Minecraft Billionaire Markus Persson Hates Being a Billionaire

There have been numerous threads about this in the last few days, including <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10139734" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10139734</a> and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10144309" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10144309</a>.<p>The Schadenfreude in many of the comments is vicious. Those of you posting those ought to reflect on why you do that.<p>Beyond that, it&#x27;s wrong for us to be conducting message board threads about the happiness and mental health of a human being. It&#x27;s off-topic for HN in any case, because it&#x27;s garden-variety celebrity gossip. But it&#x27;s also wrong, and I wish I&#x27;d realized this earlier.<p>It&#x27;s time this stopped. Since more of these threads are sure to be posted, please flag them if you see them before we do.

I got the impression from the article that Markus is looking to the money and saying &quot;money, are you making me happy?&quot;. He is spending it partying and dancing and doing gods knows what in Ibiza. He appears to not find happiness in that either.<p>For me I find happiness in having a small number of true friends, trying to have the best family relationships I can, trying to be as fit as I can be, being a good father, doing computer programming which I love, and pursuing my other interests like kickboxing and going to movies. It&#x27;s not a billionaire lifestyle, and I&#x27;m very, very far from rich. Even if I had money though I wouldn&#x27;t pursue much else for happiness except maybe some travel too.<p>I wonder if Markus might find happiness not in billions and the associated lifestyle but by finding happiness in the very ordinary.<p>Someone wise once said to me &quot;You&#x27;ll only become happy when you truly accept your mediocrity.&quot;. I think that&#x27;s especially true for people who think they are not mediocre for some reason.<p>When he is not happy, he appears to blame the money.

I vow that when I do become a billionaire I won&#x27;t do that.<p>Happiness is relative, yes I understand that logically, but you just won&#x27;t be able to illicit empathy from others for the pain of having too much money.<p>His last tweet has it right, the guilt will pass, just relax, go somewhere no one knows you and disconnect for a while. Hell, you&#x27;re in the billionaire club, go ask Musk how he handled it. He handles it by taking on larger problems I imagine.

Notch makes a bunch of early-morning tweets, these get dissected in the press with sentences ending in &quot;, no really&quot; and explanations of how much the toilets in his new mansion cost. And now the comments (even in here) mock him.<p>He has a history of mood issues and blogged about how his father killed himself due to depression. [0]<p>He is a human being in trouble.<p>You can do better, HN.<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.polygon.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;12&#x2F;13&#x2F;3763968&#x2F;notch-father-minecraft" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.polygon.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;12&#x2F;13&#x2F;3763968&#x2F;notch-father-minec...</a>

At least he&#x27;s not deluding himself that he&#x27;s not still a regular human being. I prefer a super rich guy trying to identify as a regular person, even if cringey, than a rich guy who&#x27;s suddenly convinced himself that he&#x27;s special and gets to live in a different world just because he made money.

Until he figures out what he wants, the money is going to be a distraction rather than helpful. If I had that much money, and was finding life tricky, I&#x27;d start with a call to Tony Robbins...

From all the stuff I&#x27;ve read about and from Persson, it looks like he has an inclination to depression. Billions of dollars are not a known effective anti-depressant.

He and everyone here knows what he needs to do.<p>He just needs to do it.<p>Create.

Oh poor him. There&#x27;s a rather easy fix for this if he chooses.

Seems illogical. Why did he buy a super-mansion in LA and go partying in Ibiza? Did he really want those things? If I got billions I would set up an enclave to withstand future societal collapse, like somewhere in Siberia.