It seems to me that directing one's efforts toward making a positive impact on the world is more fulfilling in the long run. Moreover, there are many ways to get to that goal, that could include substantial profit (a startup that creates real value, a successful academic career, senior management in a big corporation that does mostly good things, etc.) Focusing only on money may result in getting money. But money is only a means to an end. I find impact an end in itself.

If you feel like that yourself, maybe check out "Find your Why" [1] by Simon Sinek of TED fame [2]. I find it useful.

[1] https://simonsinek.com/find-your-why/

[2] https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_insp...

I made a small web page to meditate on this feeling: https://jse.li/goals/

I think this is more of a focus problem than not having an interest in anything.

Starting your own thing is different than being in school or being an employee. If you were "gifted" with the blessing of being good at school life, not having a defined goal for you could be part of the issue. With school

The ability to focus is like a muscle or any other skill, you have to practice it.

This post reads like a long humble-brag to me. "Oh how I wish I could stop being so successful in everything I do!"

I have a really hard time motivating myself with money, which probably is a sound thing. On the other hand when I’m committing to a project I’m super picky about the contents of it and team behind it. I have a feeling that this is what prevents me from stepping out of consulting (one man shop) to running my own product/service. Any advice?

Most people would like to make enough money not to worry about ever needing to make money; but where does that leave this guy. He has no other interests for when he is finally "rich enough" to stop working?

Interesting read nonetheless.

Easy for everyone to point out that its unhealthy to be money focused. But that's missing the point. The author is clearly aware of this problem. The question is how to get out of this cycle..

The part where he describes his mind looks exactly like mine... But I am aware I need money only for the freedom to pursue anything other than full-time work.

Arm-chair psychologist response below :)

Good self awareness on the part of the author. Next step is action. When you realize a deficiency in character (judging everything by monetary ROI), there's a concept of "Agere contra" meaning to act against. You choose to do something directly in contrast to the deficiency.

So in this case, I'd recommend definitely need to start helping people. For free. In as inefficient way as possible. Something like cutting your elderly neighbors lawn with scissors.

Taking a step back, this is the result of (1) insulation from real hardship, (2) capitalist/consumerist brainwashing esp. of the entrepreneurship-fetish of software startups.

Interesting read! I find that myself more and more.

I have some hobbies still like reading (non biz) and fitness but work dominates a lot of my time.

There is nothing wrong with making money, usually it's the way people make money that is bad or good, not money itself

This is the logical conclusion of a worldview founded in materialism, the dominant philosophy now underlying all human civilization. The reason this article is so provocative is that we’re all in various stages towards this outcome. This is why we model and conceive of our politics in terms of economic systems like capitalism or communism, and not in other potentially more useful terms.

Here’s the rub: the system is rigged against you. If making money is your only interest, you’re going to be frustrated and in a continuous burnout cycle. American / Western capitalism is dominated by entrenched interests and unless you have an “in” in the form of family connections, a prestigious degree or simply a large bankroll to start, it’s really, really hard to break free. This is by design as it keeps workers desperate while preserving the inter generational wealth for the folks who own everything. This is what is meant by “wealth inequality”.

Some people do manage to “make it” in 2020 but it’s more dumb luck than anything. You can do everything right and fail miserably — this is the outcome for most people with your mindset who chase “get rich quick” schemes. Sounds like you’re having cyclical burnout from smashing your head against the wall because every market is crowded and you have no real way to set yourself apart — again, this is by design. Late stage capitalism and all.

But even if you do succeed, there’s a good chance you find yourself in your mid 30s with a lot of money but poor social skills and limited interests to draw upon. Women / men of this age tend to be attracted to people who are interesting rather than wealthy. If your only passion is how you make a living, that’s kinda dull. You’re 25 and probably have lots of friends now, but by 35 most of them will be married and doing their own thing and you may see them a couple times a year. If you’re boring and haven’t developed interests, you’re going to be lonely.

You can cultivate interests — just do things for the sake of doing them. Once lockdown is over, join a sports league or take dance classes. Do it just to meet people and you’ll eventually find something you like. Money comes and goes with economic cycles and I honestly don’t think the future is very bright economically for most people in the US. Find ways to cope with the existential dread now or you’re going to end up a lonely 35 year old with no friends and few prospects.

This feels remarkably similar to gambling addiction.

brutal post. So you are soulless and starting to realize it. Was this a subtle brag post I dunno.

Aren't more and more people starting to realize the endless push for side-hustles and youtube subscibers and making stuff just to sell isn't worth it/healthy? We need more balance

It’s called addiction, OP.

What about girls? For me, money always was only as important as it helped with the girls.

If people use a specific strategy to 'find their meaning', and they're aware whether or not they've found it, then we can get some idea of the efficacy of the strategy over say, doing nothing specific.

Is it necessary? No, but there are lots of strategies to choose from, and some will likely be more effective than others. Life is short, and I have finite time and energy to dedicate to 'finding my meaning'. I'd prefer to know ahead of time if a strategy is likely to work for me.

That sounds like something an anti-vaxxer would say; haha just kidding

+1 for cooking for yourself. It is time well-spent, especially if your partner is into it. And it can save money and be much healthier than eating out! Especially if you make a little extra and supplement other meals.

Also, eating out takes a lot of time... driving to a place, sitting there waiting for waiters to return a credit card, etc. The alcohol is super marked-up. You don't know the ingredients of the food well, it's usually loaded with sugar and fats. I don't mean never do it, but living that way is miserable.

And especially in the pandemic, eating out means tons of containers to deal with. Even if you push just push everything in the trash, it's still like a half a bag's worth. And if are a good doobie and wash the containers, recycle, save the leftovers, etc., it's nearly as much time as if you made it yourself. Again, not that you never should, but save it for special occasions if you wanna have a long, above-average healthspan.

Indeed in Switzerland the taxes and living costs are lower than in SF/Nyc; hence, you are more likely to become a millionaire with a tech job here than almost anywhere else.

If Switzerland is an option, ping me. I am a well-connected tech recruiter with a solid network in Zurich, and I worked as a programmer before, so I know the tech scene here inside out.

> So you'd have to save at least 72k per year for 35 years

Yes, if you put it in a 0% interest savings account. Buying assets that give an ROI is what most people do..

See also SV Delos (with their 'giant' satellite dish), Sailing Ruby Rose, Sailing Ran, and the Wynns. (La vagabond has become too lifestyle-y for me; liked their earlier stuff on the Beneteau.)

Look at how much money people in silicon valley earn on average, then check how much it cost to live there, they're all rich by my standards, because I live in a rural area in another country.

What they can do with their wealth where I am is _VASTLY_ different from what they can do where they are. They're basically median wealthy among themselves, and they still have to go to work like everybody else, the numbers they're pulling seem impressive only at first.

I'm not talking about being fair or not, only that for the current economic system to work, you need equality of resources. I'm not saying it's a good thing, just, it's how it works. I'm all for changing that, I totally expected it to have been figured out already by the time I reached adulthood, but there are no flying cars (1)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Where-My-Flying-Car-Memoir-ebook/dp/B...

"only"; it's a very privileged position to be in if you are able to earn so much and spend so little to be able to head in that direction.

Personally, after spending most of the past decade in substandard / 'affordable' student housing, I'm now very comfortable with owning a house and making ends meet at the end of the month. I've got enough savings to keep afloat for a year if I somehow lose my job, and I even have some in the stock market because savings account interest is trash at the moment (iirc because of European money lending policy, causing cheap mortgages, causing low savings account interests, and causing climbing house prices from both low mortgage interest rates + investments in real estate).

Still unattainable for most, and even when it is it requires to slave your life away. Not enough for me.

Money cannot buy you meaning, but my points were not that... they were that:

1) Saying "well sure you have money but money won't buy meaning" is usually just a self-defense mechanism. "Well I don't have the money, but at least I have meaning [questionable] and he doesn't [also questionable]." Money and meaning are probably uncorrelated. If anything I'd expect an average(!) person with money to have more meaning than average person without, given that by this only point of evidence, they are better at goal-directed behavior of some sort.

2) The 2nd point is the meaning is unnecessary. I am not sure how elaborate the religious life of subsistence farmers was, but I don't think they were looking for anything like meaning in a modern sense... Ditto for getting high on plants. It strikes me more of a curiosity motive to explain the unknown, the kind the drives modern science. To the extent that it involved meaning, it was more of a meaning of the person as a cog in the now-explained world, not some transcendence. Even the nobles/etc. would see their meaning in advancing the agenda of their city-state or smth like that. Going by modern cosmology, there's no inherent meaning in the universe, so any one you choose is just the one you create (arbitrary), or more likely someone else creates for you with their own questionable motives.

When I started thinking more of the finite-ness of life given the above, I found that it's not the lack of meaning that's the problem, it's the search itself. In this paradigm, money isn't everything, but time and experience is; and you have far more time and better experience in modern society if you have some minimum cashflow. Ideally, you need e.g. $60-80k/year (iirc that was the happiness plateau in the studies for the USA), ideally without sacrificing ~50% of your waking hours for it.

As far as I recall, the studies on happiness were all cash flow, not wealth. It takes quite a bit of wealth to get to the cash flow limit that /may/ stop making you happy (60-80k/yr iirc). Unless you think ~50% of your waking hours are worthless and can be given away for free, you need that wealth before these limits become a factor (even if one's job was perfectly aligned with their life meaning, which isn't the case for almost anyone, they could just do it anyway with the wealth, minus the economic insecurity; otherwise (i.e. for almost everyone) they could do something either more fun, or more meaningful, or both, with the time).

>Everyone talks about how US tech salaries are inflated values because they don't include the cost of healthcare, a lack of guaranteed PTO, etc.

In all fairness, if you're working for a public tech (and many other) companies, you probably have good health insurance that's at least subsidized and 3-4 weeks of PTO which may not be great by European standards but isn't nothing. (Though admittedly increasingly shared with sick time so if you're out a lot, it's less good.)

I agree with everything you said but just wanted to add RSUs/options are only even offered to a slim minority of software developers nationally. I am well paid for my job generally, and particularly for my area, but even something like an employee stock ownership program is extremely rare around here and outright RSU/option grants are unheard of. You'd get laughed out of any interview for even suggesting an ESOP to most places that don't have it.

Don't assume that's most of the US. Most of it is nothing like those numbers and for those with a mortgage and family , saving much of anything can be challenging.

these numbers are crazy

>Many families have two working professional adults and can almost double these numbers

It happens, but only if you have a loose definition of "many". If a family makes $531k, they are in the top 1%

https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percen...

They should probably phrase it better then - as it stands it's terrible advice.

I really don't undestand this "that's how it's supposed to work". Baseline doesn't grow, it only gets worse. Why the hell my landlord, just by the virtue of being born 30-40 years before, was able to afford buying a nice apartment, while working without education, for which I am giving away today a third of my net salary and with 0 chances of buying one, ever?

The person you're replying to says they're in the top 5% of earners in Germany, I feel that's closer to the small minority than most

Don't miss my very last paragraph. :)

To elaborate:

The total AMOUNT of wealth is growing, and its uneven distribution makes my point even more obvious.

Explain to me how you'd expect to get the following services in a "everyone has FU money with no robots doing the work": Car repair, lawn mowed, anything built, groceries checked out, actually, anything at all.

The only reason these things work is because there's enough unequal distribution that _someone_ has to do something they don't really want to do, in order to give someone else something they'd like to have.

The traditional job is something that nobody wants to pay for doing, but almost everyone want to pay for having done.. In order for anyone to DO that job, they have to be poor enough to accept trading in their time for money.

I'm super lucky, as I'm almost doing the same thing at my job as I'd be doing in my free time, but I still take money for it, because, after all, I'd be writing slightly more interesting (to me) code if it was my hobby. It's just that my hobby won't make me rich, because my hobby is not in trying to turn a profit on my hobby.

>In many ways, the wealth of the average person living today >is much greater than kings and emperors living centuries >ago.

I dunno man, I'm average and can't afford N wives, have someone do my dishes, clothes, own and tend thousands of hectares of land for me, father 12 children.

Maybe i'm reading about different kings than you do.

Do you really think "my only interest is money" is a balanced comment? I don't see how this even makes sense. If you didn't have other things that you wanted to spend the money on then it wouldn't be much use.

So I "retired" at 33 in the sense of having investment income > monthly expenses. Didn't own a house, but could've bought the Mississippi one you link to for cash easily.

What'd I actually do? Found a series of startups, none of which went anywhere. Fiddle around with technology, and learn some new technologies. Fret about how I wasn't being productive enough. I didn't read all that much - I read much more when I was in college. I got out of shape.

I have a friend who retired at a similar age who said "One of the worst parts about having money is realizing that most of your problems were not because of money in the first place, and then having to face them." Retirement removes a lot of constraints, but that also means that if you're still unhappy with your life, it's because of you and not your boss or employer.

> How much would you need to work if you bought a small-ish house, lived on a very strict budget, and generally kept expenditure to a minimum?

I would need a lot because I like the city life, for example. I do found idyllic to go to the countryside here in Sweden and spend quite a few weeks there for summer and winter but that's not the life I'd like to be living for years.

I enjoy being in a city for my hobbies, such as music, it's easy to find good concerts, people to mingle and chat about those hobbies. I like the human connections of cities, I enjoy meeting my friends to do something, to see an art exhibition, to make music together.

Nothing of that is possible with little money, I'd need to save a lot through decades to keep this lifestyle work-free.

I don't want a family life so that leaves me tied to having friends and spending time with them, moving to the countryside would be worse for my needs than having to work.

Not everybody dreams of owning a house and settling down in peace in the middle of nowhere, with all the free time to look at trees and write about them. I love going to a secluded cabin, bringing all my music gear and staying there for weeks but it's not something to live on for years.

You already don't owe anyone your time. You contract with an organization to trade your time for money, which you can then trade for other stuff. Most such employment contracts can be ended easily by either party if they don't like it.

I've spent a significant amount of my career working on problems of my own choice, both in someone else's employment, with a co-founder, or on my own. The limiting factor turned out not to be time or money: it was that the set of problems that are worth solving in today's economy and can be solved by one person (or even a small team) is vanishingly small, and I just had a bigger impact when working with larger organizations.

If you had millions of dollars, you'd still need to brush your teeth. And sleep and eat and shower and use the toilet. Would those things mean you're not truly free?

You'll always be 'forced to work' even if that work is just keeping your body alive and well. Perhaps it would be worth trying to find happiness now, rather than hoping it's hidden behind the next achievement.

To anyone confused by the explanation (as $220x10 < 2.5M!), I would assume the key is likely in the investments.

Given the market of the last decade, investing everything above the 30-40k expenses and income tax in the S&P500 and re-investing the dividends would have brought GP there. Not really sure about how one can make it with 30-40k including rent in the Bay Area, but this sounds like the most reasonable takeaway for most readers.

Out of curiosity, what timeframe were your working years? My concern is that "investing mostly in equities" (assuming a decent percent of growth stocks) can be the deciding factor if you happen to hit a good bull run but potentially disastrous if your market timing is off.

>at least to a degree more money = more happiness

Except the research shows marginal “experiential” happiness (as opposed to “reflecting” happiness) occurs much, much lower than your threshold. To this point, both you and the comment you’re responding to could be right (although I’m not sure about their tone that you have a duty to give money away)

I’m curious, in which ways do you feel that money made you happier? As in, what were the important things it has enabled for you that weren't available under, say, an average engineer's salary?

Out of curiosity, what do you do with your day now that you're retired?

> most people tend to agree with me that at least to a degree more money = more happiness, it's the reason that capitalism works

What do you think capitalism is exactly? What's your definition that fits the context of that statement?

>That king probably had one or more personal doctors, people they more or less owned, whose sole purpose and responsibility was their well-being.

(Assuming we're talking a couple hundred years ago or longer.)

Who didn't have access to antibiotics, vaccines, or any of a plethora of other modern drugs, germ theory of disease, anesthetics, etc. etc. I'll take an hour of a modern physician's time and access to hospital/pharmacy. Thank you very much.

Quantity doesn't always beat quality.

Wow! You sound miserable

> If you max out your 401(k) you are saving about $20k/yr while only reducing your taxable income by ~$15k/yr depending on your marginal tax rate. A Roth adds another $6k to that if you're under the cap (something like $140k for 2020)

Even if you are above the Roth cap, you can contribute post-tax $6k to a tradtional IRA, then immediately roll into a Roth IRA. This is known as a "backdoor Roth".

Additionally, some employer 401(k) plans allow you to contribute post-tax money to your 401(k). The IRS specifies an upper limit of the total of [employee pre-tax + employer match + employee post-tax], which was $57k in 2020. The post-tax portion of the above can also be rolled into a Roth IRA. This is commonly referred to as the "mega-backdoor Roth"

Also, don't forget catch-up contributions to each if you are over 50.

Point is if you have the income to support it, you can save much more in a tax advantaged way than just that $19.5k pre-tax 401(k). Please look up the tax consequences of any of these options before doing them. They are straightforward but contain a few pitfalls, such as the pro-rata rule affecting rolling over traditional IRAs into Roth IRAs.

Honestly that sounds like a pretty good trade-off. The percentage of people who are ridiculously wealthy goes from tiny to tinier, and in exchange everybody else gets a good shot at a comfortable life.

Funnily enough, one of the reasons I'm looking to move to Germany is to get richer. Salaries in Germany are significantly better than most of western Europe (UK, France, Spain, Italy…) for a similar cost of life.

I suspect people who grow up in (basically) a socialist country like Germany, France, Scandinavia etc will have far less impetus to 'get rich'.

If you feel secure in being able to maintain an income where you can enjoy both the basic and leisurely aspects of life. That you won't be made bankrupt by illness, or by unfair illegal/legal proceedings. In these circumstances the drive to sit on top of 2.5M to feel relaxed about your financial situation will likely fade away.

When you're settling down you can still come back to Germany enjoying a mostly functioning society and reasonable expenses. You'll just need to figure out a way to evade taxes.

Out of curiosity what do you do and where did you move?

Almost everyone just scales up their spendings though, there is no scenario where they can retire early.

True. I'm old and I just have no desires anymore to spend money on. Low appetite, low libido and low energy, tired of traveling ... wish I had 1/100 of that money when I was young.

Future returns could certainly be less. But all we have to go on is what's happened so far. In the past even the worst entry+exit points are acceptable for retirement if not astounding, if you've saved something like 15% of your income for age 30-65 (I forget the exact numbers but that's more-or-less close to it). Yes, some people have to choose between cutting their standard of living and retiring on time, and retiring later for the expected standard of living. I'm not sure what we can do to change that? Like you said, we have limited time and everyone's situation is different. Go onto any of those retirement income calculators and compare the person who starts saving in their mid-30's but maxes everything out to the person who starts saving with their first job out of school and gradually increases from $100 or $200/mo.

Your comment was that equity investing can be disastrous if you hit the timeline wrong, and my only point was that unless you're speculating or are only in the market for 5-10 years, that has never happened. We have no way of knowing if that will happen in the future or not, but there's no reason to believe that we're going to see decades of middling or negative growth. There's really no other option if you want to have a real retirement unless you plan to just rely on whatever government assistance you can get.