When Open Exchange Rates [0] began making decent returns - not a $2.5billion exit trajectory by any means, but certainly enough to set me apart from my peers - I felt I was on the path to something great. I thought something like "Now that I don't need to trade my time for money, I'll be [popular, happy, fulfilled, 'enough']... and I'll grow automatically."
I awoke years later (thankfully only two) to find that I had none of what it would take to be happy, or to grow as a man, and a seeming eternity of free time stretching out before me to enjoy my comfortable isolation.
I only had to taste the false freedom of wealth - really just an appetiser - to know that no amount of resources would fulfil me if I could not meet basic emotional needs, go through pain and challenge, be vulnerable, build relationships, and self-nurture. God forbid I ever come into the kind of money he has - but if I do, I pray I would have the courage to start from scratch to build the life that nourishes my spirit.
I think many will take a high position, point a finger at this man, and feel good about themselves. It's easy to look at him and say "High value problems," and "He has nothing to complain about," or even "He should be X/do Y...", etc. The real tragedy for me is that his issue can be so socially unacceptable.
I rate him for being open and vulnerable about this part of the journey and hope he finds the peace he deserves.
"like three people thanked me for the two million kronor after tax bonus i gave from my own private money. Others said I was cheap."
Per Google, the exchange rate for Swedish Kronor to US Dollars is 0.12, so 2,000,000 Kronor works out to $240,000, which while certainly a nice and possibly even life-changing bonus is hardly enough to retire on in Sweden given the cost of living.
Considering the company sold for more than $2.5 billion and Mojang had so few employees, Notch could have easily made all of them millionaires while still walking away himself a billionaire. In fact, probably the only reason they didn't all end up rich is because Notch never gave any of his employees any equity in the company whatsoever.
Honestly, "cheap" isn't a completely inaccurate description of his conduct here. But it was his company, and now it's his money, and he can do as he pleases with it, but publicly complainig that his former employees aren't especially grateful to him, despite his relative stinginess (no stock options at all?), is silly.
I'd agree, but remember that the others weren't all in it from the beginning. Notch had already done all the groundwork and the game was massively successful before "Mojang" was even a thing. I think $240,000 bonus on top of their (I assume at least competitive) salaries seems incredibly generous to me - not to mention that they're all still gainfully employed after the sale.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not really a fan and don't have any loyalty either way, it would be good to hear from someone on the inside.
From what I heard, his "groundwork" was a terrible mess of spaghetti code that was awfully hard to work with. Most likely the only thing he left behind was the IP and fan base.
I meant more the initial marketing and community involvement that helped the game get popular in the first place. Much as it pains me to say it as a developer, code quality isn't everything...
You're right. I'm positive that every time a large company acquires a small one, it's because of their community and IP. Code is easily rewritten, and startups aren't making breakthroughs in algorithms. It's not like microsoft didn't have engineers capable of making a minecraft clone. They didn't have the rights to do so.
If you go look at my githb account you will see lots of spaghetti code that will never be sold for $2.5 billion ;-) It doesn't matter how poor the code was, it was incredibly valuable before anyone else joined the company.
I'm not sure there necessarily is a "consensus" on HN.
However, in general, people feel that you shouldn't take a very large salary cut just for a few options. Most startups are not going to have a significant exit. Some (like Zynga), will manage to find a way of screwing you out of options if they do have a substantial exit. Only a few will have options that have a very large upside.
So, if your options only add up to some very small percentage of the company, they shouldn't be given in lieu of a very large amount of salary. Sure, you're working on something exciting at a startup and there is some potential upside, so maybe take a 10% salary cut and a few options to compensate for it. But don't take a 50% salary cut (or a 100% cut, where you're only paid in options), and look at your options and say "it's worth it because these have a chance of being worth millions."
This never made sense to me. The bigger the company, the less valuable the options or stock are (because the value is known - you might as well take an equivalent amount of cash, because the upside is capped). On the other hand, at a tiny company where the options are worthless, you can get way more options more easily. You can actually negotiate for points of the total ownership of the company. Can you ask for 0.01% of Google if you interview there?
If you don't want risk, why would you work at a startup? If you aren't betting on a big exit, why wouldn't you just work at a company like Google or Facebook where your total (guaranteed, risk free) compensation would be far greater?
At my last startup I negotiated for a lower salary and as much equity as I could get, and I asked for more equity with every promotion. Those were the best decisions I ever made. I want to work at a startup because I want more risk, not less.
A part of me considers this a geek tabloid piece. "Hey everyone, this famous geek is rich and miserable. Omg!" I feel a little guilty even commenting.
Another part of me is disgusted with the way he resents his former employees. There does seem to be a miser mentality at play here. He deserved his success but would he had gotten there without the right people? I sense absolutely no gratitude. Most of them were most likely required to work at Microsoft for a certain period of time to receive their bonuses.
I agree it was popular but I suspect the employees of Mojang contributed more than few hundred thousand dollars worth of value to what would eventually become a $2.5B valuation. I mean that's the idea behind hiring employees. You can't do everything yourself.
Not giving equity strikes me as a tactical error, because the hurt feelings seem to be worth a lot more to him than the money he now has and apparently isn't interested in. I understand the justification for not doing it, but it seems like he's paying a different price for it now.
At least in Germany (I assume in Sweden it's the same, but IANAL) it is legally very involved to offer equity - this is the reason why it's highly unusual to have equity as part of the compensation.
Just as a sidenote - nobody gives employees equity in EU. I've worked and know many people who work in IT and being given equity is pretty much unheard of. It's pretty much a US-only practice.
It is too bad he didn't figure out a way to settle down. Once you have a family and out of the party scene, things are much more normal. You have a routine and good priorities and a plan for the future. I think unlimited money combined with being in the high intensity and fairly superficial rich person's party circuit is likely not something that leads to fulfillment.
I know a bunch of fairly well off people and those with prioritized family lives seem to be the ones who are dealing with it the best.
I think a lot of it has to do with the self-perception that as a man with significantly increased wealth, your pool of women who would be interested in you is vastly expanded.
But then you realize that the women aren't interested in 'you' but the wealth itself - which brings a whole different set of problems.
So... I get that for someone famous, but notch REALLY isn't famous. If I asked basically any member of my family who "notch" is, I would bet that the number of people who could tell me would be 0. If I even surveyed my "geek" friends, I would be the rate of return would be under 50%.
If he doesn't flaunt the cash, he could very easily find someone who likes "him for who he is". Hell, go rent a normal apartment, get a 9-5 job for a while, and "pretend" you aren't rich for a couple of months.
Once you have a family and out of the party scene, things are much more normal.
Careful. I'm fairly sure that's actually the technical definition of begging the question. That is, because you assume settling down and having kids is "normal", naturally doing that will, you know, make things "more normal".
In fact, I'll put money down that if he had that house with the white picket fence and 2.5 children and suddenly became a billionaire, odda are most of his problems would still exist. Friends would still be alienated. People would still be jealous. The only difference is he'd have a wife who might (hopefully) support him and a couple dependents to worry about.
When you're young you might feel the tedium of taking care of a kiddo...drudgery of the daily regime. But as you get older you realize that the effort or lack thereof you put into those tasks can give life great meaning or be your biggest regret.
Nowhere in my comment did I say that everyone wants a kid nor that they are a failure at life if they don't have one. What I said was in response to the comment about family life being boring.
First, I didn't intend making a "statement". I made an innocent, if not necessarily crystal clear, comment which attempted to give one person's experience to those that have already chosen to have a child. NOT a comment about the merits of having a child or not.
It's a nice theory, but the concept of "men overworking to avoid going home" didn't become a trope by chance. Not everyone feels the meaning given by those tasks.
I'm not saying that everyone feels the meaning given by those tasks. IMHO, if you asked those same men "overworking to avoid going home" what they regret later in life, not being with their kids will rank very high.
There should be a balance I suppose. I'm sorry but playing pretend-grocery-store with my 3yo girl can't compete with the challenge and satisfaction of cracking a really hard algorithm or a similar problem. But having a family in general gives life way more meaning than creating some app or website.
Please don't take this the wrong way and this is just one man's opinion. When that 3 year old girl is older and naturally becomes independent and moves on from you to the next steps in her life, that pretend grocery store experience will be orders of magnitude more meaningful to you than solving ANY hard algorithm. Not judging, not preaching, just giving you thoughts based upon experience.
I don't think I disagree with that, I'm just saying that being with my children is not always fun or interesting. Louis CK has some excellent bits about this stuff.
I agree with you, but I wouldn't presume to tell someone else how to give their lives meaning, just because I'm "older", or to tell someone they will later regret not taking the same path in live as me.
Some people just aren't cut out for the family life.
I didn't tell anyone to do anything because I'm older. I shared that if you do choose to have a family one person's experience is that you will cherish the moments you are serving your children.
And I share this as someone who has gone through it in the hope that sharing might in some small way assist those that have not gone through it yet.
Would be interesting to find out how old you are? I'm 31, all my friends are married and popping out babies and while I'm in a very happy long term relationship, I honestly don't see the appeal (thankfully my partner agrees).
I'm just wondering if something will prompt us to wake up one day and change our minds, but it certainly hasn't happened yet.
I'm 40. My son was born when I was 34. I didn't see the appeal until pretty much when he was born and I held him for the first time. What happened was that my resistance had softened to the point where I was willing to have a child because my wife badly wanted one. The moment I held him for the first time that all changed, and I couldn't imagine it any other way.
I'm a cynic, and very conscious that it's down to my brain getting flooded with drugs. But they're oh, so very efficient drugs.
45yo here, no ex's, kids or even pets. It is a completely different life from my families', friends' and peers' lives. Many envy my choices, some feel sorry for me* but most are indifferent. Mom has come to appreciate my stance only recently: *alone is not necessarily lonely. I have respect & admiration for those who commit to marriage/parentage, and I empathise with the many who fail... most empathy reserved for the innocents who grow up amidst, and as a direct result of, such failures. I was the parentless, feral kid amidst a dysfunctional divorce, went to 9 different schools from k-12 and used my own monies & a fake ID to get snipped when I was 17. I won't be repeating that mistake. I am an idealist, I have refused to curtail or abandon my lofty goals for an enlightened humankind and my finances/quality of life have suffered for it. I do not HAVE to do anything, nobody is reliant on me beyond my reponsibilities as a service provider and I can afford such luxuries as true independence.
That depends on what you find meaningful. Some like to build model houses, other like to report from dangerous places, some or out to help people and some just have children.
An infinite amount of money will not change anyone for the better. What you were before remains, you just have more money. If you cared deeply for things before you were rich you will still care afterwards, if you had nothing to care about before you won't suddenly care unless you have someone to kick you in ass. Notch has no one but himself.
Bill Gates didn't suddenly become a philanthropist after all his money, he married a woman who did care deeply about things enough to change her husband's direction.
Steve Jobs gained and lost enormous money but remained passionate about making better products no matter what. You might not like him but he remained the same throughout other than maybe getting a little more trusting and less crazy.
You would think that with an infinite amount of money, you could pursue whatever lifestyle you desire. One could easily buy land and housing anywhere on earth, and surround himself with whatever people he wishes. I can't even imagine the endless possibilities. The choice of a $70mil mansion and non-stop parties is pretty narrow-sighted. Lucky for him he still has a fortune to try again.
Many people (probably almost everyone who will read this post) have enough money to eat just about any kind of food they want for dinner tonight. Imagine the endless possibilities! You can go to a market and discover a whole new world. The internet can teach you how to bring it to your own house. For a little bit more, you could go to a fancy restaurant. For a one time treat, most here could easily afford to eat dinner prepared by a famous chef.
Despite this, how many will choose fast food tonight?
Fast food, sit-coms on TV, no exercise, same boring commute every day, same conversations with the same people every day. All of these things are well within our control. Do we lack imagination, or something else? Even without his fortune, we can all share in his misfortune ;-)
P.S. My boss once told me about someone who would buy anyone a hamburger in exchange for a good story. Not really, that expensive IMHO (cheaper than a movie!).
You made me feel just as narrow sighted, but on a smaller scale (sincere thanks for the insight). However, there are still lots of people who don't eat fast food for dinner. And for that, they are healthier and better looking. Would you feel sorry for the guy complaining that he's fat and ugly whilst chewing on a burger? Aren't our own decisions responsible for who we are? I still don't think he deserves to be pitied.
Personally, I think you are right. I don't think he deserves pity. Having said that, I have suffered greatly in my life by my own hand (without really knowing it was me who was inflicting the pain). As stupid as it is, I don't think anyone deserves that suffering either. I hope he figures it out eventually.
I don't think negativity and an attitude of superiority is universal after getting a big exit. I have know a few people who have done very well for themselves, and while they do develop caution when discussing money or business, in general they have had improved outlooks on life, and become friendlier people, spending more time following their personal interests and passions.
So for Notch, I hope this is just a cherry picked selection of tweets to make a point, because if that is how he is truly feeling most of the time, he needs therapy.... or maybe just a hobby.
My "holy shit I have more money than I ever expected" plan is to buy a 60ft classic motor yacht and then go get my masters ticket so I can crew it myself then spend the rest of my life traveling from port to port around the world, no big houses, fast cars or any of that jazz, just me, just a comfortable boat and the rest of the world to visit at my own pace.
I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with how Notch left Mojang, but he basically went home like it was completely normal and didn't say good bye to the people he'd been working with on Minecraft[1].
That's what you have to understand when you're reading these tweets: this is not a normal individual that understands typical human behavior. He has always had trouble connecting to people, and no surprise, money doesn't fix that. Remove everything else, he'd be an awesome guy to hang out with and talk about video games, but he wouldn't really know how to have a conversation around the typical personalities of this forum, since he isn't an entrepreneur by nature. For most of us, all we ever really talk about when meeting other people are: 1) Our own businesses; 2) Their businesses; 3) How we/they/everyone should start a business -- we get absolutely pumped about these topics. That's how this guy is with video games, and it makes it difficult to connect to the people who he's supposed to hang out with due to the social standing his money has given him. Why? Because the people who have made that much money almost always come from the entrepreneurial mindset, since a business is what usually took them there (or a business on top of their fame).
So, I hope Notch will somehow develop an understanding of the world that allows him to become immune to what others think he ought to be and what he ought to do, and instead he just becomes like Wozniak and becomes content with himself. It definitely won't happen if he continues to use social media as an outlet, instead of making real human connections that aren't focused on partying and spending his money. I don't imagine him getting there, though, since it seems like he isn't growing the fortitude required to handle the responsibility of the wealth he's developed. It's always painful for me to see people unable or unwilling to help themselves, and in that regard this shows that a billionaire can be in the same emotional place as a person living on the street.
I reckon this would imply some sort of effort on the author's part, can't have that can we?!
Well, my snark side, these twittericles are getting a bit old.
I do hope notch bounces back, everyone has their ups and downs, and it's really hard to judge what's actually going on from an outside context, especially through a medium as scattered as Twitter.
Agreed, I should think that anyone interested in his personal life already follows him on Twitter and would have already seen this. Hopefully it will lead to a bigger interview / blog post from the man himself on the subject as it's certainly interesting (to me at least, and I imagine a lot of the HN crowd).
Also probably the lack of a significant other or close friends to share your experiences with. I knew that feeling, and it doesn't matter how much money or purpose you have.
Money is just a force multiplier, I am not sure why there should be a "darker side of life" after a big exit, as long as you realize that one is happiest when working, having lots of money will enable one to work as much as they want on what they find important without having to have a job.
With a large amount of money one can focus fully on what one really wants to achieve in life, you can "buy time" by hiring others to work with you, you can "buy life" by setting yourself up in a very low stress environment with quality food and help with your physical needs.
It doesn't take much to figure out that a life spent partying is empty and unfulfilling, the difference between not having a lot of money and having it is that after figuring this out in one case one has to go back to their job, while in the other one can step back and work on something meaningful (to them) without concerning themselves about how to make rent or buy food while they do so.
Maybe though having a big exit / lots of money is easier if one is tendentially an introvert, for me when I read things like "how do I know if all these people around me want to be friends with me or my money" the first thing I think of is "why would I want a lot of people around me, it would just take time away from working towards my goals"
Also unless somebody is a Hollywood star it should be feasible to be anonymous enough to meet people and get to know them without them realizing you are worth gobs of money, just get a modest house somewhere not under your own name and volunteer at some local charities for a while, which is a lot more fulfilling than the party circuit anyways.
This said good luck to Notch and others in his situation in figuring things out, the more people we have working towards making the world a better place, the better it is for everybody.
I get that it's isolating, hard to trust people, and difficult to find tasks rewarding when you can have everything you've ever wanted ...but it can't be all that bad because this problem can be self-remedied.
Theoretically Notch could bring himself out of the stratosphere by removing enough money from his account that he can be perceptibly normal. e.g. donate most of his fortune and leaving himself only enough to qualify as 'FU money'
Exactly. I can't feel bad for people complaining about having too much money, when it's such a simple problem to solve if you really mean it. And there are so many people who really need that money, too.
Even at my meager $70k income, I've gotten some sense that after a certain point, money's not going to greatly increase my quality of life. And if I had billions, I wouldn't give the money all away either, but at least I wouldn't complain about what a burden it was, living in my $70 million Beverly Hills mansion. That empathy has to go both ways, and those words are really grating to the truly less fortunate in life who can't even put food on the table reliably.
I was just looking at that $70 million mansion, and comparing it with my $25 hotel room in Thailand. The bathroom here is super modern, and the shower is amazing. Have just spent the last few hours rewatching The Office with my wife. Stuff like that doesn't depend on how much money you have. You can be lonely with billions of dollars, and you certainly have the right to complain about it.
I don't really know if I would be any happier with 17 bathrooms and a home cinema with seating for 30 people. Especially not if you're constantly second guessing your friends' motives when they come over to watch movies.
Yeah, I think I'd probably settle for a $4 million house in a great location. You know, nothing too fancy. Oh, and a jacuzzi way up high with a view of the mountains and the ocean.
> You can be lonely with billions of dollars, and you certainly have the right to complain about it.
Oh, certainly. That's possible, and one is allowed to complain. It's just that it's in bad taste to frame it that way. It'd be like going up to a person in a wheelchair and saying, "man, it sure is exhausting having to walk everywhere! You really aren't missing anything, I'm telling you."
Is this really the money or is it the relative fame and lack of anything to do with his time?
It seemed like he was genuinely happy creating games. Why can't he go back to that rather than being a celebrity? I could imagine him fading from the spotlight and becoming a private person within a couple of years.
Based on one of his recent tweets, he hasn't developed the ability to deal with assholes or similar. Even with $1.5 billion he finds it difficult to deal with them, and that kind of wealth and power confers every advantage over 99.9-% of assholes on the planet one could ever ask for.
I'd guess there's a much deeper issue at play. Crippling social anxiety, an overly extreme need to be liked, etc. Then combined with his semi-fame, he's finding it difficult to create again, out of fear of rejection / mockery / jerks. The solution is to stop caring so much about what other people think (it's how people like John Carmack survive it), getting to that point appears to be his challenge.
I think both Notch's feelings of isolation and ennui and the resentment of those around him are both valid. One doesn't preclude the other , in fact they feed into each other.
When he sold it for 2.5 I felt really sorry for him, this was so much to be expected. It is very hard to be happy and live a fruitful live with such amounts of money. Most people do not understand this, they find out once they have it. I wish you all the best notch.
If the burden is unbearable a solution is easy - he can just give everything away. Usually problems of life are not that easy to solve. This was very childish for Notch.
You can't prevent resentment, that's up to other people. Whether it's over a billion dollars, or a raise, or a new car, or anything else. The key in most cases is to stop caring so much about what other people think (assuming you're not being an overt jerk to spur the resentment). How highly you value someone's opinion should roughly match how much you value them as part of your life in general; any misalignment of that, will usually cause suffering.
You give it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Within reason you could pick a specific project that interests you (education in Sweden, or a specific disease, or clean water in Africa), and they would go after it on your money's behalf. They have the scale and systems in place to do that with large donations.
I always think that being rich and/or famous must make life a PITA.
Sure, you have money to do whatever you want, but, those friends you have? You sure they are your friends, and not the friends of your wallet?
Those people you trust, you sure you still trust them not to make a quick buck from selling stories about you?
Want to head out while looking like crap? Sure you want those photos posted all over the media with the accompanying headlines about how you have let yourself go?
There is a saying about how the best way to enjoy a sunrise is by sharing it with someone....no amount of money can make that happen.
If i were looking at this question for my life, I would say I only have a handful of friends anyways. It wouldn't matter to me if they made a quick buck telling stories about me, as long as they weren't lies. Don't care about what people think of how I dress. Even the shit-o'clock hour of the morning after a run.
Yeah, this is kind of depressing. He had struck me as such a down-to-earth guy, before. There was a good few years when he was still living in the same house and working his old dev job part-time, because he wanted to keep in touch with things instead of just being a zillionaire.
Apparently the appeal faded, and now he's decided, hey, why not act like a zillionaire? And he's discovered that it makes him miserable, but it hasn't yet occurred to him that he doesn't have to act like a zillionaire.
Sidenote: the madness of tweetstorms (and how the press covers them) must end. I believe a simple tweet: "I hereby grant an irrevocable worldwide license to all my Twitter posts to all" will fix the problem once and for all.
I hope he gets out of this rut and finds a way to be happy and do more good things. It's a little painful to watch a smart guy with billions spend his time making gimmicky video games and partying and being generally unhappy.
Perhaps he needs to meet up with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates for a nice lunch over which they can explain to him how to do good, mature things with his staggering wealth, rather than behaving like a baby.
> Money is not happiness. You would do well to understand that we are all human.
I thought that was bshimmin's point. Notch thought that Microsoft money would make him happy, and he hasn't yet figured out how to deal with the fact that it doesn't.
As far as I can tell, everyone around him was pushing him to sell, because Minecraft's maintenance is a burden and because he could be set for the rest of his life.
I don't think for a second he needed more money than he already had, or that he thought this would make him happier. And he and ez broke up even before he sold Minecraft anyway, he was never really happy.
> bshimmin's point
I thought he was being a little mean about it. Just my opinion.
I'll concede my final clause absolutely was a bit mean.
In my defence, the tweet about the "great girl" who was afraid of his lifestyle rather annoyed me, but I do understand that money doesn't make for happiness - often quite the opposite - and that it can be hard to form new and trusting relationships when you have a lot in the bank.
He's not doing a brilliantly good job of spending his money maturely so far. Unless spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in night clubs counts as mature.
Sure, he has lots of money, and so spending the amount some people spend on a house on a single night out makes relatively little difference to him (the equivalent of my buying a sandwich or something). But that doesn't mean it's a mature way to spend his money.
He felt isolated in Ibiza. And once he felt dissatisfaction, has the option of going anywhere and be with nearly anyone!
If something is that easy to solve, it's not a problem.
In this instance, his problem was something like the inability to predict Ibiza's utility. He probably doesn't know himself well enough.
Some people have the isolation, and then have no choice but to endure it constantly, unable to change their circumstances. Suffering in quite desperation.
Notch wasn't isolated. He just picked the wrong destination in a large array of destinations.
I'm having a hard time feeling sorry for the guy. He thought his success was a testament to his engineering greatness, acting like he was John Carmack. Money doesn't buy character, decency or real friends. Notch is feeling the sting of his arrogance? He doesn't have my sympathy.
He was just really lucky. He stole most of the ideas from older games, and repackaged them in a horrible turd of a codebase, acting like he invented programming.
That guy build a folder tree in the filesystem because of "performance", which means he put a trie on a b-tree because he didn't know about the latter.
Also so much for "I'm going to open source this, once I'm rich and famous".
Honestly, I expect the rich to just buy a damn therapist rather than complain to the rest of us. They have enough money to pay someone to care, but they yap to us and expect it for free.
From my perspective, this comment broadly captures what is so tragic for me about his situation and the potential pitfalls of isolation-by-riches: the apparent fact that the majority of people discount a wealthy man's cry for help (read "willingness to be vulnerable"), dehumanising him and robbing him of an opportunity to heal - whether through therapy, community, or some other significant life change.
They do that because they measure the rich person's woes and find that they are considerably less than theirs, its basically that they don't appreciate the person in the sedan chair complaining about the heat.
A wealthy person is still a person, but when another looks at their burden and finds it lighter than their own, they often don't pity them because they perceive they can much more easily mobilize their own help (see: an article about a billionaire's emotional state vs European immigration crisis.)
Basically, the "pitfall" of isolation by riches is a problem a large portion of humans would like to have.
Nobody is robbing Notch of his opportunity to heal. We as internet commentators can't do that. We're not really dehumanizing him, either-- just pointing out that his burden is light relative to most.
If you're having trouble carrying a light weight, sure, get help. It just seems pretty childish to complain to an open microphone about a something so petty. I have no doubt these emotions are very tough for Notch, and I see that I would probably have the same problems in his situation.
But seriously, this isn't the kind of thing you say to a wide audience without being completely out of touch. He should know better.
> just pointing out that his burden is light relative to most.
Yeah, and as someone who makes enough money to not worry about not being on the streets, but also not enough to be able to just do anything I want, my burden is light relative to people in 3rd world countries.
No matter what you say, someone's burden is light compared to another, and completely denying someone like Notch the right to be able to get their burden off their chest, just because their's is less than yours, is asinine.
and as someone who may not have their money problem solved, it makes it difficult to discuss the possibility that feelings of this nature a real problem. It's similar to the privilege problem that man faces - no man can really understand their privilege and the position a women is in when she is discriminated, because men don't face that problem and never has.
Just because one is wealthy does not mean that all your problems will suddenly go away. Yes, you won't end up on the street because you can't pay your rent, but it does create a ton of new problems that can lead to isolation.
A few that come to mind, that I've noticed with wealthy friends:
1. Time. You'll probably have plenty. You're free. What do you do all day when your old friends are working? That probably means making new friends. But it can also lead to disconnects with old friends. Most people don't understand.
2. Ulterior motives of people. Imagine you meet a person - any person. Most relatively wealthy people will assume this person wants something from them. Guess what, people DO usually want something from them. This can lead to problems bonding and/or having relationships.
3. Investing and taxes: what if I invest badly and lose all my capital? Ok, so you invest in a property in Spain and a few years later sell it. You pay $x tax. For some silly reason the authorities don't agree, and want to levy additional tax x2. On top of that, your tax lawyer isn't great, and you need to go find a new one. It'll drag on for years, going through the courts.
etc etc
Many people would say, cry me a river. Obviously it's better to be wealthy than to be poor, but it's not all it's made out to be. No therapist is going to fix that.
Problems are problems, and I personally respect that everyone has their own set of issues in life. Wealth can be a burden.
I think people find it difficult to empathize because there's a cake-and-eat-it-too problem here. He wants to enjoy his (well-deserved) wealth without the loneliness that comes with it. He can mitigate many of these problems instantly by giving up his fortune and 9 to 5'ing.
Or buy a nightclub like Jamie Zawinski, or travel the world taking photos like Tom Anderson.
Am I naive, or are these problems a degree easier to solve than problems of people who are not wealthy?
Problem 1: Use your new-found time to work on projects. These could be new companies that grow your wealth, endeavours that seek to create a change that you care about, or doing things to help people that you care about. There are other alternatives, too. Joining investment groups. Taking holidays. Consulting.
Problem 2: For chance meetings, I can see how this is a problem, but if you primarily meet new people through existing social circles, that might mitigate this effect a bit. I don't have this problem, but I have noticed that I've made lots of great friends through existing friends.
Problem 3: Could you not hire someone (or a company) to manage this sort of thing? I realize plenty of oversight would still be prudent, but it should alleviate the stress of it somewhat. Diversity in investments should mitigate the risk of losing everything. Limiting investments to areas that are well understood might also be a good idea for avoiding tax surprises.
I agree that wealthy people will definitely still have life problems, but I'm still not convinced it has to be these ones. Forms of social isolation (eg. imbalance that notch mentioned) seem much more plausible and nowhere near as easily remedied.
I think it's hard for those without these problems to truly understand the weight of getting out from underneath them. For example from the outside it's easy to say how someone who is poor could do something to lift themselves out of that state, but this wouldn't account for all the things working against someone who is poor.
Naive might be a strong word for it, but it's always easy to say someone else's problems are good problems to have, or they have it easier, but as long as we're putting them on a spectrum and assigning value to their experience, we're not accounting for the struggle itself. It's not the value of the struggle that matters, it's that we all have struggles, and being able to find support for when we are struggling makes a HUGE quality of life difference.
So many people in today's world want to deny others this experience, "you don't/didn't have it that hard, what are you complaining about. Man Up. Stop being a pussy... You're rich, what's the problem..." etc
Not all struggles are created equal. Some struggles (like Notch's) are actually problems that people wish they could have.
He doesn't have it hard, he's just not creative enough to enjoy his new life. I guess it's unfortunate he feels so awful, but if he can't find something fun and fulfilling to do while sitting on a pile of money, he has absolutely no right to complain-- an entire world is sitting out there, waiting for him to engage with.
This is just another iteration of the timeless "people invent new problems when the old problems are taken care of" law of human nature. We're all subject to it, but most of us carry it well enough to know when to shut up.
In this iteration, the rich complain that their former problems have been solved, but have been replaced by other problems as a result of solving those initial problems. It is a fallacy to assume that these new problems are of the same magnitude of the other problems, and they really should not be treated with the same set of thoughts. The problems of emotional awkwardness with newfound vast wealth are not the same magnitude as the problems of building a company, and those are not the same magnitude as overcoming past emotional abuse, or struggling to feed your family, or trying to avert emergently approaching death. See how I've captured several logs of magnitude here?
The conflation of magnitude is what causes the negative reactions when rich people complain. They are complaining about things at the very top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. These are philosophical (academic/only relevant under very narrow circumstances) problems that are in all likelihood completely unsolvable by complaining to others. These are the kinds of problems that are solvable with critical introspection, discussion with close others, and discussion with professionals. You get no points for throwing yourself onto the pyre and wailing to the world-- there is tumblr for that, and it isn't a realistic shot at solving the problems.
Anyways, a more direct response to your points:
1. I've been in this situation, and just ended it recently. There were no disconnects with old friends... I think you'd have to have shitty friends for this to be a problem.
2. Everyone already has ulterior motives and purposes for each other. Sometimes all you want from the other person is friendship, and if it's a mutual feeling, it's great. This is human nature-- everyone does want something from everyone else. The more you have, the more they want.
3. I'm not sure if this is a serious statement. This isn't a problem on most people's radars, and is really irrelevant because you mention that these people can pay others to deal with these problems for them. If the money is stressing you out, just ditch it... oh wait, you like it too much. Clam up and make do, or talk to a therapist-- one of the few people who will take this line of thought seriously.
4. Of course wealthy people can be miserable and wealth can be a burden, but the beauty of wealth is that you have far more resources to help you carry burdens. This means that when the wealth complain about their burden, the rest of us snort derisively-- it's as though they have forgotten that the weight on everyone else is heavier and more unwieldy.
I think a deeper perspective is that wealth solves the shallower, easier problems. Once you've covered the basic needs, increased wealth makes many things easier, especially leisure and recreation, but the deeper challenges in seeking happiness remain.
These challenges may even be aggravated by the isolation of wealth if you don't already have the basic structure of a happy life - things like loving relationships, stable/happy emotional makeup, work you find meaningful, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I'd be happy to reduce someone's isolation of wealth by taking a good chunk of it off their hands. But I'd be foolish to trade my family, faith, or health for it - much less all of the above.
It's a good reminder to keep our priorities straight.
Yeah, seriously. If your money is making you so unhappy, put some in a trust for your kids and donate the rest to worthy charities. There, problem solved.
I don't really have any sympathy.
Plus, his former staff who he sold out needs to reach out to him to apologize? "So fuck all of you. Fuck you so hard."
You may be getting downvoted, but you are not wrong. If money truly made him unhappy, why didn't he keep a few million in his bank account, invest another couple million or put in a trust fund, and donate the remaining money? He would still be a rich man, live for the rest of his life without working and without financial worries, and the super-richness that seemingly made him so sad and alienated his friends is gone.
As it stands, he just comes across as somebody wiping tears with a 100 dollar bill.
Recommending psychological help isn't a constructive way to respond to someone who's upset. We all feel various emotions and most of us say harsh things sometimes. Just because he's famous doesn't mean he has to have a publicist screen what he tweets.
How about let's not use "autistic" as an insult, thank you very fucking much.
Edit: I don't like doing this, but what's with the downvotes? I think I'm allowed to be a little upset when someone uses a condition I was born with as a synonym for "asshole."
While I can understand the sentiment, what is a proper way to indicate to a average human being that it is expressing behaviour not associated with normally developed adult person?
It looks like he is behaving like a normally developed adult person. Unless you consider every partner in a divorce to not be normally developed, nor anyone who's ever expressed hostility towards somebody else for what they appear to think of them. Most adults do these things. That makes it normal.
"Immature child" would have been fine. You may not be aware that autism is a spectrum disorder, with a very broad spectrum. I've got my troubles, but I've got a degree and a career and a life, and I do get tired of people assuming that autism means I need help getting dressed.
I know you are getting downvoted, but still that type of "fuck all of you" comment is not mature. It is no longer in the moment, it is a long time later. He needs to figure out how to come to terms with what happened and let the bitterness go.
I think it is pretty obvious that he has some issues he needs to work out and right now he isn't.
Autism has nothing to do with it. That tweet shows emotional stress. Of course he's lashing out, he ended up selling his life's work.
Everyone gets angry now and again. Maybe not everyone has millions of listeners, but that's an aside.
He may need psychological help, but he's not autistic. And if you want to be taken seriously, I'd advise you not to use "autistic" in the same breath as "immature child".
I awoke years later (thankfully only two) to find that I had none of what it would take to be happy, or to grow as a man, and a seeming eternity of free time stretching out before me to enjoy my comfortable isolation.
I only had to taste the false freedom of wealth - really just an appetiser - to know that no amount of resources would fulfil me if I could not meet basic emotional needs, go through pain and challenge, be vulnerable, build relationships, and self-nurture. God forbid I ever come into the kind of money he has - but if I do, I pray I would have the courage to start from scratch to build the life that nourishes my spirit.
I think many will take a high position, point a finger at this man, and feel good about themselves. It's easy to look at him and say "High value problems," and "He has nothing to complain about," or even "He should be X/do Y...", etc. The real tragedy for me is that his issue can be so socially unacceptable.
I rate him for being open and vulnerable about this part of the journey and hope he finds the peace he deserves.
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