<story><title>RxBar co-founder Peter Rahal on life after becoming a millionaire</title><url>https://marker.medium.com/what-really-happens-when-you-become-an-overnight-millionaire-acac42990175</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dvt</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t like articles like this for two reasons: (1) they trivialize actually building a company, growing it, and selling it, and (2), they provide comfort for those that don&amp;#x27;t have the drive&amp;#x2F;luck&amp;#x2F;privilege of getting there by arguing that &amp;quot;hey, money doesn&amp;#x27;t make you happy!&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;First of all, as others mention in the thread, this is hardly an example of an &amp;quot;overnight success&amp;quot; -- there are &lt;i&gt;no&lt;/i&gt; such examples, barring a few extreme outliers. Not only do the great majority of startups fail, the great majority of successes grind for years and years before seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It&amp;#x27;s not like some dream-land utopia. If you&amp;#x27;re like me (and I think most HN&amp;#x27;ers are), you continue building stuff in &lt;i&gt;spite&lt;/i&gt; of the overwhelming odds. &lt;i&gt;That&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; the real lesson here. Trying, failing, trying, failing, and doing this over and over, even though expecting a different outcome is technically insanity.&lt;p&gt;Secondly, the adage of &amp;quot;money doesn&amp;#x27;t bring happiness&amp;quot; is obvious to anyone that&amp;#x27;s not young or incredibly naive. We &lt;i&gt;get&lt;/i&gt; it -- money is not the end-all of life (duh). But at the same time, can we not kid ourselves? Money makes life &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; easier than the alternative. Anyone that grew up poor and achieved some modicum of success (I grew up in essential poverty in a third world country; now I make a &amp;quot;modest&amp;quot; six figure salary and live in Los Angeles) realizes this. I&amp;#x27;m reminded of a (2008 crash) documentary I saw years ago where a banker says: &amp;quot;I grew up poor, and now I&amp;#x27;m rich; trust me, I&amp;#x27;d rather be rich.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tachyonbeam</author><text>Agreed. I also grew up poor and now live comfortably. Having my own place with no roommates (or mentally ill family members screaming at me) brings me a lot of peace. Being able to just uber somewhere when I have an appointment but feel too tired to take public transit for 45 minutes makes my life easier. There are a lot of problems in life that you can make disappear (or simplify a lot) by throwing a little money at them. You can remove a lot of stress factors. Money gives you more freedom to choose what you want your life to be like.&lt;p&gt;The flipside is that I know very well that, if I&amp;#x27;m in an anxious mindset, my brain will find things to worry and be unhappy about. I know being a multi-millionaire wouldn&amp;#x27;t bring me bliss, but... Being able to work on my own projects, as much as I want, whenever I want. That would be fucking awesome.</text></comment>
<story><title>RxBar co-founder Peter Rahal on life after becoming a millionaire</title><url>https://marker.medium.com/what-really-happens-when-you-become-an-overnight-millionaire-acac42990175</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dvt</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t like articles like this for two reasons: (1) they trivialize actually building a company, growing it, and selling it, and (2), they provide comfort for those that don&amp;#x27;t have the drive&amp;#x2F;luck&amp;#x2F;privilege of getting there by arguing that &amp;quot;hey, money doesn&amp;#x27;t make you happy!&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;First of all, as others mention in the thread, this is hardly an example of an &amp;quot;overnight success&amp;quot; -- there are &lt;i&gt;no&lt;/i&gt; such examples, barring a few extreme outliers. Not only do the great majority of startups fail, the great majority of successes grind for years and years before seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It&amp;#x27;s not like some dream-land utopia. If you&amp;#x27;re like me (and I think most HN&amp;#x27;ers are), you continue building stuff in &lt;i&gt;spite&lt;/i&gt; of the overwhelming odds. &lt;i&gt;That&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; the real lesson here. Trying, failing, trying, failing, and doing this over and over, even though expecting a different outcome is technically insanity.&lt;p&gt;Secondly, the adage of &amp;quot;money doesn&amp;#x27;t bring happiness&amp;quot; is obvious to anyone that&amp;#x27;s not young or incredibly naive. We &lt;i&gt;get&lt;/i&gt; it -- money is not the end-all of life (duh). But at the same time, can we not kid ourselves? Money makes life &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; easier than the alternative. Anyone that grew up poor and achieved some modicum of success (I grew up in essential poverty in a third world country; now I make a &amp;quot;modest&amp;quot; six figure salary and live in Los Angeles) realizes this. I&amp;#x27;m reminded of a (2008 crash) documentary I saw years ago where a banker says: &amp;quot;I grew up poor, and now I&amp;#x27;m rich; trust me, I&amp;#x27;d rather be rich.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tempsy</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t really get your point. First of all, this isn&amp;#x27;t an &amp;quot;article.&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s a story about one founder and one company. It&amp;#x27;s not supposed to be a middle-of-the-road case study on building startups.&lt;p&gt;Nowhere in the story does he suggest that being poor would be better than being rich or that having financial security isn&amp;#x27;t objectively better than the opposite. He&amp;#x27;s basically saying that the downside of his wealth is living a life without purpose because he can afford to do nothing all day, and how he misses the feeling of having a purpose to wake up to.&lt;p&gt;Even if you aren&amp;#x27;t extremely rich, I think most people can relate to that feeling. The reason why the story resonates is because it&amp;#x27;s a reminder that &lt;i&gt;money does not buy purpose&lt;/i&gt; more than anything else.</text></comment>