Re:An Engineer's View of Venture Capitalists (2001)
by ChuckMcM on Thursday September 12, 2013 @12:08AM
(#6372006)
It is an interesting debate, mostly centered around the chicken and the egg, which is do evil people become rich? or do rich people become evil? And its an area I've wondered about as well as I've personally known lots of people who have gone from 'not rich' to 'rich' and was able to observe some before and after studies.
"One of the things that wealth and money does is it comes with a set of values, and if you want a deeper ideology, and one of them is, generosity is for suckers and greed is good. But it turns out, there are a lot of new data that show, if you're generous, and charitable, and altruistic, you will live longer, you will feel more fulfilled, you will feel more expressive of who you are as a person. You probably will feel more control and freedom in your life."
My observation over the years watching people become millionares and billionares is that there is a switch that people do when they go from 'not rich' to 'rich' where they have to somehow rationalize their wealth relative to their friends who are still not wealthy. My first exposure was at Sun (I joined on the Monday after they had gone public) and a number of people were thinking they were better off than before, but by the time I left nearly 10 years later many knew they were much better off.
One of the more common rationalizations was they 'deserved' it, there was something special about what they had done, or what they brought to the company that made the company (and them) successful. Lots of things to point too and remember to give some meat to that belief. I met people who were fired at Sun for being incompetent, got jobs in start ups that went public during the dot-com boom, became multi-millionares and got fired again and still believed it was their "specialness" that made them rich, not random chance.
My best guess is that when you are rich you become a target for people who want to be rich but aren't. This is a common fate of lottery winners who often lose all their winnings in a relatively short time for reasons that are not altruistic or fulfilling. Makes me wonder what divorce rates are for lottery winners compared to the general population. Being so targeted can make you cynical, and perhaps push you toward being evil.
There is lots of research into the topic, lately its been a bit trendy because the disparity between wealth and non-wealth in the Bay Area and elsewhere makes for good page views (and discussion).
From the perspective of VC's, which are a self selected group of people with money, they are often people who are rich and trying to get richer still, and it perhaps that trait which selects for soullessness. People who get rich, stop work, and spend the rest of their days doing things that make them happy are not in that group so the results skew.
This was a recent PBS NewsHour report on the Psychology of Wealth (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june13/makingsen...) which included this comment:
"One of the things that wealth and money does is it comes with a set of values, and if you want a deeper ideology, and one of them is, generosity is for suckers and greed is good. But it turns out, there are a lot of new data that show, if you're generous, and charitable, and altruistic, you will live longer, you will feel more fulfilled, you will feel more expressive of who you are as a person. You probably will feel more control and freedom in your life."
My observation over the years watching people become millionares and billionares is that there is a switch that people do when they go from 'not rich' to 'rich' where they have to somehow rationalize their wealth relative to their friends who are still not wealthy. My first exposure was at Sun (I joined on the Monday after they had gone public) and a number of people were thinking they were better off than before, but by the time I left nearly 10 years later many knew they were much better off.
One of the more common rationalizations was they 'deserved' it, there was something special about what they had done, or what they brought to the company that made the company (and them) successful. Lots of things to point too and remember to give some meat to that belief. I met people who were fired at Sun for being incompetent, got jobs in start ups that went public during the dot-com boom, became multi-millionares and got fired again and still believed it was their "specialness" that made them rich, not random chance.
My best guess is that when you are rich you become a target for people who want to be rich but aren't. This is a common fate of lottery winners who often lose all their winnings in a relatively short time for reasons that are not altruistic or fulfilling. Makes me wonder what divorce rates are for lottery winners compared to the general population. Being so targeted can make you cynical, and perhaps push you toward being evil.
There is lots of research into the topic, lately its been a bit trendy because the disparity between wealth and non-wealth in the Bay Area and elsewhere makes for good page views (and discussion).
From the perspective of VC's, which are a self selected group of people with money, they are often people who are rich and trying to get richer still, and it perhaps that trait which selects for soullessness. People who get rich, stop work, and spend the rest of their days doing things that make them happy are not in that group so the results skew.