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Comment by benched | Hacker News Reader

I don't ask this too hard, because not only do I know ahead of time that I probably won't like the answer too much, I don't have much reason to suppose I'll get it 'right' next time, either. Without any one all-consuming passion in life, the best I can do is change stuff and see what happens. Also, it's unclear what Mr. Sivers' financial independence status is, but I think that for most of us, wherever we go basically has to be for a job.

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Mr Sivers is very transparent about his financial situation: http://sivers.org/trust

Summary: CD Baby was transferred to a trust then sold for $22m, the trust pays Mr Sivers 5% per year.

In his own words he has "enough".

Part of the reason I haven't been writing much the last couple years is because I thought, "Ah, it's not fair for me to write about this stuff like moving countries on a whim."

But everyone's got their own version of this. My example is just one example.

I moved to Cambodia on a whim 4 months ago and I have ~14,000$ in the bank. Given my current monthly expenses (100$ rent, 200$ food, 50$ miscellaneous), I'll have the next three years to work on projects and coding (more than enough time) without worrying about making money.

Like others have said, money is not the limiting factor for most people in regards to moving half-way around the world. Being 12,000 miles away from my parents is very hard though; this move was something I absolutely needed to do, but I know if something were to happen to them I would completely regret my decision to come here.

Heya are you in Phnom Penh or in the provinces? Am doing the same (many folks like us increasingly in Phnom Penh, all of us contributing somewhat to ever-rising prices though I'm sure ;) -- should hang for coffee!

I think you have valuable and interesting things to say. I was actually in a band when you first started CD Baby and we emailed a few times until we ultimately signed with a label. It's fantastic to see the success that came about doing something that was really a great service with favorable terms for musicians. Congrats and maybe I'll see you around!

This comment is not really fair [1] but when he writes "I get the safety of knowing I won't be the target of a frivolous lawsuit, since I have very little net worth" I had to wonder. I did the math to see that translates to an annuity of over a million a year. I don't know about you but I tend to think that if one lives simply with just 'a good apartment, a good laptop, and a few other basics' then (even after taxes) one's net worth would probably be increasing fairly rapidly over time. Even on only a million a year! Guess I'm feeling very Mrs Bennett right now, though fortunately I have no daughters to thrust in his direction ;_)

More power to Mr Sivers who has made a great choice of new location in my humble, but biased, opinion.

[1] This is not really worthy of our hero D Sivers because as he notes 5% a year was apparently the minimum allowed.

Agreed. It sounds ridiculous, but I was honestly upset about that 5% minimum payout. Instead I funnel it back into projects that are hopefully useful to others.

Usually I don't give a crap about scalability, but that trust post got me to. (Edit: sticking to facts ;)

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