Paul Buchheit: Is there more to life than money?

I don't know man. I'm just circling a huge fusion reaction 93 million miles away at 66,000 miles per hour like everybody else I know.

Its a lot easier to ask that question when you have millions in Google stock.

"Love your work" is often just a way for startups and other small companies to extract unreasonable hours from you, with little payback.<p>I've done the startup thing. I've worked 9-5 er I mean 9-6, oh, wait it was more like 10-7:30. In the end, any job will require you to put up with things you don't like. Obviously, some jobs are a better fit than others.<p>I find the startup smugness naive.

There is a psuedo-empircal monetary value to enjoying life. Consider a thought experiment where you plot "free time" or "enjoyable time" versus "salary." Now consider a job where your enjoyable time is ~ 0, coal miner 100 hours/week, for example. How much would you need to be paid? Now maximize the other dimension, how much salary do you need to live, but have a rewarding and stimulating job?<p>For me, the numbers are like, $1M a year and $50K a year. This means that if I manage to maximize my enjoyment axis, I'm an enjoyment millionare. My personal goal in life is to be on the manifold that connects those two points.

There's something to be said for the Buddhist take on happiness: life is suffering, but suffering is ultimately the result of craving and desire.<p>(Of course, that blows a bit of a hole in the "be an entrepreneur to get rich" mindset, but I still think there's something to it.)

Is there more to life than money?<p>Yes<p>Is money still a really awesome thing?<p>Yes

This reminds me of a thread I read on nuclearphynance <a href="http://nuclearphynance.com/Show%20Post.aspx?PostIDKey=12757" rel="nofollow">http://nuclearphynance.com/Show%20Post.aspx?PostIDKey=12757</a><p>Wherein a slew of highly paid quantitative finance dudes argue about the optimal amount of money (to quit). I think most settled on about $10m/L5m.

I am certainly not a millionaire, but I have a few friends who are and judging from the way they are, I can guarantee you that anyone who says " there is more to life than money" is telling you 95% bullshit. That is unless you live somewhere Capitalism is not KING.

Money can't buy happyness, but happyness does not buy food, houses, vacations or a porsche

Yes, but it's certainly a limiting factor.

Matthew 6:24 - You cannot serve both God and Money