Almost nobody gets to $1b overnight. To get to $1b first you need to have $100m, and to get there you need $10m. Each level of that is life changing.
I’m sure that by the time you’re worth $10m your entire social circle has changed. If you’re really lucky you have old friends who have known you for decades who you can be pretty sure like you for yourself, not your money. Probably some friendships have ended after someone you thought was a friend made a request you thought was unreasonable. You have certain parts of your family who you have cut off contact with because you think they just want your money, and other parts of the family who either your money keeps in line, or who are able to keep acting normally despite the money.
To have and actually keep $10m, you can’t still be the kind of person who helps people in need and is generous to friends and family. There will always be people with debt problems, medical issues, legal problems, housing crises, etc. So, either you were never that kind of person to begin with, or your heart hardens a bit as you get richer.
I’m sure those kinds of changes keep happening, and at each level more and more people are cut off. Or, those people are kept in line by the use of the money. By the time you reach $1b, you can’t really see the average person as fully human. $1b could relieve so much suffering. You could give away 1 percent of it and not even notice, and completely transform the lives of dozens of people, hundreds if you’re talking about people in developing countries, etc.
To have and actually keep $10m, you can’t still be the kind of person who helps people in need and is generous to friends and family. There will always be people with debt problems, medical issues, legal problems, housing crises, etc. So, either you were never that kind of person to begin with, or your heart hardens a bit as you get richer.
I don’t have $10m, but I’ve found it has become easier to be more given the more I have. My foundation is safe. My bills are paid. I have some money left over. I can now much more easily look outward to see where I can help others knowing that helping others doesn’t put my own future at risk.
Having $100,000 in net worth (especially as an older adult) isn’t that rare. 😀
Its those deca-millionaires that are close to (but not quite) in the 1%, and no I’m not one.
Maybe you would be if you invested that money instead of being generous with it.
For me, I’d still be well under $10m even with zero charitable contributions.
Its possible be under $10m net work and to donate/contribution tens of thousands of dollars per year without it being a meaningful hit against growth. Once you hit a certain point, the compounding of what you have does the work. This was my point.
If you started with $1m in the boring S&P500 10 years ago, that would be worth $4,446,735 today. Projecting forward, if you had $4m today with the same returns over the last year (probably unlikely after trump) you’d have $17,786,940 in 2036. Ten thousand dollars every year donated doesn’t reduce that much.
I challenge all of your assertions, and I’ll prove it empirically. I have a science funding proposal on my desk asking for 1 billion dollars. Then well know for sure who is right. ;)
I wonder if you could actually learn anything doing an experiment in an MMO or something where the money wasn’t actually real. Because, obviously, this isn’t the kind of thing that you can actually study with real money in the real world. Just imagine you could actually get approved for that kind of study… but you can’t really learn anything with a single person, or n=1, so now you need n=100…
Almost nobody gets to $1b overnight. To get to $1b first you need to have $100m, and to get there you need $10m. Each level of that is life changing.
I’m sure that by the time you’re worth $10m your entire social circle has changed. If you’re really lucky you have old friends who have known you for decades who you can be pretty sure like you for yourself, not your money. Probably some friendships have ended after someone you thought was a friend made a request you thought was unreasonable. You have certain parts of your family who you have cut off contact with because you think they just want your money, and other parts of the family who either your money keeps in line, or who are able to keep acting normally despite the money.
To have and actually keep $10m, you can’t still be the kind of person who helps people in need and is generous to friends and family. There will always be people with debt problems, medical issues, legal problems, housing crises, etc. So, either you were never that kind of person to begin with, or your heart hardens a bit as you get richer.
I’m sure those kinds of changes keep happening, and at each level more and more people are cut off. Or, those people are kept in line by the use of the money. By the time you reach $1b, you can’t really see the average person as fully human. $1b could relieve so much suffering. You could give away 1 percent of it and not even notice, and completely transform the lives of dozens of people, hundreds if you’re talking about people in developing countries, etc.
I don’t have $10m, but I’ve found it has become easier to be more given the more I have. My foundation is safe. My bills are paid. I have some money left over. I can now much more easily look outward to see where I can help others knowing that helping others doesn’t put my own future at risk.
Right, but that’s why you (I assume) aren’t a deci-millionaire. Maybe you would be if you invested that money instead of being generous with it.
Having $100,000 in net worth (especially as an older adult) isn’t that rare. 😀
Its those deca-millionaires that are close to (but not quite) in the 1%, and no I’m not one.
For me, I’d still be well under $10m even with zero charitable contributions.
Its possible be under $10m net work and to donate/contribution tens of thousands of dollars per year without it being a meaningful hit against growth. Once you hit a certain point, the compounding of what you have does the work. This was my point.
If you started with $1m in the boring S&P500 10 years ago, that would be worth $4,446,735 today. Projecting forward, if you had $4m today with the same returns over the last year (probably unlikely after trump) you’d have $17,786,940 in 2036. Ten thousand dollars every year donated doesn’t reduce that much.
I challenge all of your assertions, and I’ll prove it empirically. I have a science funding proposal on my desk asking for 1 billion dollars. Then well know for sure who is right. ;)
I wonder if you could actually learn anything doing an experiment in an MMO or something where the money wasn’t actually real. Because, obviously, this isn’t the kind of thing that you can actually study with real money in the real world. Just imagine you could actually get approved for that kind of study… but you can’t really learn anything with a single person, or n=1, so now you need n=100…
Fine. Science will get to the truth of it for a measely 100 billion dollars, plus administration costs.