Misunderstanding, I asked him that exact question which was "Why are you working when you could be doing anything you want?" and his response was that he was doing what he wanted. It was a conscious choice. I've mentioned this before but I joined Sun Microsystems the Monday after they had gone public on Friday. As a result I had a unique opportunity to become acquainted with a large number of people > 1000 who had become suddenly wealthy. The observation was that some of them wanted "big things" and some of them wanted "small things." It seems to be an individual preference thing. But mostly people didn't become 'asshole rich people'[1], the majority went off to do the thing they enjoyed doing. One of my co-workers left Sun, paid off their house, and spent their time doing hobby robotics stuff. If you're a curious person with average or better intelligence, working is much more preferable to being bored. That was Guido's complaint, he could do what ever he wanted but he was bored, and one thing "work" does is supply a bunch of things to do.

[1] Some did of course and the contrast was super stark, why live your life antagonizing those less fortunate than you? It's a choice but I never felt it was a healthy one.

I'm pretty sure that guy didn't go around telling people "I'm rich but I only do this job because I like it."