8 ms·

I don't have any "FU money", but it seems very likely to me that once you have that sort of money, there are only a couple of reasons to run it up any further:

I don't have any "FU money", but it seems very likely to me that once you have that sort of money, there are only a couple of reasons to run it up any further: 1) You have "Big Plans" that need funding (eg. Elon Musk) 2) Running up the numbers as a life gamification to "beat" your peers, or just because you can't stop chasing yourself, like one of those freak beast weightlifters that looks like a space monster but is addicted to "the gainz" (eg. Larry Elison, et al) There are only so many houses and planes and boats and experiences you can buy, practically speaking, and at a certain point all your grandkids' grandkids are easily taken care of (should you decide to reproduce, and assuming society stands and the dollar keeps its value, of course). Interestingly I'm pretty sure Bill Gates started in bucket #2 but moved to #1 at some point later in life, but I think most people stick in one or the other.

bshimmin 12y ago
Now I'm imagining Larry Ellison as a "freak beast weightlifter". Thanks.
- rodgerd 12y ago
  Post-steroid Vince McMahon with a beard. HTH.
- peterashford 12y ago
  I think I just threw up a little in my mouth
berns 12y ago
Helping others. There is no limit to that.
- javert 12y ago
  I bet Bill Gates has a hard time finding enough qualified people to wisely manage the money he is giving away. For example, if he has someone in charge of spending money on medical research, don't you think there is a point (a few billion) where they just don't know what else to spend money on? I mean, there are only so many medical researchers in the whole world. Of course you can always just throw money away/at people, but it won't do any good. "Give a man a fish" vs. "teach a man to fish."
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    Diminishing returns does apply to some problems, but there are enough researchers in most areas to justify investing hundreds of millions or billions, and for that matter you can fund research grants for students to expand the number of people in that field.
  - tstactplsignore 12y ago
    No, this isn't really true. The NIH's budget is 30 billion a year, and that funding is already incredibly competitive. Private universities, other government sources such as NSF, NASA, and DoE, and private institutions then in addition spend an amount that dwarfs that number. On top of all of that, the last 6 years have seen cuts, layoffs, and an enormous amount of work go unfunded in the life sciences. Only about 16% of proposed NIH grants alone are funded each year- we can immediately see from that data that funding all NIH grants in just one year would probably take well over $100 billion. The life scientists of the U.S. could find a use for Bill Gate's entire fortune in a few years. Not that dropping $80 billion on across the board medical research wouldn't be incredibly, enormously beneficial, but the infrastructure and manpower in the medical sciences are there to be able to absorb it and put it to use.
    - javert 12y ago
      Thank you for an informative comment. That is mind-blowing. At first I was skeptical, but I was able to confirm the $30 billion number [1]. That is about twice as much as NASA [2]. [1] http://www.nih.gov/about/budget.htm http://www.nih.gov/about/budget.htm [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Annual_budget.2C_1958-2015 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Annual_budget.2C...
    - db48x 12y ago
      If they magically funded all of the grants then there wouldn't be enough scientists to do all the work; there's nothing to say that you can't put in more than one proposal at a time. Edit: well, of course everyone's salaries would go up since there would be so much more demand and no extra supply, but I doubt they could go up that much all at once; most of the money would still go unspent.
Houshalter 12y ago
How much would taxes take out of it though? An offer of 2 billion dollars is not equivalent to getting 2 billion in your bank account.
- otakucode 12y ago
  When you are dealing in billions, you don't pay taxes.
  - TrevorJ 12y ago
    Oh come on. Not even gonna bother to ask you to back that up.
    - deciplex 12y ago
      He probably won't, so I will (somewhat, he's definitely exaggerating, but probably not as much as you think): http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in12ms.xls http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in12ms.xls Effective tax rate plateaus at around a half mil in annual income, then starts going down again after around five million. I couldn't find any hard data about brackets above that. Didn't Mitt Romney pay around 15%? Then there's my all-time favorite quote, of Leona Helmsley: >Only the little people pay taxes. But, that's only anecdotal, heh :-)
      - lotharbot 12y ago
        It's worth noting that annual income above five million is almost definitely coming from investment of both labor and capital (ie, working to manage/direct a business you own, and seeing gains from the value of that business -- or working to manage your stocks and seeing gains from their value) rather than just from labor. This comes with very different risks, including the ability to lose your capital, which is why it's taxed in a very different way. It's also worth noting that the tax rate for the very rich is still 15%. As far as I can tell, certain very rich people "not paying taxes" is a myth. Finally, it's worth noting that Notch is not American.
logn 12y ago
Or maybe: 3) you don't want the project to lose its integrity/vision. The dollar amount matters less than finding a fitting buyer at a good enough price.
- annnnd 12y ago
  In that case you shouldn't sell. The buyer might promise you everything, but once the deal is done, he will make his own calls, implement his own vision. Microsoft can sell Mojang to EA the very next day if they want to.
- DavidBradbury 12y ago
  He said: > once you have that sort of money, there are only a couple of reasons to run it up any further: Your reply seems to indicate you didn't read what he said, but instead read your own meaning into it. Your #3 doesn't make sense as a reason to "run it up any further".
knodi 12y ago
The thing is money is the best drug known to man. One you get big numbers you never want it to stop. You just keep fighting for bigger and bigger numbers.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  That's a bug. Consider fixing it.
blazespin 12y ago
Except for Steve Jobs and a few very rare exceptions, nobody really has a second act. Once you get the FU money, you might as well ride the first act for all it's worth cause that's all you're going to get...
oliwary 12y ago
Maybe he wants to get into angel investing? He briefly though about investing into Psychonauts 2, but dropped out when he realized how much money was involved ($18m). [1] With a couple of hundred million dollars on his bank account he could get interesting and novel AAA games that would never get funding from traditional publishers made. He even mentions this in [1]: "Perhaps in some distant future when I’m no longer trying to make games, I could get into angel investing." [1] http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/04/exclusive-minecrafts-notch-no-longer-funding-psychonauts-2/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/04/exclusive-minecrafts-notch...
- jonknee 12y ago
  He likely already has a couple hundred million dollars in the bank. He made $100M just in 2012...

bshimmin 12y ago

Now I'm imagining Larry Ellison as a "freak beast weightlifter". Thanks.

rodgerd 12y ago
Post-steroid Vince McMahon with a beard. HTH.
peterashford 12y ago
I think I just threw up a little in my mouth

berns 12y ago

Helping others. There is no limit to that.

javert 12y ago
I bet Bill Gates has a hard time finding enough qualified people to wisely manage the money he is giving away. For example, if he has someone in charge of spending money on medical research, don't you think there is a point (a few billion) where they just don't know what else to spend money on? I mean, there are only so many medical researchers in the whole world. Of course you can always just throw money away/at people, but it won't do any good. "Give a man a fish" vs. "teach a man to fish."
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  Diminishing returns does apply to some problems, but there are enough researchers in most areas to justify investing hundreds of millions or billions, and for that matter you can fund research grants for students to expand the number of people in that field.
- tstactplsignore 12y ago
  No, this isn't really true. The NIH's budget is 30 billion a year, and that funding is already incredibly competitive. Private universities, other government sources such as NSF, NASA, and DoE, and private institutions then in addition spend an amount that dwarfs that number. On top of all of that, the last 6 years have seen cuts, layoffs, and an enormous amount of work go unfunded in the life sciences. Only about 16% of proposed NIH grants alone are funded each year- we can immediately see from that data that funding all NIH grants in just one year would probably take well over $100 billion. The life scientists of the U.S. could find a use for Bill Gate's entire fortune in a few years. Not that dropping $80 billion on across the board medical research wouldn't be incredibly, enormously beneficial, but the infrastructure and manpower in the medical sciences are there to be able to absorb it and put it to use.
  - javert 12y ago
    Thank you for an informative comment. That is mind-blowing. At first I was skeptical, but I was able to confirm the $30 billion number [1]. That is about twice as much as NASA [2]. [1] http://www.nih.gov/about/budget.htm http://www.nih.gov/about/budget.htm [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Annual_budget.2C_1958-2015 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Annual_budget.2C...
  - db48x 12y ago
    If they magically funded all of the grants then there wouldn't be enough scientists to do all the work; there's nothing to say that you can't put in more than one proposal at a time. Edit: well, of course everyone's salaries would go up since there would be so much more demand and no extra supply, but I doubt they could go up that much all at once; most of the money would still go unspent.

Houshalter 12y ago

How much would taxes take out of it though? An offer of 2 billion dollars is not equivalent to getting 2 billion in your bank account.

otakucode 12y ago
When you are dealing in billions, you don't pay taxes.
- TrevorJ 12y ago
  Oh come on. Not even gonna bother to ask you to back that up.
  - deciplex 12y ago
    He probably won't, so I will (somewhat, he's definitely exaggerating, but probably not as much as you think): http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in12ms.xls http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in12ms.xls Effective tax rate plateaus at around a half mil in annual income, then starts going down again after around five million. I couldn't find any hard data about brackets above that. Didn't Mitt Romney pay around 15%? Then there's my all-time favorite quote, of Leona Helmsley: >Only the little people pay taxes. But, that's only anecdotal, heh :-)
    - lotharbot 12y ago
      It's worth noting that annual income above five million is almost definitely coming from investment of both labor and capital (ie, working to manage/direct a business you own, and seeing gains from the value of that business -- or working to manage your stocks and seeing gains from their value) rather than just from labor. This comes with very different risks, including the ability to lose your capital, which is why it's taxed in a very different way. It's also worth noting that the tax rate for the very rich is still 15%. As far as I can tell, certain very rich people "not paying taxes" is a myth. Finally, it's worth noting that Notch is not American.

logn 12y ago

Or maybe: 3) you don't want the project to lose its integrity/vision. The dollar amount matters less than finding a fitting buyer at a good enough price.

annnnd 12y ago
In that case you shouldn't sell. The buyer might promise you everything, but once the deal is done, he will make his own calls, implement his own vision. Microsoft can sell Mojang to EA the very next day if they want to.
DavidBradbury 12y ago
He said: > once you have that sort of money, there are only a couple of reasons to run it up any further: Your reply seems to indicate you didn't read what he said, but instead read your own meaning into it. Your #3 doesn't make sense as a reason to "run it up any further".

knodi 12y ago

The thing is money is the best drug known to man. One you get big numbers you never want it to stop. You just keep fighting for bigger and bigger numbers.

jacquesm 12y ago
That's a bug. Consider fixing it.

blazespin 12y ago

Except for Steve Jobs and a few very rare exceptions, nobody really has a second act. Once you get the FU money, you might as well ride the first act for all it's worth cause that's all you're going to get...

oliwary 12y ago

Maybe he wants to get into angel investing? He briefly though about investing into Psychonauts 2, but dropped out when he realized how much money was involved ($18m). [1] With a couple of hundred million dollars on his bank account he could get interesting and novel AAA games that would never get funding from traditional publishers made. He even mentions this in [1]: "Perhaps in some distant future when I’m no longer trying to make games, I could get into angel investing." [1] http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/04/exclusive-minecrafts-notch-no-longer-funding-psychonauts-2/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/04/exclusive-minecrafts-notch...

jonknee 12y ago
He likely already has a couple hundred million dollars in the bank. He made $100M just in 2012...