These guys could have bought an island and retired in luxury with all that FB money. Instead they jumped on the crypto train. I wonder if they regret this path yet?
Source: I too am from their hometown. I know billionaires who keep working because they feel they don't have enough. A gentleman who lived down the street from me has grossed probably close to half a billion in his career (maybe more), yet still goes to work every day. Granted, he has kids to feed, and the Winkelvii don't, but the song remains the same. People just want more, and sometimes they get used to a lavish lifestyle, and can't quit the grind because they like the lifestyle it brings....when they have the time to enjoy it.
You don't believe me? You might have a relative who experienced hard times, and sure, that affects you, I get it. But you've or they have probably not seen what the Winklevoss twins have, or what I have.
You weren't raised in Greenwich Connecticut where you were an elite rower and your parents were Ivy League professors. Cam and Ty's parents were very well off, and their sons went to a fabulously expensive private prep school ($30k per person per year, could be a lot more actually) in a fabulously wealthy town. The "I might not have enough" mentality is flipped, and it becomes an arms race of "I have enough, but my neighbor has much more" and thus forms an inherently competitive aspect to life, and worse, to making money. You've got a few hundred million? Cool story bro, that's pauper shit, my friend's got a billion. You've got a billion? Good for you, the guy down the street has 5 billion. Where the twins (and I) are from, you don't get admiration for getting that money, you get a target on your back, and everyone wants to outdo you. THAT is the world those guys grew up in (I did too). Nobody just says "wow, I made a billion dollars, time for me to go buy a place on some remote island or on the beach and just chill out with my family and those closest to me", they say "fuck, I got a billion but this asshole in my church just made 2 billion, and I want to beat him".
Nobody is content, which is stunning to me. If I ever get that kind of money, I'm buying a shack in the mountains, and a hut on the beach, putting a bit in a trust for my nephew, and donating the rest. Fuck the rat race.
I don’t understand, especially on an SV-dominant board, this “anyone who has more than me is necessarily evil” mentality.
No, and particularly not my "conspicuous consumption" which is what I said.
> this “anyone who has more than me is necessarily evil” mentality.
That's not my mentality. I didn't say necessarily evil or even evil.
I'm postulating on the motivations of people who have access to every material comfort they could ever want, but still want 1000x that because someone else has 100x that. I'm nothing like them, nor the people in my wealth range that seem to have similar motivations --splurging on status signaling, doing anything to get more. It's irrelevant that I am richer than 3rd world people.
I mean, it is. There are multitudes in rural Asia and Africa who don’t have a fraction of a fraction of what you have and would regard most of your consumption as “conspicuous”.
And you may not have said the word “evil”, but your intent was quite clear. I’m suggesting that, as I said, your baseline for what someone has, and their baseline for it, are inherently different, and that ascribing motive to that doesn’t make sense.
Mostly, I think that pretending your ostentatious wealth is actually totally ok to flaunt, just because it’s yours and you don’t care about the people who see it as flaunting and ostentatious, is a moral relative, just like the one you’re suggesting is so bad.
They could do something good for humanity or something. But they don’t. This correctly raises eye brows and makes people question their motives.
Most folks on this board have vastly more wealth than I do - that doesn’t make them/you bad people, even if they/you pursue that raise and promotion at work. I dunno, I just think this recent tendency to call anyone with “more” inherently evil as a result (or to dog whistle at evil) is thoughtless, trite nonsense.
I'm not saying trying to be rich is bad. I want to be rich. But for most people, if you gave them enough money to never have to work again, but they would be permanently middle class, they would take it. I am very jealous of people that can do that. But eventually jealousy turns to suspicion. These people have enough money for their families and many generations after them to be better than middle class comfortable and they are doing shady things to acquire more wealth?
This is my point. If someone's got under 10 million, and a large family, sure, keep working, that 10 million will be gone in a generation if not properly managed.
Someone's got 100, 200, 300 million, has no family to speak of or whatever? Dude, take a fucking break and live a little. Do some good for your community, your neighbors, your friends, etc.
You've got over half a billion, just stop - you've won capitalism. Congratulations. Sleep in. Go take a walk in the woods. Cook yourself a meal. Read a book. Just stop slaving away, you're not going to really make a difference in anyone's lives but your own if you don't stop and look around you.