When you have Enough, the extra money means very little. I’ve been broke, and being broke sucks balls. Having Enough is awesome. How would I define “Enough”? Enough means that you can take a friend out to a nice lunch and not have to worry about how much it costs. I have hung out with a couple of billionaires—my experiences indicate that being a billionaire is just incrementally better than Enough.
Exactly.
At the end of the day no one can argue that someone that lives on $20,000 a month doesn't have a better quality of life than someone living on $5000 a month.
I totally appreciate the sentiment in the article but at the end of the day, money equals freedom.
If I had assets of $5 to $10 million in investments throwing off $200k-$500k a year in cash, that would be a nice lifestyle indeed.
Does it mean I would work any less harder? Probably not. But, if I want to take that 3-4 month trip to Europe and spend 50k on the trip, then that's what I would do.
And I think the comparison is wrong. Being billionaire is incrementally better than a multimillionaire (let's say net worth of $5 million and beyond).
Making $100k a year is definitely not close to somebody making $500k a year.
In terms of starting a company and the risks involved, I think for most people that do it, its an itch. The money is the reward but that's not why we want to do it.
I also think that the odds increase dramatically when you focus on building a business where you don't expect it to ever go IPO or be worth more than 5-10 million.
Studies show that beyond a certain surprisingly-low point, wealth doesn't add much to happiness.
Additionally, as I say below, I think approaching wealth from a position of strength ("fuck you, wealth, I don't need you.") ends up making it (and even more so, it's final cause, freedom) more likely.
Also, you need the right kind of failure... one to bad will have lasting repercussions (or delay things more). Changes get better with a little of experience doing things "normally" and do side things. Eventually then jump...
Ummm i want the best of both worlds... how can I (a person with no contacts in the company) go to procter & gamble, and say "hey I'm pretty good at tech, let me solve your problems"?
"Being smart and hard-working got me to seven employees. Luck took me the rest of the way."
The funny thing is that I don't want to be an entrepreneur for the money. I'm also not interested in the hockey stick. I wonder if the odds are better if one is just aiming for a lifestyle business.
If I desired to work with Ruby or Apple technologies it would be a delightful place to work.
As for his recommendation, I would add the caveat that if you have an idea you want to get off the ground, treat it as a hobby or side-project and jump to full-time working on it if you can get either investment or profitability. There's no reason to wholesale discourage people from starting a small company, but be responsible!
You will spend a large percentage of your energy on stuff
that will eventually be thrown away.