> It all depends on the person.

Agreed. I'm speaking in generalities to make the point that, on average, greed is a superior motivating force. At least from personal experience, I've found far more people foregoing personal health and relationships for the sake of wealth accumulation than societal contribution. Even among those that eventually satiate their desire for wealth, it's mostly because their values have shifted (not because their ultimate value remains wealth accumulation and now they have enough).

You just matched one viewpoint with an opposing one. At least the OP's opinion has some empirical evidence in the form of Gates, Jobs, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and so on. All greedy robber barons of their time that made profound impacts on industry and society while treating their employees like grist for the mill.

Self determination theory is the opposite. And has a lot of empirical evidence.

Also check the overjustification effect to see how extrinsic motivation destroys any motivation.

Imo intrinsic > extrinsic

Any time any day.

Want examples? Look at passionate people. Look at academia. They’re not a handful if people but tons of them that did good work that helped innovation.

Gates stopped and started spending his money. If the wealthiest person in the world eventually gives up that suggests greed is bound, it’s simply high enough in many people that they never realize that goal.

Further the institution of retirement suggests greed isn’t an unlimited motivator for most people.

Yep, see FIRE and it’s sibling acronyms.

Is Gates actually spending it faster than his equity is rising in value?

I doubt it, considering he's now the largest private farmland owner in the United States. He's got a LOT of capital and it's growing every second. Now he'll be splitting it with his wife though and I expect we'll hear more stories about his philandering. The guy's a demon. He just uses a PR company now to make himself look humanitarian. He even tried to teach Epstein to do the same to rehabilitate his image. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/bill-g... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-...

For a decade he did, though not in the past 5 years. However, it’s kind of funny at those levels of wealth if you buy a 30 million dollar painting for example it’s likely worth more in a decade.

It’s not exactly difficult to spend a billion dollars, yet to spend several Billion dollars per year without retaining any value is basically just charity, politics, or bad investments.

As GP said in your quote “When someone is obsessed…”.

Disclaimer: not saying I agree with GP.