Didn't you write two Lisp books and start Viaweb before you got rich? Would you say you and your co-founders were just as motivated afterward?

As I understand it, the Zenter people darn near killed themselves leading up to the Google acquisition. Realistically, I wouldn't see them continuing at that breakneck pace afterward.

After the Apple II disk drive, Woz took it easy -- really easy. He doesn't even walk anymore, he Segways!

Taking it easy seems to be the norm. The exceptions to this get mega-rich, like Jobs and Gates. I used to wonder why Gates didn't just take his billions and retire somewhere; reading a biography makes it clear that his life IS Microsoft, including his social circle. It's his whole identity; it's not a job. He didn't do it so he could get rich and do something else; he did it because it's the thing he wanted to do the most anyway! And of course Jobs has always been on a transcendental mission to change humanity via consumer technology.

That is interesting, because when I lived in Cambridge I worked in a circle of serious lisp/hacker nerds who busted ass to get rich, and then promply retired from doing anything once they cashed out. They are now exactly like what the guy mentions in the first post; they chill on the sofa and read stuff on the internet. Maybe the Harvard grad school hacker scene had a different personality type than the one at MIT.