I love this. As a kid of a single mom who was a working-class nurse, I definitely didn’t see myself in tech or doing anywhere near as well as I did.
For a number of years, it wasn’t clear that there was an “enough.”
I got smarter as I got older and got off the merry-go-round. An amazing spouse and great kids, who over time opened my eyes, were instrumental.
I’ve watched friends who could comfortably retire, or do something better for humanity with their time, strive for the second and third brass ring. Usually at the expense of relationships.
It’s not about “enough.”
Too often it’s about the comparison to others, which has gotten worse in Silicon Valley and in particular S.F. in my ~30 years here. The peers who did better than you after they left Google/Meta, the AI startup that makes your last startup’s amazing $20b exit look paltry. The private jet.
The fact that I sometimes refer to my current phase as “semi-retirement” is a running joke with my wife. I’m working (almost) as hard as ever, but I’ve been lucky enough along the way that I can aim the drive and energy I’ve got at causes I care about and do it with good people.
If you’re fortunate and have “Whole Foods” enough (or, better still in S.F. BiRite or Gus’s enough), find what gives you enough purpose. Enough friendship. Enough meaning. Enough joy.
Being in the SF & now AI bubble warps everything. ‘What I am saying is that after you hit the point where “your basic needs are comfortably met” ‘ - the problem with this statement is that it is highly variable, and once you hit Whole Foods level of comfort you’re already well past the 1% of privileged on this planet. A status most people cannot even dream of.
It’s being able to have ambitions, goals, dreams yet being equally present and embracing where you are, whatever you have and being able to show up and contribute in community to something larger than yourself, to (as you say) sacrifice. And not succumbing to the disease of comparisons you’re making.
I think many people in much more humble contexts are able to reach this conclusion much better than we can despite not having much bc we’re surrounded by and warped by the various narratives of our physical and digital surroundings. (although even that’s diminishing bc the digital surroundings means everyone is getting bombarded by the wealthy, mega wealthy, ultra wealthy and wealthy wannabes)
The point around digital surroundings is interesting. If you look at the "I spent all this money on lambos" type videos on YouTube, much of the consumption is in poor areas. I think it is a large contributor to social disconnects.
tl;dr The influencer life/fantasy is the new lottery and aspiration that gives people hope -- people think that anyone can just hit it rich by posting a few videos without a ton of work.
Yes, the digital environ contribution to social disonnects is big. But it's about more than "silly spent money on lambos"-type videos & consumption being (majority) in poor areas.
Ok sorry for a longer note, just attribute to late night after working and putting my kid to sleep...
The bigger culprit is just the fact that social media/environs love to love/hate on people with money(these days, it feels more like mostly envying) influencers to reality TV stars to newly minted fuerdai in China to hypebeasts of all shapes and sizes.
And the thing about influencer life:
1) They rarely show how they got rich. (Those who are truly rich don't flaunt it, or when they do, they also talk about how much work it took.)
Those who are faux rich flaunt it and downplay the work it took (want to make it look easy, esp. if they're selling you the course/book that teaches you how to become rich -- Rich Dad, Poor Dad being one of the early movers and poster children of this whole charade).
2) But it's (more than those selling you a course people) the people with BBLs, the latest LV, Chanel bag, a trip to Dubai.
a) I show speed showing himself traveling all over the world, meeting interesting people, being with 'baddies', having it all ... (and
b) there are pioneers and people who have become serious financial heavyweights from Paris Hilton* to the Kardashians and beyond too from the reality TV world.
3) And even legit influencers, very few show how much work, the dedication, how many times they had to post, different things they had to try before they figured it out. (plus there's a heuristic/bias --> we don't know the 1,000s to millions of people who tried and gave up before they reached the critical mass of content, then followers). But if you analyze channels, it's people who generate consistently, figure out their lane (story/positioning/content angle, and also the audience roughly that they want to appeal to) the ones who have resilience/persistence that can eventually pay off.
We know like with all things internet and free-market economy, there's a power law distribution and the upper echelon of creators. There may be a long tail, and quite a long tail at that broadly more enabled by the internet to make (sustainable) money from all kinds of niches, but most of the ones doing so are absolutely grinding it (I've followed niches from small-stakes poker players, to Magic the Gathering, to the knowledge/tech-based ones that you are peers with from from Lenny Rachitsky to Ali Abdaal to Write of Passage Dave Perrel to Tiago Forte Second Brain). As you said, you're level is not the same as the upper upper upper end of the influencer/reality TV type.
* Side note: watching a couple interviews with Paris recently, I actually think she may have known what she was doing and adopted a persona because it sold into that market as an early pioneer despite what I may have though a decade ago.
By contrast, Kim Kardashian is pretty much the way she is (she doesn't appear smart nor do I think she is), and she's rich because of her family's support and the noteriety that kicked off from her s*x tape, marrying and divorcing Kanye and how that helped her in the elite art/fashion-world, and because let's face it, she follows the archetype of the reality-TV/sex tape hot look. And now business deals like Skims find her.
Several years ago, I spent New Year’s Eve at a small dinner in the Bay Area, seated next to a VP at a major tech company whose best friend had founded Tesla. He was miserable all evening, glued to a live feed from the cameras at his mansion, monitoring his son’s party because he didn’t trust him and his friends 😬 felt really sad for the guy
SO happy for you that you've figured this out!! Have sent clips of this awesome newsletter to friends and family. Thank YOU for writing this!!!
My favorite part: I am rich beyond measure. That does sound like a cliché, scribbled onto the wall decor for sale in a Walmart clearance aisle, but still, it is how I feel.
What I am saying is that after you hit the point where your basic needs are comfortably met, the highest ROI activity for your happiness is the pursuit of sacrifice. It is meaning-making, in devoting yourself to invisible causes of goodness.
Interesting to compare this with Korea where bonuses paid out by Samsung and SK Hynix are realising the AI wealth more quickly than happens with equity based compensation
The logarithmic curve shows up in my practice constantly. Clients assume a 3x salary jump or a second property will finally quiet the anxiety, but the real work is defining 'enough' for their family goals—kids' education, retirement, medical inflation.
The funded corpus and term plan often buy more peace than the next promotion ever will.
I love this. As a kid of a single mom who was a working-class nurse, I definitely didn’t see myself in tech or doing anywhere near as well as I did.
For a number of years, it wasn’t clear that there was an “enough.”
I got smarter as I got older and got off the merry-go-round. An amazing spouse and great kids, who over time opened my eyes, were instrumental.
I’ve watched friends who could comfortably retire, or do something better for humanity with their time, strive for the second and third brass ring. Usually at the expense of relationships.
It’s not about “enough.”
Too often it’s about the comparison to others, which has gotten worse in Silicon Valley and in particular S.F. in my ~30 years here. The peers who did better than you after they left Google/Meta, the AI startup that makes your last startup’s amazing $20b exit look paltry. The private jet.
The fact that I sometimes refer to my current phase as “semi-retirement” is a running joke with my wife. I’m working (almost) as hard as ever, but I’ve been lucky enough along the way that I can aim the drive and energy I’ve got at causes I care about and do it with good people.
If you’re fortunate and have “Whole Foods” enough (or, better still in S.F. BiRite or Gus’s enough), find what gives you enough purpose. Enough friendship. Enough meaning. Enough joy.
Yup. A good marriage is never worth sacrificing to make sure your startup has a great outcome.
tl;dr Envy thy neighbor at thy own peril.
Being in the SF & now AI bubble warps everything. ‘What I am saying is that after you hit the point where “your basic needs are comfortably met” ‘ - the problem with this statement is that it is highly variable, and once you hit Whole Foods level of comfort you’re already well past the 1% of privileged on this planet. A status most people cannot even dream of.
It’s being able to have ambitions, goals, dreams yet being equally present and embracing where you are, whatever you have and being able to show up and contribute in community to something larger than yourself, to (as you say) sacrifice. And not succumbing to the disease of comparisons you’re making.
I think many people in much more humble contexts are able to reach this conclusion much better than we can despite not having much bc we’re surrounded by and warped by the various narratives of our physical and digital surroundings. (although even that’s diminishing bc the digital surroundings means everyone is getting bombarded by the wealthy, mega wealthy, ultra wealthy and wealthy wannabes)
The point around digital surroundings is interesting. If you look at the "I spent all this money on lambos" type videos on YouTube, much of the consumption is in poor areas. I think it is a large contributor to social disconnects.
tl;dr The influencer life/fantasy is the new lottery and aspiration that gives people hope -- people think that anyone can just hit it rich by posting a few videos without a ton of work.
Yes, the digital environ contribution to social disonnects is big. But it's about more than "silly spent money on lambos"-type videos & consumption being (majority) in poor areas.
Ok sorry for a longer note, just attribute to late night after working and putting my kid to sleep...
The bigger culprit is just the fact that social media/environs love to love/hate on people with money(these days, it feels more like mostly envying) influencers to reality TV stars to newly minted fuerdai in China to hypebeasts of all shapes and sizes.
And the thing about influencer life:
1) They rarely show how they got rich. (Those who are truly rich don't flaunt it, or when they do, they also talk about how much work it took.)
Those who are faux rich flaunt it and downplay the work it took (want to make it look easy, esp. if they're selling you the course/book that teaches you how to become rich -- Rich Dad, Poor Dad being one of the early movers and poster children of this whole charade).
2) But it's (more than those selling you a course people) the people with BBLs, the latest LV, Chanel bag, a trip to Dubai.
a) I show speed showing himself traveling all over the world, meeting interesting people, being with 'baddies', having it all ... (and
b) there are pioneers and people who have become serious financial heavyweights from Paris Hilton* to the Kardashians and beyond too from the reality TV world.
3) And even legit influencers, very few show how much work, the dedication, how many times they had to post, different things they had to try before they figured it out. (plus there's a heuristic/bias --> we don't know the 1,000s to millions of people who tried and gave up before they reached the critical mass of content, then followers). But if you analyze channels, it's people who generate consistently, figure out their lane (story/positioning/content angle, and also the audience roughly that they want to appeal to) the ones who have resilience/persistence that can eventually pay off.
We know like with all things internet and free-market economy, there's a power law distribution and the upper echelon of creators. There may be a long tail, and quite a long tail at that broadly more enabled by the internet to make (sustainable) money from all kinds of niches, but most of the ones doing so are absolutely grinding it (I've followed niches from small-stakes poker players, to Magic the Gathering, to the knowledge/tech-based ones that you are peers with from from Lenny Rachitsky to Ali Abdaal to Write of Passage Dave Perrel to Tiago Forte Second Brain). As you said, you're level is not the same as the upper upper upper end of the influencer/reality TV type.
* Side note: watching a couple interviews with Paris recently, I actually think she may have known what she was doing and adopted a persona because it sold into that market as an early pioneer despite what I may have though a decade ago.
By contrast, Kim Kardashian is pretty much the way she is (she doesn't appear smart nor do I think she is), and she's rich because of her family's support and the noteriety that kicked off from her s*x tape, marrying and divorcing Kanye and how that helped her in the elite art/fashion-world, and because let's face it, she follows the archetype of the reality-TV/sex tape hot look. And now business deals like Skims find her.
Several years ago, I spent New Year’s Eve at a small dinner in the Bay Area, seated next to a VP at a major tech company whose best friend had founded Tesla. He was miserable all evening, glued to a live feed from the cameras at his mansion, monitoring his son’s party because he didn’t trust him and his friends 😬 felt really sad for the guy
this has been my experience at these things too. Miserable on a super yacht is still miserable.
a billionaire who was:
- Still married to their first spouse
- Widely regarded as morally upstanding
- Had kids who turned out relatively well
- Had kids who were on good terms with them
Right candidate: Warren Buffett.
Warren Buffett stayed legally married to his first wife, Susan Thompson Buffett, from 1952 until her death in 2004.
He has high integrity with good kids who respect him.
Fantastic essay.
SO happy for you that you've figured this out!! Have sent clips of this awesome newsletter to friends and family. Thank YOU for writing this!!!
My favorite part: I am rich beyond measure. That does sound like a cliché, scribbled onto the wall decor for sale in a Walmart clearance aisle, but still, it is how I feel.
What I am saying is that after you hit the point where your basic needs are comfortably met, the highest ROI activity for your happiness is the pursuit of sacrifice. It is meaning-making, in devoting yourself to invisible causes of goodness.
Thanks for writing!
Wholeheartedly agree!
Interesting to compare this with Korea where bonuses paid out by Samsung and SK Hynix are realising the AI wealth more quickly than happens with equity based compensation
The logarithmic curve shows up in my practice constantly. Clients assume a 3x salary jump or a second property will finally quiet the anxiety, but the real work is defining 'enough' for their family goals—kids' education, retirement, medical inflation.
The funded corpus and term plan often buy more peace than the next promotion ever will.