> From what I've seen, getting rich doesn't seem to change most people's level of motivation much.
Didn't you write two Lisp books and start Viaweb before you got rich? Would you say you and your co-founders were just as motivated afterward?
As I understand it, the Zenter people darn near killed themselves leading up to the Google acquisition. Realistically, I wouldn't see them continuing at that breakneck pace afterward.
After the Apple II disk drive, Woz took it easy -- really easy. He doesn't even walk anymore, he Segways!
Taking it easy seems to be the norm. The exceptions to this get mega-rich, like Jobs and Gates. I used to wonder why Gates didn't just take his billions and retire somewhere; reading a biography makes it clear that his life IS Microsoft, including his social circle. It's his whole identity; it's not a job. He didn't do it so he could get rich and do something else; he did it because it's the thing he wanted to do the most anyway! And of course Jobs has always been on a transcendental mission to change humanity via consumer technology.
Yes, I'd say in all three of our cases we're just as motivated as before we got rich.
The Zenters worked super hard more because they had a deadline than because they had no money. I'm just as frazzled before deadlines. I worked 16 hour days for about a month straight to get Hackers & Painters in by the deadline.
Demo Day. Like all YC-funded startups they had to demo to investors after 10 weeks. They worked particularly hard because they had nearly zero written when they arrived in January. The two of them wrote 40k LOC in 10 weeks.
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> From what I've seen, getting rich doesn't seem to change most people's level of motivation much.
Didn't you write two Lisp books and start Viaweb before you got rich? Would you say you and your co-founders were just as motivated afterward?
As I understand it, the Zenter people darn near killed themselves leading up to the Google acquisition. Realistically, I wouldn't see them continuing at that breakneck pace afterward.
After the Apple II disk drive, Woz took it easy -- really easy. He doesn't even walk anymore, he Segways!
Taking it easy seems to be the norm. The exceptions to this get mega-rich, like Jobs and Gates. I used to wonder why Gates didn't just take his billions and retire somewhere; reading a biography makes it clear that his life IS Microsoft, including his social circle. It's his whole identity; it's not a job. He didn't do it so he could get rich and do something else; he did it because it's the thing he wanted to do the most anyway! And of course Jobs has always been on a transcendental mission to change humanity via consumer technology.
Yes, I'd say in all three of our cases we're just as motivated as before we got rich.
The Zenters worked super hard more because they had a deadline than because they had no money. I'm just as frazzled before deadlines. I worked 16 hour days for about a month straight to get Hackers & Painters in by the deadline.
What was the deadline?
Demo Day. Like all YC-funded startups they had to demo to investors after 10 weeks. They worked particularly hard because they had nearly zero written when they arrived in January. The two of them wrote 40k LOC in 10 weeks.
Heck, with KLOC numbers like that, Google was lucky to avoid an all-out bidding war with IBM.
pregnant wife? http://blogs.business2.com/startups/2007/06/zenter_acquired....
Google launching their presentation product?