$1M or so would allow you to live a nice lifestyle while working part-time at a fun job (like coffee shop clerk, or book-shelver at a bookstore). Then spend some free time hacking together stuff that might eventually make money. All us tech guys would be doing that anyway, or at least working on something programming related.<p>Even if you can't spend the rest of your life like this, and eventually have to get back to making money, you could easily go 10 years or so.
Why are you trying to talk about "the least amount of money I can get in order to get by"?<p>I don't really understand this whole "my odds of doing something really small are high, so f<i></i>* you all, I'm doing that. F<i></i>* VCs, f<i></i>* the world, f<i></i>* working a lot."<p>That's a terrible attitude if you actually are in this because you enjoy it and want to make a meaningful contribution to society, and not just make some petty money.<p>And I can already feel the downvotes. Everyone angry at Mr. Cynical because he crashed the "F<i></i>* VCS!" rally.<p>In the words of 8Ball and MJG: "Yo stupid ass ain't gone live twice. If you do anything, do it big. If you do it small, do it big."
The point he makes is good, but the calculation seems wrong. He's using <i>odds</i> interchangeably with <i>percent ownership</i>, when the two are clearly different.<p>50% odds of making $1 million = you have a 50/50 chance of walking away from the company with $1 million at some point -- <i>not</i> that you're guaranteed to walk away with $500K. You could just as easily walk away with $0.<p>So if your two options are:
1) 50% odds of making $1 million
2) 20% odds of making $20 million<p>...then you're more than twice as likely to make money on the first deal than on the second.
to answer the article's question:<p>$440k. done.<p>here's the rationale:<p>$200k pays off all the debt i have: mortgage, car, everything, and should leave me with $50K in a working capital cushion. i would continue to work on something, because i'd go crazy if i didn't, but it'd likely be another startup idea of some sort. maybe work on student incubation.<p>$240k goes in a ladder of 1 year certificates of deposit at $20k each. at around ~4% interest, each one will yield an income of ~$800/month. i can leave that in the bank, or take it out as income. given that we're at record low interest rates, that rate can be expected to go up. it's not the best rate that could be earned, but it's a guaranteed rate.<p>my monthly expenses once housing and car payment are removed are right at $300. $800/month leaves me $500 for food and incidentals, assuming i don't have other income. no, it's not lavish, but it works. and every single penny i make from paying work i can then blow on hats.<p>of course, if i just keep rolling the yield back into the CD by retirement age (i'm thinking 55) each CD will be worth $70K, yielding 2800/month.<p>so in short, if my fuck-off-you money is $440k, i'm in pretty good shape for the rest of my life.
<i>Your Money Or Your Life</i> is a guide for reaching your fuck-you money goal:<p><a href="http://www.yourmoneyoryourlife.org/fom-about-summary.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.yourmoneyoryourlife.org/fom-about-summary.asp</a>
Fuck-you money is an illusion. A person with $1 million is not going to want to live a lower-middle-class lifestyle, and the fact is that there is no way to guarantee high (7-10%) returns; equity markets are actually likely to struggle for the next decade. Most people who have a chance at $20 million would be bored without work and, of course, want to work on the best projects with the best people. This desire ensures that they can't be entirely independent, although they have more freedom than the average person.<p>It's better to just accept that complete independence is an delusion. I hope to make a lot of money one day, but I don't harbor the illusion that it will exempt me from interdependence with other people.