a poetic recital he did at TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/publisher_felix_dennis_odes_to_vice_and_consequences.html http://www.ted.com/talks/publisher_felix_dennis_odes_to_vice... With his poetry, he again aludes to some of the pitfalls of wealth he mentions in the article.
- revorad 17y ago
  Awesome! Thanks. (That link's broken. This should work - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/publisher_felix_dennis_odes_to_vice_and_consequences.html http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/publisher_felix_dennis_ode...)
  - bendtheblock 17y ago
    Thanks! I've fixed the original link too.
wmorein 17y ago
To me one interesting thing about this article is that -- relating specifically to the question of whether you can get rich by picking a "safe" job -- it is actually incorrect. The changes in corporate compensation practices are such that, particularly in financial industries, you can work in a everyday job and end up rich, even by the definitions he uses in this article. It will be interesting to see if that continues after the current crisis. I would have guessed no a few months ago, but now it is seeming more likely to continue.
- rjurney 17y ago
  If you look, by his standards that would only make you comfortably poor, not truly rich :)
- sethb 17y ago
  His main point was, the more responsibility you take on, the richer you can become. In the financial industries, only the best talents get the type compensation that would qualify them as "rich". It's basically like becoming a Major League Baseball player, so I wouldn't call it a "safe" job. At that level the rewards are high, but the leash is even shorter. I'd go as far as saying that the unreasonable amount of risk these institutions took on was mainly because of that short leash (much like MLB players taking steroids, and how that whole saga played out). The pressure to perform is astronomically higher. These guys handle quite a few more figures than your typical everyday banker, and thus fit the criteria.
thalur 17y ago
"If I had my time again, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably (say £30m or £40m) as quickly as I could, hopefully by the time I was 35. I would then cash out immediately and retire to write poetry and plant trees. " I thought this was an interesting remark, particularly as it would 'only' put him in the "lesser rich" band defined at the end of the article. It makes me wonder why he picked that particular amount, whether it marks a decent balance between effort and reward, or just a decent income off the interest for savings.
- copenja 17y ago
  I find the notion of getting rich in order to write poetry kinda silly. It does not take a million dollars to write great poetry. It takes a pen, a piece of paper, and a poet.
  - sho 17y ago
    It takes more than that. It also takes a lack of other concerns, like how you are going to pay the rent. Stress kills artistic creativity, for me at least.
    - jessewmc 17y ago
      Then you're not cut out to be an artist. Being an artist is the same as getting rich--you have to have the fight in you for it. The payoff is just different (usually).
      - sho 17y ago
        Maybe that is true for a very specific, romantic type of artist but in the general case art flourishes in societies rich enough to "humour" them. Why do you think American and Japanese art dominate the world?
        copenja 17y ago
        Your arguing shades of Grey here. Are you honestly saying that majority of artists (musicians, painters, poets) in history have been independently wealthy?
petercooper 17y ago
I read this book a couple of years ago and it wasn't quite what I expected - it was better. Felix drags you in with the "how to be rich" message but actually ends up convincing you that you really don't want to be megarich at all and that there are far more important things in life to focus on or give priority to. He says he'd give anything to be young again and that no matter how much money he has, he'll never get time back.
- sho 17y ago
  "He says he'd give anything to be young again and that no matter how much money he has, he'll never get time back." Indeed. And yet I don't see his name in "the 300". Why aren't these rich people throwing money at SENS research?
  - dennisgorelik 17y ago
    > Why aren't these rich people throwing money at SENS research? Because at this moment science is very far from solving human aging problem, and significant investments wouldn't likely help much.
    - ruby_roo 17y ago
      I just want to live long enough to live forever: http://www.fantastic-voyage.net/ http://www.fantastic-voyage.net/
    - sho 17y ago
      "Because at this moment science is very far from solving human aging problem, and significant investments wouldn't likely help much." A lot of very intelligent people think otherwise. Do you have a good justification for such a position?
      - arakyd 17y ago
        A lot of very intelligent people notwithstanding, the burden of proof is still on those who claim that the first person to live for a thousand years is sixty years old today. Even De Grey is sensible enough to realize that he's going to have to show some pretty remarkable results in mice before efforts to combat aging get serious amounts of funding.
Hexstream 17y ago
"Five homes. Three estates. Fancy cars. Private jets. (The jets are always rented. If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it — it’s cheaper in the long run.) Thousands of acres of land. Art on the walls and libraries stuffed with first editions. Bronze statues littering up the garden. Chauffeurs, housekeepers, financial advisers and other personal staff coming out of my rear end. Oh, and thousands of bottles of fine wine in the cellars. Never forget the wine." All this overhead is definitely not for me. I want to get rich but to gain maximum independence and peace of mind, not to clutter my mind with countless possessions. I don't think I'd live very differently whether I had 10 millions in the bank or 100 millions. I'd just want a ridiculously top-notch workstation (like in Matrix?), really fast connection and a big architecture in the cloud for my world domination fantasies ;P (and maybe a private island or something)
- CamperBob 17y ago
  Which is kinda what he's saying. He explicitly says that if he could do it over again, he'd have stopped at the point where he could live comfortably but not extravagantly. I used to wonder how people like Bill Gates could resist walking away once they'd made their first ten billion, and doing something fun or personally fulfilling. If I were Gates, I'd be living on the Moon and looking through a telescope at Mars. But upon thinking the question through a little farther, I realized that if Gates were the type to do something like that, he'd never have made that first ten billion in the first place. He would've quit after his first ten million, without the resources to do anything but live well on Earth with the usual expensive toys. A depressing paradox, when you think about it.
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Gimbal 17y ago
As far as advice on economy goes, I'm still reading what PT Barnum has to say about it: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8581 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8581 PS Reportedly, PT Barnum did not say "There's a sucker born every minute", cf http://sniggle.net/barnum.php http://sniggle.net/barnum.php I guess I can only take one source of advice about it, at a time, heheh. I will say, though, that I think it's great if the subject of economy (in a transitive sense) is still coming up in contemporary discourse
- wyclif 17y ago
  I recently picked up "The Fabulous Showman" in a used book store, a good read for entrepreneurs.
Emore 17y ago
Very interesting article. I myself have a fairly strong ambition to become rich. Not for the money in itself but for the -- as Dennis mentions -- the making of the money. "Problem" is that I'm Swedish and thus live in Sweden. Becoming rich here is almost impossible, just as it is impossible to be poor. So, what are the geographic constraints for becoming rich? I guess it boils down to the US?
- ableal 17y ago
  Look up "Swedes in richest men list". Some people seem to manage. I'd even suggest that "geographic constraints" is thinking it wrong, if you re-read Dennis, or look at actual facts. Discarding the formality of money accounts, there were "rich people" in Stalin's USSR and Mao's China. The degree of unpleasantness of the process varies, of course.
- dhs 17y ago
  I found the claim that "you can't get rich in Sweden" quite interesting, so I looked up some data. Here's my calculation: Rank Nation Number of billionaires Population People/Billionaire (rounded) 1 Germany 54 82,210,000 1,522,407 2 Russia 32 141,950,000 4,404,687 3 UK 27 60,587,300 2,243,974 4 Turkey 13 71,517,100 5,501,315 5 Italy 12 59,337,888 4,944,824 6 Spain 12 46,157,822 3,846,485 7 France 10 64,473,140 6,447,314 8 Sweden 9 9,234,209 1,026,015 According to this, about one in a million Swedes is a billionaire, a ratio better than anywhere else in Europe. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number_of_billionaires#Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_p... Edit: For comparison, I calculated the ratio for the USA (population 306,798,000, billionaires 859, according to the Wikipedia), and found that about one in 357,147 US citizens is a billionaire. So while it's appearantly relatively easy to become a billionaire in Sweden compared to the other European countries, it seems to be even easier in the US. I guess that means you're about half right...
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
finger_pussy 17y ago
Thick skin - that's what got my attention. Thick skin and cunning are the work tools crooks, shrewd men and philanderers. That's why being rich in this shitty world always means you have to be dishonest and cheat on people. I fucking hate the way society is today. I wanna fucking put an end to all misery & pain. Shit on the face of the author.
grellas 17y ago
Good points about the risk-taking required to become rich. Very helpful to entrepreneurs. The author does simply assume, however, that becoming rich should be an overriding goal in itself. He does not consider this goal in relation to others - for example, character, contentment, learning, relationships, etc. (other than to mention in passing the wreckage in such areas that can sometimes accompany the gaining of wealth). Not that he should. He is not trying to be philosophical. But the approach is inherently limited in omitting any larger discussion. Good thought-provoking discussion within its limits, though.
- whatusername 17y ago
  read the book. He almost tries to discourage people from attempting it - and certainly points out the pitfalls.
jbr 17y ago
I'm most interested in: "If you have artistic inclinations and fear that the search for wealth will coarsen such talents, you will never get rich. (Because your fear, in this instance, is well justified.)" This stuck out as something I've never heard anyone else say, perhaps because it's difficult. I wonder how much truth there is in this statement, and whether it is a necessary truth or a truth of default. Is creativity truly stifled by financial success? It seems more likely that we get good at what we practice and few business people carve the time for creative pursuits. Does this quote concern other HN readers?
- drusenko 17y ago
  i took it a little bit differently, that the actual search for wealth with coarsen artistic talents, ie the epitome of creativity is searching for perfection, while getting rich involves a lot of down and dirty pragmatism. i would imagine that pragmatism sort of ruins artistic talent.
10ren 17y ago
Odd. His shortlist consists of you-will-never-be-rich's... except for: > If you are not prepared to work longer hours than almost anyone you know, despite the jibes of colleagues and friends, you are unlikely to get rich.
erlanger 17y ago
This guy has a huge mouth. Why would he do an interview with the Times again if his previous interviewer there claimed to disclose information told in confidence, alleging murder no less? http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article3660995.ece http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/cele...
- emhc 17y ago
  It's not an interview, rather a book excerpt, and was published two years before the link you provided.

153 points by revorad 17y ago

It's an interview of Felix Dennis I found on the yc website. Not sure if it's been posted before. As much as I enjoyed reading it, it also made me cringe. Oh and you got to love the wealth guide at the end of the article.

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inovica 17y ago

If you've not read his book its worth reading. Made me laugh anyway!

pwncat 17y ago

Two questions: 1. Why was this published at all, and: 2. Why is it #2 on Hacker News? Nothing is more repulsive than a rich person unable to admit that he owes a substantial share of his success to luck. Persistence, drive, and talent are all crucial as well, but there simply isn't enough room at the top for everyone with these traits, which is where the luck factor comes in.

edw519 17y ago

I love his book. I read it once a year whether I need to or not. http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Rich-Greatest-Entrepreneurs/dp/B001R23FN4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246363245&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Rich-Greatest-Entrepreneurs/dp... +1 for "If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it - it’s cheaper in the long run." I also think of Felix Dennis every time I hear the Pet Shop Boys - he has a great story about that.

revorad 17y ago
Right Sir. One more to go on that ever-rising pile of my reading list. One of these days, I'm going to quit my job and...
- whatusername 17y ago
  put it high on that list. Definately worth reading
sivers 17y ago
You can read the cliffnotes from the book, here: http://sivers.org/book/HowToGetRich http://sivers.org/book/HowToGetRich (Though it's very worth getting the real book.) One of my favorite quotes: "Money is exactly like sex. You think of nothing else if you don't have it, and think of other things if you do."
- icey 17y ago
  When will you be writing a book? Everyone knows you have one in you; and I bet more than a few people would buy it.
  - wallflower 17y ago
    In case you have not yet read it, Derek has written an e-Book that shares his insights and personal stories (it is about marketing your music but all marketing is marketing) http://sivers.org/pdf http://sivers.org/pdf "When I think about every big leap that happened in my career, it was always because of 'someone I knew.' Always friends of friends. People in some position of power who I kept in touch with, did favors for, and got the same in return." "You can break someone out of their drab life as an assistant sales rep for a manufacturing company. You might be the coolest thing that ever happened to a teenager going through an unpopular phase. You can give them a mission! If they’re a fan of your music, invite them over for pizza to spend a night doing a mailing to colleges."
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paulsingh 17y ago

+1 for "If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it - it’s cheaper in the long run."

vaksel 17y ago
I'd say it also applies to new cars too(leasing). if you plan to replace your car after 3-4 years, I found out that you end up losing the same amount of money, and in many cases you actually save money. i.e. you lease a car, you end up paying 10K in payments. But if you finance it, you end up paying 25K in payments, and get 15K back when you sell it privately. And the number is even less if you trade in, which you might consider since selling a car is a pain in the ass(unless you are sell it way below market value) But when you lease, you don't have to worry about selling it, you just turn it in. And even if you ever end up going over the limit, pretty much every dealer will forget the overcharges/damages, if you lease another car from them. And even if you plan to keep the car, leasing is the best option, since essential it's a 3-4 year test drive. You pretty much get to find out EVERYTHING about the car, before you decide to keep it long term. And in the end, you will be able to see what the market is like...in many cases when you lease a popular car that keeps it's value, the buyout is less than the current market value of the car.
- teej 17y ago
  If your priority is to always drive a new car, then leasing might make sense. If your priority is building wealth at the expense of looking flashy, it is a terrible, terrible, terrible idea. My priority is to make my first $1M, then worry about the model year of my car.
  - msluyter 17y ago
    Indeed. Simple formula for minimizing car expenses: Buy a used (3-5 yr old) Honda or Toyota sedan. Drive it until total annual cost of repairs exceeds the cost of another used Honda/Toyota, and/or it falls apart. Repeat.
    - 17y ago

wheels 17y ago

I expected this to be crap given the title, but ended up being quite entertaining. The only annoyance in the style was that it started with the "everyone can be rich" and then followed with a bunch of stuff that very few people have the constitution to in fact do.

fauigerzigerk 17y ago
I felt the same. Also, there are some statistical issues with everyone being rich, unless being rich is about absolute numbers, in which case Zimbabweans are all super rich ;-) It boils down to the difference between "everyone" and "anyone" I guess.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  There's also absolute wealth: the sense in which virtually all Americans today are rich compared to virtually all Americans in 1900.
  - fauigerzigerk 17y ago
    Ah, in that case I wasted my time reading about how to get rich. I am already rich! :) But if you include all people living in past times wouldn't it be consistent to include all people who will live in the future? Compared to them we might all be very poor and there is no way for anyone to become rich.
    - randallsquared 17y ago
      "Compared to them we might all be very poor" Seriously, I think that's likely. "and there is no way for anyone to become rich." Well, living longer. Also, you may improve your chances a bit with cryonics. :)
      - dennisgorelik 17y ago
        Sorry, but cryonics is a scam. The chances of extending life using cryonics are so low, that any investment into cryonics would decrease you current quality of life, not improve it [by extending your life into future]. http://aidevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/12/cryonics.html http://aidevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/12/cryonics.html

bendtheblock 17y ago

If you haven't already seen it, here is a poetic recital he did at TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/publisher_felix_dennis_odes_to_vice_and_consequences.html http://www.ted.com/talks/publisher_felix_dennis_odes_to_vice... With his poetry, he again aludes to some of the pitfalls of wealth he mentions in the article.

revorad 17y ago
Awesome! Thanks. (That link's broken. This should work - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/publisher_felix_dennis_odes_to_vice_and_consequences.html http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/publisher_felix_dennis_ode...)
- bendtheblock 17y ago
  Thanks! I've fixed the original link too.

wmorein 17y ago

To me one interesting thing about this article is that -- relating specifically to the question of whether you can get rich by picking a "safe" job -- it is actually incorrect. The changes in corporate compensation practices are such that, particularly in financial industries, you can work in a everyday job and end up rich, even by the definitions he uses in this article. It will be interesting to see if that continues after the current crisis. I would have guessed no a few months ago, but now it is seeming more likely to continue.

rjurney 17y ago
If you look, by his standards that would only make you comfortably poor, not truly rich :)
sethb 17y ago
His main point was, the more responsibility you take on, the richer you can become. In the financial industries, only the best talents get the type compensation that would qualify them as "rich". It's basically like becoming a Major League Baseball player, so I wouldn't call it a "safe" job. At that level the rewards are high, but the leash is even shorter. I'd go as far as saying that the unreasonable amount of risk these institutions took on was mainly because of that short leash (much like MLB players taking steroids, and how that whole saga played out). The pressure to perform is astronomically higher. These guys handle quite a few more figures than your typical everyday banker, and thus fit the criteria.

thalur 17y ago

"If I had my time again, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably (say £30m or £40m) as quickly as I could, hopefully by the time I was 35. I would then cash out immediately and retire to write poetry and plant trees. " I thought this was an interesting remark, particularly as it would 'only' put him in the "lesser rich" band defined at the end of the article. It makes me wonder why he picked that particular amount, whether it marks a decent balance between effort and reward, or just a decent income off the interest for savings.

copenja 17y ago
I find the notion of getting rich in order to write poetry kinda silly. It does not take a million dollars to write great poetry. It takes a pen, a piece of paper, and a poet.
- sho 17y ago
  It takes more than that. It also takes a lack of other concerns, like how you are going to pay the rent. Stress kills artistic creativity, for me at least.
  - jessewmc 17y ago
    Then you're not cut out to be an artist. Being an artist is the same as getting rich--you have to have the fight in you for it. The payoff is just different (usually).
    - sho 17y ago
      Maybe that is true for a very specific, romantic type of artist but in the general case art flourishes in societies rich enough to "humour" them. Why do you think American and Japanese art dominate the world?
      - copenja 17y ago
        Your arguing shades of Grey here. Are you honestly saying that majority of artists (musicians, painters, poets) in history have been independently wealthy?

petercooper 17y ago

I read this book a couple of years ago and it wasn't quite what I expected - it was better. Felix drags you in with the "how to be rich" message but actually ends up convincing you that you really don't want to be megarich at all and that there are far more important things in life to focus on or give priority to. He says he'd give anything to be young again and that no matter how much money he has, he'll never get time back.

sho 17y ago
"He says he'd give anything to be young again and that no matter how much money he has, he'll never get time back." Indeed. And yet I don't see his name in "the 300". Why aren't these rich people throwing money at SENS research?
- dennisgorelik 17y ago
  > Why aren't these rich people throwing money at SENS research? Because at this moment science is very far from solving human aging problem, and significant investments wouldn't likely help much.
  - ruby_roo 17y ago
    I just want to live long enough to live forever: http://www.fantastic-voyage.net/ http://www.fantastic-voyage.net/
  - sho 17y ago
    "Because at this moment science is very far from solving human aging problem, and significant investments wouldn't likely help much." A lot of very intelligent people think otherwise. Do you have a good justification for such a position?
    - arakyd 17y ago
      A lot of very intelligent people notwithstanding, the burden of proof is still on those who claim that the first person to live for a thousand years is sixty years old today. Even De Grey is sensible enough to realize that he's going to have to show some pretty remarkable results in mice before efforts to combat aging get serious amounts of funding.

Hexstream 17y ago

"Five homes. Three estates. Fancy cars. Private jets. (The jets are always rented. If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it — it’s cheaper in the long run.) Thousands of acres of land. Art on the walls and libraries stuffed with first editions. Bronze statues littering up the garden. Chauffeurs, housekeepers, financial advisers and other personal staff coming out of my rear end. Oh, and thousands of bottles of fine wine in the cellars. Never forget the wine." All this overhead is definitely not for me. I want to get rich but to gain maximum independence and peace of mind, not to clutter my mind with countless possessions. I don't think I'd live very differently whether I had 10 millions in the bank or 100 millions. I'd just want a ridiculously top-notch workstation (like in Matrix?), really fast connection and a big architecture in the cloud for my world domination fantasies ;P (and maybe a private island or something)

CamperBob 17y ago
Which is kinda what he's saying. He explicitly says that if he could do it over again, he'd have stopped at the point where he could live comfortably but not extravagantly. I used to wonder how people like Bill Gates could resist walking away once they'd made their first ten billion, and doing something fun or personally fulfilling. If I were Gates, I'd be living on the Moon and looking through a telescope at Mars. But upon thinking the question through a little farther, I realized that if Gates were the type to do something like that, he'd never have made that first ten billion in the first place. He would've quit after his first ten million, without the resources to do anything but live well on Earth with the usual expensive toys. A depressing paradox, when you think about it.

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Gimbal 17y ago

As far as advice on economy goes, I'm still reading what PT Barnum has to say about it: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8581 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8581 PS Reportedly, PT Barnum did not say "There's a sucker born every minute", cf http://sniggle.net/barnum.php http://sniggle.net/barnum.php I guess I can only take one source of advice about it, at a time, heheh. I will say, though, that I think it's great if the subject of economy (in a transitive sense) is still coming up in contemporary discourse

wyclif 17y ago
I recently picked up "The Fabulous Showman" in a used book store, a good read for entrepreneurs.

Emore 17y ago

Very interesting article. I myself have a fairly strong ambition to become rich. Not for the money in itself but for the -- as Dennis mentions -- the making of the money. "Problem" is that I'm Swedish and thus live in Sweden. Becoming rich here is almost impossible, just as it is impossible to be poor. So, what are the geographic constraints for becoming rich? I guess it boils down to the US?

ableal 17y ago
Look up "Swedes in richest men list". Some people seem to manage. I'd even suggest that "geographic constraints" is thinking it wrong, if you re-read Dennis, or look at actual facts. Discarding the formality of money accounts, there were "rich people" in Stalin's USSR and Mao's China. The degree of unpleasantness of the process varies, of course.
dhs 17y ago
I found the claim that "you can't get rich in Sweden" quite interesting, so I looked up some data. Here's my calculation: Rank Nation Number of billionaires Population People/Billionaire (rounded) 1 Germany 54 82,210,000 1,522,407 2 Russia 32 141,950,000 4,404,687 3 UK 27 60,587,300 2,243,974 4 Turkey 13 71,517,100 5,501,315 5 Italy 12 59,337,888 4,944,824 6 Spain 12 46,157,822 3,846,485 7 France 10 64,473,140 6,447,314 8 Sweden 9 9,234,209 1,026,015 According to this, about one in a million Swedes is a billionaire, a ratio better than anywhere else in Europe. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number_of_billionaires#Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_p... Edit: For comparison, I calculated the ratio for the USA (population 306,798,000, billionaires 859, according to the Wikipedia), and found that about one in 357,147 US citizens is a billionaire. So while it's appearantly relatively easy to become a billionaire in Sweden compared to the other European countries, it seems to be even easier in the US. I guess that means you're about half right...
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago

finger_pussy 17y ago

Thick skin - that's what got my attention. Thick skin and cunning are the work tools crooks, shrewd men and philanderers. That's why being rich in this shitty world always means you have to be dishonest and cheat on people. I fucking hate the way society is today. I wanna fucking put an end to all misery & pain. Shit on the face of the author.

grellas 17y ago

Good points about the risk-taking required to become rich. Very helpful to entrepreneurs. The author does simply assume, however, that becoming rich should be an overriding goal in itself. He does not consider this goal in relation to others - for example, character, contentment, learning, relationships, etc. (other than to mention in passing the wreckage in such areas that can sometimes accompany the gaining of wealth). Not that he should. He is not trying to be philosophical. But the approach is inherently limited in omitting any larger discussion. Good thought-provoking discussion within its limits, though.

whatusername 17y ago
read the book. He almost tries to discourage people from attempting it - and certainly points out the pitfalls.

jbr 17y ago

I'm most interested in: "If you have artistic inclinations and fear that the search for wealth will coarsen such talents, you will never get rich. (Because your fear, in this instance, is well justified.)" This stuck out as something I've never heard anyone else say, perhaps because it's difficult. I wonder how much truth there is in this statement, and whether it is a necessary truth or a truth of default. Is creativity truly stifled by financial success? It seems more likely that we get good at what we practice and few business people carve the time for creative pursuits. Does this quote concern other HN readers?

drusenko 17y ago
i took it a little bit differently, that the actual search for wealth with coarsen artistic talents, ie the epitome of creativity is searching for perfection, while getting rich involves a lot of down and dirty pragmatism. i would imagine that pragmatism sort of ruins artistic talent.

10ren 17y ago

Odd. His shortlist consists of you-will-never-be-rich's... except for: > If you are not prepared to work longer hours than almost anyone you know, despite the jibes of colleagues and friends, you are unlikely to get rich.

erlanger 17y ago

This guy has a huge mouth. Why would he do an interview with the Times again if his previous interviewer there claimed to disclose information told in confidence, alleging murder no less? http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article3660995.ece http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/cele...

emhc 17y ago
It's not an interview, rather a book excerpt, and was published two years before the link you provided.