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Tim O'Reilly on money: It’s easy to get caught up in the heady buzz of making money. You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a g
by miles 13y ago
Tim O'Reilly on money:
It’s easy to get caught up in the heady buzz of making money. You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. Money is like gas in the car — you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road — but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!
Source: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-fir.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-...
- digitalengineer 13y agoWith regards to the car narrative: "Money will take you where you want to go, but it will not replace you as the driver". (A. Rand of course).
- maxden 13y agoBeside the accidental car reference, this seems applicable to Elon Musk.
- rikacomet 13y agoperhaps, its this way, that earning money is so hard compared to other things we do in our life (except love), is we have to push our self so much, to earn it, but once we have enough.. we can't stop. Thats because its also incredibly hard to stop earning money once you know how to do it.
- Artistry121 13y agoHow hard is earning money? At least in America I know plenty of people who make money by sitting at a cash register ringing up items all day or sitting at a desk in air conditioning. Hard work is the farming and toiling that true advancements in technology, through trade, have made unnecessary and inefficient in today's world. In America everyone has access to more information than ever before, more comfort than ever before and many have to work less than ever before. Everything's amazing and no one is happy.
- redblacktree 13y agoYou've been in a reddit AMA with a 103 year old BAMF, haven't you?
- nexttimer 13y ago> The real use of money is to buy freedom The real problem is: This additional freedom you can buy with money means less freedom for somebody else. Inequality (wealth-based) means nothing else than domination. If you are richer, then you dominate the poorer people. And richer countries dominate poorer countries. This is the most basic and fundamental injustice [0] we seem to accept in our Western culture. Because we are those who dominate. [0] If you remember that we keep telling ourselves the nice little story how every life has the exact same value.
- joyeuse6701 13y agoSounds like someone should read Paul Graham's essay on Wealth again.
- dbecker 13y agoThe real problem is: This additional freedom you can buy with money means less freedom for somebody else. This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created. It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide , for the two centuries.
- king_jester 13y agoWealth is not zero-sum nor need it be, the only thing required for wealth inequality is that the current pool of wealth be heavily consumed and dominated by a small segment of people, leaving very little of the remaining pool for others.
- jedmeyers 13y agoThis small segment of people actually created this wealth. Why shouldn't they be the one consuming it? And you cannot call the sum of all wealth owned by people "a pool" because it is not concentrated in one place nor should be.
- ashray 13y agoIs the standard of living really growing for everyone? Or are there more people now (%wise) in poverty ? This is an honest question as several people have mentioned the standard of living argument before on HN. I've read however that the rich-poor divide is growing and thus am just wondering about this..
- coldtea 13y ago>You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. A little ironic coming from Tim, who cheapened the whole publishing house he had built, and then added those horrible techno-babble conferences for quick bucks.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]