Additional comments here,
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44903803 ("Steve Wozniak: Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about happiness (slashdot.org)"—593 comments)
[dupe] Main discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44903803
I met Woz briefly at a Coffee Shop in NYC, many years ago. I was pitching investors for funding and had no idea what I was doing.
He gave me some quick feedback that made a world of difference in SF (years later, when I tried raising angel money): get closer to people first. You don’t have to be their friends - just show up to where they show up (bars, meetups, library - anything), then tell them what you’re doing, and they’ll write you checks without you asking.
This is still the key reason why raising money in the Bay Area is so much easier than anywhere else.
I didn’t get any check from him that night, but he came across as such a human person - like someone you know for years - even to a complete stranger trying to go straight for his wallet.
Tech would be amazing if we had 1000x more Wozes around.
If it were still about something other than going straight for the wallet, maybe we would.
There’s still idealists and inventors around.
The problem is that the bulk of investment money these days comes through professional finance people (not the stereotypical “engineer who made a lot of money and now wants to help others”), who prioritize others who think like them, creating this self-fulfilling spiral of value extraction above all else. It’s the kind of thing you always see in “late stage” industries (eg aviation in the 1980s vs 1970s). It’s not irreversible though (eg there’s a small resurgence in hardware innovation happening right now, with companies like Framework, being funded by “idealist” investors, Pebble coming back, etc).
I think lots of people expected AI to be that too (the new “world of opportunity” that would come with a new “platform”), although so far it seems to be shaping up as FAANG players fighting for control (which is a bit disappointing from a user’s perspective)
What happened after the dotcom boom?
Whereas I am not trying to take anything away from Woz (I’ve never met that Steve, but by all accounts he’s a really nice guy), I can’t help but feel that his personality and the ethos he espouses have been made a lot more possible by the fact that he had a lot of disposable income…
Of course. And he mentioned as such having multiple houses and USD 10M in accounts. There is no gotcha here.
Yep. It's easy to be happy, bubbly, carefree and say money is not important to to you when you're set for life and don't ever have to worry about paying the mortgage, healthcare, childcare, bills, etc in one of the most expensive regions on the planet, but people without seven figures in the bank might disagree.
Sure, he's not Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg levels of rich, but compared to average folk who need to work for a living till retirement, he's still very, VERY rich.
If you read his boks or others stories about Woz you would know that he was like this long before he had fortune in business. He spent a lot of time and money on setting up a quite popular answering machine service for delivering jokes and did attribute his success as an engineer to not having that much money [1] so he needed to make due with what he had.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak#cite_note-2_co...
>If you read his boks or others stories about Woz you would know that he was like this long before he had fortune in business
I don't doubt he said that, especially when you're young, healthy and carefree you don't need much money. But being a millionaire doesn't hurt that feeling when you're no longer in your twenties and don't want to live with roommates anymore, since everyone can end up with unexpected illnesses or issues that can be made batter only by money.
Set for life level of wealth (say, $2-3m) is achievable on a programmer's salary or for someone working in finance, and after only a decade or two of work. You just have to save and invest most of your salary instead of spending it all.
Is that really “set for life” amounts in the US these days? Sounds quite low. I can imagine it being a ton of money in the early 2000s, but not these days (unless you also have a fully paid out house on top of it, at least)
Median personal income in the US was $42,220 in 2023. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
At the "probably safe FIRE rate", 4% interest: $2m -> $80,000 annually, while also preserving the $2m, accounting for inflation
This is precisely my goal, but 80k isn't enough in the Bay Area I think. Trying to figure out where's best.
It depends where you live and what your lifestyle expenses are. You can easily be set for most of your life on $3M if you live in a low CoL area and keep your expenses under control. Old age could wipe you out if you need a lot of care though.
>level of wealth (say, $2-3m) is achievable on a programmer's salary
Not if you live outside the US.
> It's easy to be happy, bubbly, carefree and say money is not important to to you when you're set for life
I’m not sure this is true. I know plenty of miserable rich people. What is easy for someone who to look at a rich person and say “I’d certainly be happy if I had that money”.
>I’m not sure this is true. I know plenty of miserable rich people.
Because those rich people are only driven by greed and don't know when to stop. They don't see money and and means to and end, but their life purpose is just being richer than the other rich people which is an exercise in futility, leading to misery. Kind of like the men who's life purpose is being an "alpha male".
Having more money doesn't make you more happy, but having a lack of money can definitely make you more unhappy.
Here in the EU I never had to worry about any of those things by design even though my parents had nothing. I made a fortune without ever having to worry; sure I will never make billions but why would I be interested in that? Happiness does not require that and you can still make 10m in the EU without worrying about the things you summed up. The US is more risk for more reward but is that worth it? Never for me.
Yes, everyone working in Europe can easily makes millions just like you, that's the norm here and definitely not flex on niche survivorship bis or cherry picking, that's how the average EU income is €37,900 and youth unemployment is at peak, everyone's too busy making millions.
I think that’s missing the point. This isn’t about glorifying being poor but understanding when enough is enough.
It's still remarkable because so many people with that amount of money are still on the grind, still chasing the siren's call, still feeling miserable because it's not enough, still feeling tiny because they compare themselves to the billionaires
Very few people get to that point and then choose happiness instead of ambition
Of course, it goes without saying. But on the other side, not many people would have what it take to not let that kind of wealth go to their head. This désinvolture has to be praised.
> his personality and the ethos he espouses
We have to remember that it is a choice.
“Money isn’t everything in life but before you say that make sure you have enough money”
"They say money can't buy happiness. It buys a Sea-Doo. You ever seen a sad person on a Sea-Doo?"
- Daniel Tosh
I don’t know Daniel Tosh or what Sea-Doo. Can you explain this quote to me in like plain English where I don’t have to search something?
Daniel tosh is a comedian and a sea-doo is a brand of jet ski. A jet ski is like a water motorcycle.
Well you've gotten that far, what's a comedian, water, and a motorcycle?
Unfortunately those three terms happen to be irreducible.
Got it! I’ll explain them simply using only the 1,000 most common English words (like in the style of “Simple English” or the “Up-Goer Five” idea).
---
Water: The clear stuff that falls from the sky as rain. We drink it, wash with it, and it is in rivers, lakes, and the big blue parts of the world. It has no color, no taste, and no smell. Without it, people, animals, and plants cannot live.
Motorcycle: A road car that has two wheels instead of four. You sit on it, hold the handles, and move fast. It is smaller than a car and can go between other cars. You need to wear a hard head cover to stay safe.
Comedian: A person whose job is to make other people laugh by telling funny stories, jokes, or acting in a silly way. They often talk to groups of people and try to make them happy by being funny.
Also called an aquabike or a jetski.
I was going to complain about the baby-talk naming system, but frankly I’m not sure the others are much better…
Sea-Doo is a derivative of Ski-Doo. Both are made by Bombardier Recreational Products; the Sea-Doo is a “personal watercraft,” and the Ski-Doo is a snowmobile. The Ski-Doo came first, and I’m guessing the name is a pun on “twenty-three skidoo”, which Wikipedia says originally referred to “leaving quickly”, something like “skedaddle”. Obviously, a snowmobile allows one to travel quickly over the snow.
So the etymology appears to be Skedaddle -> 23 Skidoo -> Ski-Doo -> Sea-Doo.
(Edit: I’m wrong! Wikipedia says the Ski-Doo was originally supposed to be called the “Ski-Dog”, but someone made a typo and they stuck with it! So much for my attempt to reconstruct a derivation!)
Jet Ski is also a trademark used by Kawasaki for their personal watercraft. It was designed by the same guy who designed the Sea-Doo for Bombardier.
Wrong. Sorry, but totally, completely wrong. 99% of people with the kind of money he has are nowhere near as happy as him. Many "poor" people are just as happy as him.
The kind of money he has ruins the personal lives of so many people. I've heard him speak a few times and he's been happily married, happily taking care of his dogs, and just spreading joy and enthusiasm wherever he goes for years and years now. That doesn't require a lot of money at all.
I worked at Fusion-io and he was sort of an employee there early on. We opened a tiny office in San Jose and he sat there and basically worked as a receptionist at that office for a while, just happily greeting people as they came and went. He's just a chill dude without pretension.
I think we should compare the two sides in percentage and reason:
How many people as percentage from the wealthy people are really unhappy and not just saying so because of (insert here guilt, peer pressure, fear of losing it all …)
How many people as percentage from the poor people are happy (and not just saying so because they are trying to cope mentally with their helplessness situation)
And I know that all this points to mindset.
So lets ask the real question: On average how easy (as in having time, access, …) is to fix your mindset (whatever that fix is) when you are healthy or poor?
yes that's true, but the but the guy had every opportunity to become a soulless money grubbing prick with hundreds of millions (or maybe even billions) instead of just tens of millions if he didn't have a good sense of compassion and generosity. But at some point he decided he had enough money and success and that it was important for other people who had been with Apple to get their fair share.
In other words, he was a kind soul before the money and the success. The money and the success did not change him, but in fact, amplified his generosity and other good qualities. And to this day he remains a warm charismatic pioneer of Silicon Valley.
Jobs, on the other hand, boy that guy was selfish to the bone, and though he was not as money hungry as other CEOs, the success really amplified his ugliest traits that allowed him to treat people as disposable including his own friend Wozniak.
Worst thing he ever did, if you ask me, was deny his daughter Lisa even when he had the means to give her mother and his daughter a better life. He seemed spiteful in principle. I understand being skeptical at first about being alleged as the father of a kid, especially while you're trying to make it early on in your career, but after the paternity test proves you're the dad, and you have the means to provide, and you still don't then you are trash.
Maybe, but recently I came across an article where he had reached out to scam victims who fell prey to scammers who used AI to copy Woz's likeness to dupe people into depositing cryptocurrency so that they could get it much more of it back. It's a classic scam that would have almost anyone blaming the victims for falling for it. But what was touching is that Woz had read some emails from victims who were confused.
I think almost anyone would have ignored it, but he decided to at least try to fix it by filing a lawsuit on behalf of victims. I think the lawsuit ended up getting stuck since the scam relies on shady ads on YouTube. But I thought it was cool that at least he tried arguing that it is weird that scammers can make ads that impersonate others and it takes quite a while for them to get taken down.
I do wonder if the relative ease he might have had with his craft early on contributed, too. He doesn't strike me as someone who's ever really struggled to learn or produce, just met a steady stream of interesting, surmountable challenges (and was blessed to be able to eschew anything that would have been troublesome). Such a combination of prodigious talent and a keen awareness of where it ends probably makes for a pretty happy existence.
Of course, for most regular people money buys happiness.
but he also had to live with having sold apple stock far too soon. Not that he cares that much .
I've been to a lecture he gave, and Q&A session. I was left with no doubt that his ethos of joy and honesty predate his wealth and are entirely independent of it.
> I've been to a lecture he gave, and Q&A session. I was left with no doubt that his ethos of joy and honesty predate his wealth and are entirely independent of it.
Don't most young people start life this way?
It's the influences of time spent in the rat race and a society fighting for scraps that beats it out of us.
I find those who struck it rich early and still turned out assholes more noteworthy.
Noteworthy in what way, exactly?
> Noteworthy in what way, exactly?
Being kind to others costs something, the wealthy can inherently afford it.
When they're still assholes it seems dysfunctional to me, like these folks are actively aspiring to be jerks.
What a strange path to choose, when you have so many options at your disposal.
You said it costs something; getting along with other people, at least. They can afford not to do that.
I started life in a family where money was often an issue, and it did give me some issues with it, which my chill dev job has actually helped me get over (I feel rich, so I'm generous).
So sometimes it's the opposite, you start out needy and the 'rat race' actually brings you to a more abundant world-view :)
"While" not "whereas"
Perhaps. I think it’s perfectly correct English, personally. If you’re American then your grammar rules might differ, I don’t know…
“Whereas” can be used at the start of a sentence to introduce two contrasting clauses - in this case the first being his own statement, and the second being my rather more cynical money-based reasoning for his continuing wonderful personality.
not a lot of people dispose it
Other tech pioneers who rode off into the sunset:
Blackberry co-founder (sold stock when iPhone launched), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Fregin
Facebook co-founder (pushed out), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Saverin
MySpace founder (pushed out after sale), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Anderson, "If you knew me before Myspace, you'd probably thought I'd have been a scholar teaching philosophy in a university my whole life. If you met me before college, you'd probably have thought I'd be a musician for my entire life ... I like change.
Trivia: Saverin still owns 2% of Facebook. He’s currently the richest Brazilian (and of Singapore, where he lives), according to multiple sources. Now _that_ is how you ride off into the sunset!
>Trivia: Saverin still owns 2% of Facebook.
It also helps that he was financially well off before Facebook too and could afford top lawyers. I imagine things would have gone differently if he were some broke immigrant kid on a visa, getting buried by Zuck's lawyers.
Justice may be blind, but it's definitely not free.
It helps to be knowledgeable about this stuff. But since so much was at stake, couldn't you find a lawyer that would work on some kind of contingency?
He wouldn’t even be in Zuckerberg’s circle if his family wasn’t wealthy to begin with. Life isn’t fair, who could’ve guessed that?
True, the reason Zuck wen to to him is because he was wealthy(and part of the same Jewish fraternity).
What is the point of this hypothetical? Why do we care about the outcome of a situation that you conjured up that wasn't reality?
Is the insight here that people with resources have advantages?
There is also Michael Scott, Apple’s first CEO. He didn’t necessarily ride out into the sunset as much as being pushed out into it after some very controversial mass layoffs. He’s a neighbor and purchased several homes near me. One, a large estate, he demolished and turned into a pond and fruit orchard. Another he turned into an office and lab space for his interest in gemstones. It’s actually been quite a while since i last saw him. I wonder if he is still living over there.
The only thing I feel is 2nd hand regret for Woz. What if he didn't cash out? What would his net worth be today?
I am so caught up in the rat race, that I can't even understand what Woz want's to say, or what makes him happy. I only feel sad for him.
But if you think about it, I actually feel sad for myself. If I were in Woz's position with ~$20m or so and had missed the Apple cash cow (assuming $500m at the very least), how would I react? Would I live my entire life with regret and remorse? Would I be bitter?
Huge props to Woz for figuring out what makes him happy and doing exactly that.
> with ~$20m or so and had missed the Apple cash cow
But he already HAD a lot more money, and he gave it away. Do you think his behavior or outlook would change if he had $500m?
Parents should take their kids to the children's discovery museum (I think it is on Woz way).
There is nothing quite like seeing kids enraptured by playing with water or bubbles.
It is also amusing to watch closing time, as parents have to literally DRAG their crying kids away from it all out the door.
How about this:
Steve J made ~10 billion at the time of his death at 56. Steve W made ~100 million and is still around at 75.
To make math real simple, I would definitely pay $500 million a year to stick around.
Jobs is ultimately an example of how death doesn’t care what is your net worth.
Well it kinda would have cared a bit but he himself didn't. He could have afforded the most bleeding edge treatments. But he chose to go to witch doctors instead.
That's example how CEOs and guys on the top are not "all knowing, smartest, best of breed" just "relentless, lucky and in right place in right time".
As is anyone.
> The only thing I feel is 2nd hand regret for Woz.
I'm going to speculate that in most cases, 20 million and 200 million is effectively the same. I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if I missed out.
If you can get a 2% return on 20 million that's 400k / year. That's a mind boggling amount of money. I picked 2% figuring to beat inflation by that amount in an extremely low risk investment so you don't have to think about market fluctuations hurting you.
>I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever.
Those juxtaposed sentences do not compute for the vast majority of ultrawealthy engineers/CEOs/upperclass/1%. It certainly proves that after a fuzzy but real number of dollars, there exists a point where you simply have a superfluous amount of money.
And perhaps a sense of civic duty: Those tax rates were created (hopefully) by elected representatives.
That attitude about paying taxes is an actually effective altruism.
Woz lives not too far from me and is a regular at the park I go to, walking his dogs. The first time I saw him, I wasn't sure if it was him, so asked a person nearby - he has a very distinctive look with his facial hair and smile.
Since then, I've seen him a bunch of times, chatting with people and being friendly.
I used to be a software millionaire back in the 80's. My discovery is that money does buy happiness so the phrase should actually be "Money does buy happiness, but can't cure clinical depression." The list of wealthy people who have committed suicide is long, starting with my contemporaries Kurt Cobain, Chris Cantrell, Anthony Bourdain... and almost me. The money is gone now but I'm happy with enough to live comfortably.
Agree, I'm you now, but I feel I paid a huge price for that success - as an immigrant, I had no choice looking back. But after losing my dad a few months ago, I had an existential crisis, am slowly but surely limping back.
Am glad you found peace.
> The money is gone now
How did it happen? Millions in 80's sounds like a whole lot of money...
> but I'm happy with enough to live comfortably.
Congrats!
I spent it all looking for a cure: therapy, travel, spiritual journies like road trips. My needs are low so the social security I paid into here in America is enough for me now. I'm happy like Woz.
I’m glad you made it man. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out
I feel for you. Try therapies like CBT. Check yourself in if you have to. You are not alone by a long shot.
Please keep trying. You are here for a reason.
Money doesn’t cause happiness, but poverty does cause grief.
Too bad the world isn't run by people like him.
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How can you tell how happy or unhappy thiel is?
If Peter Theil was happy we would hear him go mwahaha or twirl his mustache.
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I would be as well.
To me Woz is a connection back to the hippy-libertarian utopian engineering roots of Silicon Valley, decades before the current leaders, who seem to be much more misanthropic and ethically challenged than the generation of CEOs before them.
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anything beyond that I'll probably blow on various charitable projects to impress hot leftist chicks :)
Yeah, agreed. That's one of the most objectifying and vile sentiments I've read here that hasn't been flagged to hell.
Ugh.
Me, reading the comment "weird, I wonder why this comment was flagged. Seems fine to...ewwwww"
People—using that term loosely—are cunts.
Why? What’s the issue with how someone spends the rewards of capitalism?
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Can you diagram that for me?
ya!
Mermaid please.
Get fucked.
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It kidna sucks having accomplished so much very early in life and then being "now what?" It's like he was never able to relive that glory of Apple, not that he necessarily wanted to. But it's like, 'what do you do to fill the time?'
We must sit opposite, once you gain enough money to live your life freely, why would you keep grinding for glory. The world is now your playground. Travel, meet people, keep learning, keep discovering, and just spend time with your loved ones.
I think "now what?" is just a lack of imagination. There is so much to do in this world. Hell, there's likely so much to do just where you live.
This idea that we have to keep "accomplishing" things for life to have meaning is unhealthy.
I don’t think he was chasing glory, but he did a bunch of stuff post-Apple. In addition to the things mentioned in the book passage Gruber quoted, he funded the Us festival because he loves music.
Do things you love with people you love.
If you have kids, go be with them. Travel, see the world.
Philanthropy.
Start another business if you feel the urge. Meet people. Get into the arts (the founder of my present company, OVH, used his fortune to buy a bunch of guitars and become a performing musician, Ken Block used his DC money to get into car racing)...
A creative soul like Woz will always find something worth doing :)
Confused why this comment is downvoted, as it seems like an appropriate response. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Woz a few times over the years and even getting to spend a few hours with him on two occasions. Your last sentence pretty much sums up what I feel, along with that you can tell he just enjoys being helpful or just make others laugh. I’ve met plenty of other people with similar net worth where I cannot say the same.
Edit: no longer gray by the time I typed this.
It's true most accomplished people will never catch lightening in a bottle twice. I think it's best to remember that runaway market success is largely not up to you so it's best to pursue something that's useful and authentic to you and something good will come of it.
For every Beyonce, there is an equally talented person who wasn't at the right place at the right time.
Probably feels a lot better than the opposite of spending your whole life hoping to achieve something and never feeling you quite did - always becoming and never being.
He’s fortunate to have accomplished so much at all, and he seems to be aware of that good fortune.
I'm sorry, but without your time at Apple, people would probably not pay so lavishly to hear you speak. Your speaking money very much is a continuation of your "Apple wealth." I'm not sure how you can legitimately separate them.
Anyways. Money. It buys happiness. Whoever says otherwise is a fool.
It seems like all the money Steve Jobs had didn’t help him to be a happy person.
Pretty much what I feel from reading Issacson and fact Jobs died rather early.
I think Steve loved running Apple more than he ever let on. Is his form of happiness identical to your or mine? Probably not. Was he exactly where he wanted to be in life? Absolutely.
I think a better way to look at it is that money is no guarantee of happiness, but it usually doesn't hurt, can often help, and you're much more likely to be unhappy if you're poor/struggling.
Money absolutely hurts people's happiness in so many cases. Happiness has more to do with your attitude and relationships than anything else
I think it's more of a "it depends" It's everything to someone facing the crushing anxiety of scarcity but "meh" to someone who spent most of their adult life being able to buy anything they want.
> Anyways. Money. It buys happiness. Whoever says otherwise is a fool.
Money allows you choices.
It does not buy happiness.