Of course, it goes without saying. But on the other side, not many people would have what it take to not let that kind of wealth go to their head. This désinvolture has to be praised.

not a lot of people dispose it

I've been to a lecture he gave, and Q&A session. I was left with no doubt that his ethos of joy and honesty predate his wealth and are entirely independent of it.

but he also had to live with having sold apple stock far too soon. Not that he cares that much .

I do wonder if the relative ease he might have had with his craft early on contributed, too. He doesn't strike me as someone who's ever really struggled to learn or produce, just met a steady stream of interesting, surmountable challenges (and was blessed to be able to eschew anything that would have been troublesome). Such a combination of prodigious talent and a keen awareness of where it ends probably makes for a pretty happy existence.

“Money isn’t everything in life but before you say that make sure you have enough money”

"While" not "whereas"

Of course. And he mentioned as such having multiple houses and USD 10M in accounts. There is no gotcha here.

> his personality and the ethos he espouses

We have to remember that it is a choice.

Of course, for most regular people money buys happiness.

Wrong. Sorry, but totally, completely wrong. 99% of people with the kind of money he has are nowhere near as happy as him. Many "poor" people are just as happy as him.

The kind of money he has ruins the personal lives of so many people. I've heard him speak a few times and he's been happily married, happily taking care of his dogs, and just spreading joy and enthusiasm wherever he goes for years and years now. That doesn't require a lot of money at all.

I worked at Fusion-io and he was sort of an employee there early on. We opened a tiny office in San Jose and he sat there and basically worked as a receptionist at that office for a while, just happily greeting people as they came and went. He's just a chill dude without pretension.

Maybe, but recently I came across an article where he had reached out to scam victims who fell prey to scammers who used AI to copy Woz's likeness to dupe people into depositing cryptocurrency so that they could get it much more of it back. It's a classic scam that would have almost anyone blaming the victims for falling for it. But what was touching is that Woz had read some emails from victims who were confused.

I think almost anyone would have ignored it, but he decided to at least try to fix it by filing a lawsuit on behalf of victims. I think the lawsuit ended up getting stuck since the scam relies on shady ads on YouTube. But I thought it was cool that at least he tried arguing that it is weird that scammers can make ads that impersonate others and it takes quite a while for them to get taken down.

yes that's true, but the but the guy had every opportunity to become a soulless money grubbing prick with hundreds of millions (or maybe even billions) instead of just tens of millions if he didn't have a good sense of compassion and generosity. But at some point he decided he had enough money and success and that it was important for other people who had been with Apple to get their fair share.

In other words, he was a kind soul before the money and the success. The money and the success did not change him, but in fact, amplified his generosity and other good qualities. And to this day he remains a warm charismatic pioneer of Silicon Valley.

Jobs, on the other hand, boy that guy was selfish to the bone, and though he was not as money hungry as other CEOs, the success really amplified his ugliest traits that allowed him to treat people as disposable including his own friend Wozniak.

Worst thing he ever did, if you ask me, was deny his daughter Lisa even when he had the means to give her mother and his daughter a better life. He seemed spiteful in principle. I understand being skeptical at first about being alleged as the father of a kid, especially while you're trying to make it early on in your career, but after the paternity test proves you're the dad, and you have the means to provide, and you still don't then you are trash.

And perhaps a sense of civic duty: Those tax rates were created (hopefully) by elected representatives.

That attitude about paying taxes is an actually effective altruism.

Do things you love with people you love.

If you have kids, go be with them. Travel, see the world.

Philanthropy.

Start another business if you feel the urge. Meet people. Get into the arts (the founder of my present company, OVH, used his fortune to buy a bunch of guitars and become a performing musician, Ken Block used his DC money to get into car racing)...

A creative soul like Woz will always find something worth doing :)

Probably feels a lot better than the opposite of spending your whole life hoping to achieve something and never feeling you quite did - always becoming and never being.

I don’t think he was chasing glory, but he did a bunch of stuff post-Apple. In addition to the things mentioned in the book passage Gruber quoted, he funded the Us festival because he loves music.

He’s fortunate to have accomplished so much at all, and he seems to be aware of that good fortune.

We must sit opposite, once you gain enough money to live your life freely, why would you keep grinding for glory. The world is now your playground. Travel, meet people, keep learning, keep discovering, and just spend time with your loved ones.

It's true most accomplished people will never catch lightening in a bottle twice. I think it's best to remember that runaway market success is largely not up to you so it's best to pursue something that's useful and authentic to you and something good will come of it.

For every Beyonce, there is an equally talented person who wasn't at the right place at the right time.

I think "now what?" is just a lack of imagination. There is so much to do in this world. Hell, there's likely so much to do just where you live.

This idea that we have to keep "accomplishing" things for life to have meaning is unhealthy.

> with ~$20m or so and had missed the Apple cash cow

But he already HAD a lot more money, and he gave it away. Do you think his behavior or outlook would change if he had $500m?

Parents should take their kids to the children's discovery museum (I think it is on Woz way).

There is nothing quite like seeing kids enraptured by playing with water or bubbles.

It is also amusing to watch closing time, as parents have to literally DRAG their crying kids away from it all out the door.

How about this:

Steve J made ~10 billion at the time of his death at 56. Steve W made ~100 million and is still around at 75.

To make math real simple, I would definitely pay $500 million a year to stick around.

> The only thing I feel is 2nd hand regret for Woz.

I'm going to speculate that in most cases, 20 million and 200 million is effectively the same. I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if I missed out.

If you can get a 2% return on 20 million that's 400k / year. That's a mind boggling amount of money. I picked 2% figuring to beat inflation by that amount in an extremely low risk investment so you don't have to think about market fluctuations hurting you.

Trivia: Saverin still owns 2% of Facebook. He’s currently the richest Brazilian (and of Singapore, where he lives), according to multiple sources. Now _that_ is how you ride off into the sunset!

There is also Michael Scott, Apple’s first CEO. He didn’t necessarily ride out into the sunset as much as being pushed out into it after some very controversial mass layoffs. He’s a neighbor and purchased several homes near me. One, a large estate, he demolished and turned into a pond and fruit orchard. Another he turned into an office and lab space for his interest in gemstones. It’s actually been quite a while since i last saw him. I wonder if he is still living over there.

I met Saverin at a private event not long ago. I had high expectations, I came out deeply disappointed. He didn't share any interesting insight, and essentially avoided any confrontation or controversy in the discussion - even if it was completely private and non-recorded.

How can you tell how happy or unhappy thiel is?

It seems like all the money Steve Jobs had didn’t help him to be a happy person.

Pretty much what I feel from reading Issacson and fact Jobs died rather early.

> Anyways. Money. It buys happiness. Whoever says otherwise is a fool.

Money allows you choices.

It does not buy happiness.

> The money is gone now

How did it happen? Millions in 80's sounds like a whole lot of money...

> but I'm happy with enough to live comfortably.

Congrats!

I’m glad you made it man. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out

Agree, I'm you now, but I feel I paid a huge price for that success - as an immigrant, I had no choice looking back. But after losing my dad a few months ago, I had an existential crisis, am slowly but surely limping back.

Am glad you found peace.

If it were still about something other than going straight for the wallet, maybe we would.