It's fine to recognize you're built out as a one trick pony and then enjoy the trappings of success.

You're being downvoted. But, while I personally wouldn't have gone the lavish lifestyle route and would probably dabble in things I found interesting, it's not unreasonable and indicated a certain self-awareness to realize you've hit the lottery and you may not want to devote your life to trying to hit the lottery again.

Absolutely valid choice for some of us. Life has taught me that I'm not really all that special in any particular capacity, and more importantly to be okay with it. Being able to cover all my future expenses in a 3 or 4 bedroom place with a high quality security system would be winning at life.

I'd definitely want to pursue some hobbies, but I wouldn't expect any of them to make money or change the world. I could at least donate to nonprofits for the latter, though.

> with a high quality security system

Jeepers. I am guessing your other priorities in your life make it so you need to live in an unsafe area?

I am middle aged, and I have never lived anywhere in my hometown Christchurch that had an active security system. In more that one place the front door or back door was never locked. Probably because I just have never owned much worth stealing! Correction: my parents had a security system, but they stopped using it and it stopped working maybe 15 years ago?

I currently live in a particularly safe little area of my city, although I wouldn’t mind having a secret lockup for the few things that can’t be insured. Most rural or small-town New Zealand is even safer than living in my city.

Above said, I do believe thievery is increasing in Christchurch. My friends in Woolston had a small shed ram-raided (failed because the shed builder went overboard on big posts), and those friends have needed to add security cameras to help prevent thieves casing their home. Anecdotally theft in Lyttelton is on the rise.

> I am guessing your other priorities in your life make it so you need to live in an unsafe area?

It may not be so much you live in an area with danger, but the danger comes to your safe area looking for money (ransom).

And not just you, but those around you:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Paul_Getty#Kidnapping_of_gr...

See also "Lottery winner 'regretted scooping £11m' when brother hired hitman to assassinate him":

* https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/lottery-winner-r...

> kidnapping, hitman

These are outrageously unlikely in my country, and would guess are extremely unlikely even in the USA.

If you are worried about extreme events, then a security system is hardly going to help you. When you win the lottery, you can move or buy a good security system.

I've had a similar thought of this regarding one hit wonders. So many of them hit it big on a single song and they end up thinking that the hit was because the people like "them" when a lot of the time, it just hit the cultural zeitgeist at the right time or was used in a commercia/tiktok. I often think if that happened for me, I'd try my best to milk it and then dip. You might only have a few hundred thousand dollars but save it and go back to what you were doing before while still making music on the side.

The best example I've seen of this is chamillionaire. He had a string of 3-5 hits but diversified and has stayed wealthy while many of the people in a similar vein are broke.

Smart people do exist.

I struggle to see what's exactly smart on spending $400M in mansions, and another ~400M in yachts (apart from his +100 cars collection). Just the maintenance for his yachts is ~$25M a year.

You could say "he does what he likes", but it doesn't sound smart nor grounded to me.

Wikipedia lists him with a net worth just shy of $14 billion. As a percentage of wealth, the mansions, yachts, and maintenance are less than what a typical person spends.

Not that it makes any financial sense whatsoever, but the scale of wealth is unfathomable. Money no longer makes sense.

I’m not sure my words will help you understand me better, but still: some people live to work, and some people work to enjoy their only life.

Just like MySpace Tom, IIRC. Finally some relatable people.

MySpace was a project within an existing company, eUniverse, later InterMix. Tom and Chris DeWolfe were employees of InterMix, not founders. Intermix was acquired by News Corp. for $580M. Not sure how much equity Tom ended up with but I'm sure his payday was a tiny fraction of what WhatsApp's founders received.

I can certainly understand the need to enjoy life, but it does feel obscene to spend that much on yachts.

Money is power and power comes with moral responsibility. I think that's why the Gates' started that foundation.

For many people it's easier to feel good about having so much if you can claim that you're using it for good.

>Money is power and power comes with moral responsibility.

I don't know if I agree with that. Are they actually qualified to be wielding that much power? Maybe it's better to just let them spend it on personal luxury or passive philanthropy than to have them start twiddling society's levers just because they have a strong urge to "do something".

You think directing your massive fortune towards spending on luxury goods isn't in itself "twiddling society's levers"?

Yeah, you don't build a yacht in isolation, you need labor, resources, it has a cultural and environmental impact.

Whatever you do with so much dough is gonna have consequences, there's no staying neutral.

It's not the same because it's within the bounds of what the economy "wants" you to do. It's an option that's available, instead of modifying the fabric of society to create an option that was previously unimaginable.

I think that's a completely broken idea of how an economy works. There's no neutral position where your cooperating with an economy "wants".

They're not qualified, but they wield it anyway.

Billions of dollars are billions of dollars that could be spent building schools, housing the homeless, feeding starving people, etc. Saying that it's better that these people starve, freeze and die because of a vague fear that Man shouldn't meddle with certain things and spending on personal luxury and yachts is the better option seems like philosophical lazyness.

Or doing Koch Brothers stuff.

Don't think of it as spending on yachts.

Think of it as make-work income for inner city shipyard workers, metal workers, and countless other legacy professions.

At the end of the day, the guy doesn't have the money any more, they all do. So they're happy, and he has a boat.

Indeed, money spent drives economies. Money not spent is simply wasted. One reason why people advocate for more taxes for the rich is to make sure that the money circulates in an economy and thus progress society.

But taxes goes into govt and its inefficiencies rather than into economy

Gates had started their foundation to transfer the assets to children without paying estate tax.

Theory doesn't make any sense, if he wanted to transfer assets to his children, he'll just do that directly rather than start a foundation that has disbursed $66 billion in grants [1].

Note that I'm not saying Gates is a good guy and doesn't use his foundation to exert influence. But, saying he started a foundation to transfer assets while dodging estate tax reeks of "they just write it off...". Wouldn't he have been better off handing over that $66 billion to his children and paying 18% to 40% as taxes?

1- https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/foundation-fact-sheet

He has also become a very quiet mega philanthropist- he doesn’t publicize his giving but it’s on a huge scale

Finding it hard to give a guy any philanthropy credit when he's apparently spend hundreds of millions on personal luxury.

In a world where mere 10s of dollars can fund a medical intervention that change s the life of a poor child, having 4 megayachts is obscene.

Well what else are you supposed to do? Fly your private jet to Bali and then not have a megayacht sitting there waiting for you? There's no way I'm waiting a full week for them to sail over from the Maldives so I need to have at least two.

With that line of thinking, he is under-equipped in the yacht department. Should have one dedicated to each ocean.