<p>Darn, toorich, that netwrok better be wireless. It must be nice to have half the planet in your network. :D</p>
<p>Fwiw, the “boy” who invented Paypal is not the same who invented Youtube. Or, the other way around, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim did not invent Paypal nor its predecessor X.com. The Paypal’s guy new toys are SpaceX and the nice looking Tesla at Tesla Motors. </p>
<p>“Mini, if you want to understand, you will. If you don’t, you won’t. Alumother, jmmom and I understand it.”</p>
<p>I think I understand perfectly well, thank you. I still think it is rather sick. Now, let me see. Almost two million dollar home, debt free. Another two mil in the bank. 3% inflation. Still working. After tax return while working 7% after taxes. No house payments. </p>
<p>One of the reasons I moved from Santa Cruz was because poor folks were living in every garage in town, housing for farmworkers was destroyed by Loma Prieta, and the liberal city council, representing the whiners, took the first earthquake check they got from the feds and spent it on a five-story parking garage. It was a constant war by well-heeled liberals on the poor.</p>
<p>I haven’t forgotten. I think latetoschool got it exactly: “a very deeply buried fear that what if the gravy train suddenly dries up?”</p>
<p>Xiggi, I don’t know their names, but this is the story on Paypal and Utube. </p>
<p>Boy who invented Paypal sold it for one million. I’m not sure to whom.</p>
<p>He then teamed up with two other boys.
The three invented and sold Utube for 2 billion to Google. They were computer science students at Stanford.</p>
<p>Also agree with mini that some of the profiled folks could qualify as spoiled whiners, but it is true that $1 million just ain’t what it used to be.</p>
<p>And that some of us left a lot of money on the (real estate) table when we took off for parts unknown. C’est la vie.</p>
<p>Retired, could you post on the MBA forum, it needs some people who have actually been in business.</p>
<p>This was a big topic at a brunch I went to today with a group of rising college seniors mostly who are working in NYC this summer. Everyone says they will walk away when/if they hit big and start a business, move to VT and ski, go to the beach or whatever. Yet we’re looking at all these guys in their 50s who have many millions but still work.</p>
<p>Anyone here still working who could have retired wealthy?</p>
<p>My husband still works…he is an entrepreneur and will continue inventing until the end. Silicon Valley is like a candy store for him. Silicon Valley makes me extremely sad. I grew up here…when it was apricot orchards, middle class families and a university town. It was lovely. Now, it’s SUVs, monster homes that use up every square inch of the lots and a preoccupation with pursuits of the nouveau rich. I have kept my kids grounded…and, although I really want to leave, my entire family and friends from childhood are here.<br>
By the way…the cancer rate here is very high…I must have ten friends (who are young, without family history and without risk factors) who are fighting for their lives. I think it might be more healthful to live by the shore or in a small New England town.</p>
<p>Collegekid - this is how it works. These guys who make millions and billions do so because they are driven. It is rewarding. It is a power trip. It is the rush you get when you complete a deal. They are brilliant. They love business.</p>
<p>Some have more charitable motives, but retirement is boring. The inventor of Netflix is another prior dotcomer who came back after retirement and another initial invention he sold for millions.</p>
<p>Then you have the “more sane and normal” who will retire and be happy with their few mil. They have other loves and interests, like skiing in Vermont, spending time with family, sleeping, etc.</p>
<p>Where I’m working now there is this guy who is 71 and still working. He has pension, social security and military pension on top of everything. I asked him why he still works, he said so that he can have more money to give to charity/church.
For those from Silicon Valley, once you’ve made some money, the stress is not there anymore, working is for self satisfaction. Yes, you can still go on 3-4 weeks vacation a year but it gets boring after a while.
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates certainly could have retired a long time ago but they didn’t. It’s not the money, for people like these, money is not what they are after all, I believe they’ve always enjoyed working.</p>
<p>*Then you have the “more sane and normal” who will retire and be happy with their few mil. They have other loves and interests, like skiing in Vermont, spending time with family, sleeping, etc.
*</p>
<p>I forwarded this article to my H yesterday ( he was given a laptop for work a while ago and now can receive email!) ;)-
Chip has been one of his heroes for years- and he gave up a career as the #2 winningest unlimited hydroplane driver in history “to be a bum”<br>
[But he has a girlfriend, and he has a dog named Bella , and he learned how to play flamenco guitar](<a href=“http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/moore/326282_moore03.html”>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/moore/326282_moore03.html</a> )</p>
<p>No one knows what causes cancer…but living in a place where high tech was born (and dumped waste, I"m sure), plus the stress certainly could be factors. Most doctors would pooh pooh this (married one) but it’s freaky how many of my friends are being diagnosed.
A million dollars here will buy you a two bedroom fixer upper. My parents came here in the late 50’s and bought a three bedroom ranch house for $5000. Tiny yard, tiny kitchen, cute neighborhood. These SAME houses go for 1.2 today.
My kids go to school with children who have movie theaters IN THEIR BEDROOMS. The older ones receive luxury cars when they turn 16. Thirteen-year olds carry $1000 purses to school. They all own the iphone. It is INSANE. Probably like Beverly Hills…The problem is…the parents buy their children everything…but they cannot buy their children identities…that each kid must figure out for himself.</p>
<p>I honestly must say that I know plenty of millionaires and a few billionaires. They never talk about their money, even if “new money”. Toys, yes, but posting it online? Never. </p>
<p>I laugh when I read posters talking about their seven figure incomes and posting it on the Internet. Are you inviting someone to kidnap your kid?</p>
<p>Merrymom, you’re missing the point, both of the article and some of the posts. Seven figures especially in one isolated year is not a lot of money. A friend just built a custom home, and retired last week. She’s 80, and retired mostly because she didn’t want to make the commute in to work from her new home, which is in a rural area of the state. I’m guessing that for most of us here, 80 will happen in 30 years, give or take - UNLESS very expensive health issues intervene. Actually, expensive health issues ARE going to come up - there’s simply no way around it. A lot of money will be needed to support living those years, and there is no guarantee that favorble business conditions will continue. For the traditionally employed, there is no guarantee that the employer will remain stable, or that a merger or acquisition won’t derail a career. For the self employed, there is no guarantee that a new aggressive competitor won’t emerge, or that a new item of legislation won’t have negative impact, or even that the work force will remain stable. In fact, the one thing that is absolutely certain in business is change. So I can see why those interviewed for the article feel as if they have not quite achieved enough yet.</p>
<p>I can only respond to the quotes from the people in the article, and that’s all I am responding to. They speak of keeping up with the gazillionaires around them–of building bigger houses, buying new cars, vacationing in fancier places.</p>
<p>Give me ten million, and I will be comfortable the rest of my life, monetarily anyway–bad stuff (poor health, family losses, etc) happens to rich people too–and I could do that in any part of the country, though obviously not in any neighborhood.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that some people keep making more fueled by insecurity born of non-monetary issues, and that’s something each must deal with on his or her own. but the insecurities described in this article are petty, keep-up-with-the-Jones ones.</p>
<p>Even the sanest person in the article speculates on how her housekeeper can possibly survive. Yet, obviously the woman does, as do the teachers, the police officers, the nurses, the gardeners, etc etc taking care of the rich. And they’re doing it on a lot less than 10 mil.</p>
<p>So, yeah, I do have trouble understanding these people. I’m sure their insecurities feel real, yet I feel sorry for them to not be able to enjoy being among the top percent of the rich.</p>
<p>On so much less, I feel rich, and have peace of mind–as much as one can while being a real human being in a real world with all its attendant surprises–monkeywrenches that all the money in the world can’t protect us from.</p>
<p>We live in a ‘poor me’ culture. I personally struggle with this all the time, being surrounded by the far more affluent. Half empty or half full? That is one reason I like overseas travel to poorer countries as well as working among people from all walks of life. Keeps my perspective sane and healthy, that I am fortunate to own a house in a very prosperous country, in a place where I’m safe, we have health insurance, and my kids have numerous opportunities. </p>
<p>I remember when Menlo Park and the like were just suburbs like any other, for the middle class. And the roads from San Jose to where I lived on the Monterey Penninsula were lined with miles of blooming fruit trees in the spring. The most wonderful agricultural land imaginable. When I last drove that stretch along hwy 101 it was lined with concrete, malls and luxury car dealerships, as well probably polysyllabic substances in the soil and water.</p>
<p>My mom moved us to a coastal California town as a single parent in the 70s. We could live there in a rather basic manner, and avail ourselves of the ocean, nature and cultural environment without wealth. After a few idyllic days back in Pacific Grove last winter, I started looking at property prices on return home to the midwest. Would take a few of my appreciated midwestern houses to afford one small cottage there. I think I had my ideal retirement as a teen.</p>
<p>The previous age of the robber barrons, was dismantled by those who thought we deserved more societal equity. The forces that kept that sort of inequity in check have gradually been dismantled since the Reagan administration. Have we accepted this inequity as necessary status quo?</p>
<p>greatlakesmom,
You post made me think about our standards of living compared to our parents/grandparents. I’m not sure it was all about real estate though. My grandparents had a large home size-wise, but did not spend the cash like we do nowadays. Think of all the <em>stuff</em> we buy and rebuy every 5 to 15 years that wasn’t around 50 years ago. And the trend has been toward more and more consumption- gotta have a beautiful landscaped lawn instead of xeriscaping (we live in Florida), gotta have granite countertops instead of formica, gotta have Italian ceramic tile instead of wood/linoleum, gotta have commercial grade built in kitchen appliances and designer sinks and faucets…everything has to be bigger, better, more expensive- even though simpler would get the job done JUST AS WELL.</p>
<p>Take Christmas for example…my gosh there are whole stores that do nothing but sell more expensive trees, decorations, nick-nacks. Every 3 years the holiday <em>styles</em> change- people go out and buy more lights, more china, more linens, more trees…</p>
<p>My grandma would be scratching her head at how complicated peoples lives are. Her house was huge, but the stuff in it was relatively simple. Sometimes I think we fill up our houses (and lives) with so much stuff,and all we end up doing is making ourselves poorer.</p>
<p>I agree timewise and monetarily, that we make ourselve poorer with all this stuff. A constant struggle to keep the stuff under control, when life would be better with half of it.</p>
<p>Personally, I try to do my buying and re buying for the house, and sometimes myself at garage sales and St. Vinnies. There is so much excess, that the frugal and creative can live off the tailings of a wealthy society. Whole movements, Voluntary Simplicity and the like discuss this sort of thing. </p>
<p>But this is the midwest, and Florida is quite the different scene, depending on where you live in Florida. Far more emphasis on outer appearances! I remember my Florida ex mother in law chiding me for not dressing more fashionably while jogging!</p>