I spent the weekend in San Francisco, a city at the cutting edge of our nation’s economy. Everytime I visit I am inspired and awed at the power of what people are building. But this time I was left with the unsettling curiosity of what was driving all these builders on a personal level.

I am an engineer and like to believe I enjoy the act of building for its own sake. It’s a fun intellectual exercise to be presented with a problem, break it down into smaller parts, and build up a solution. I like pushing myself to get better month over month, year over year.

But for me, there is a limit to this slightly self indulgent cognitive play. It feels wrong to put even the coolest new tech over my personal relationships. I’m aware when I tread too deep and overexert myself– I become irritable and rude to those around me and blow off my friends because I’m working late.

But many engineers in San Fransisco don’t have the same restraint. They regularly go days without sleep and self deprecatingly brag about the mess in their apartments because they have been working so hard. I’ve been to panels where founders told the crowd, perfect strangers, that their kids hate them because for most of their life, they were away from home working.

This all seems extreme to me, and leaves me wondering why that amount of sacrifice seems worth it to them. I don’t mean to condescend, I am genuinely curious what is driving this decision making. I consider myself a very driven and ambitious person, but my internal drive for career success could require that much personal sacrifice.

My sense from talking to some friends is that it comes down to money. One of my friends who founded a company ironically lamented that he “just wants $100 million dollars”. When I asked him why and what we would do with it, he said people with that much money are “just on another tier of life”, and likened it to creative mode in Minecraft. It’s a whole other form of game play, where you have special abilities and are not worried about your basic needs.

Another friend said it was “fuck you money”, if someone asked you to do something you didn’t want to do, you always had the flexibility to walk away. We talked about how he had gotten the advice to never hire a rich person at a start up because when it came time to push and work overtime on something, they could just say no and quit.

I’ve been thinking about this conversation ever since. This essay doesn’t really have a point of view like my others usually do. I’m trying to understand what is going on in other people's heads.

What is so special about living life with hoards of money? I understand wanting to meet your basic needs and go on nice vacations, but no one needs hundreds of millions of dollars to survive. What do people want to spend that money on?

Why do people want the ability to bail on a team when the going gets tough? Is it an unwillingness to sacrifice for the greater good? Or are companies asking employees to do too much? I feel like I’m missing something.

Like always, I leave SF with more questions than answers. As a recent college grad who is trying to figure out the role I want to play in the economy, I don’t know if I align with or reject this point of view, but I know it’s an important question. I would love folks to leave comments on this post or text me with any thoughts.

I spent the weekend in San Francisco, a city at the cutting edge of our nation’s economy. Everytime I visit I am inspired and awed at the power of what people are building. But this time I was left with the unsettling curiosity of what was driving all these builders on a personal level.

I am an engineer and like to believe I enjoy the act of building for its own sake. It’s a fun intellectual exercise to be presented with a problem, break it down into smaller parts, and build up a solution. I like pushing myself to get better month over month, year over year.

But for me, there is a limit to this slightly self indulgent cognitive play. It feels wrong to put even the coolest new tech over my personal relationships. I’m aware when I tread too deep and overexert myself– I become irritable and rude to those around me and blow off my friends because I’m working late.

But many engineers in San Fransisco don’t have the same restraint. They regularly go days without sleep and self deprecatingly brag about the mess in their apartments because they have been working so hard. I’ve been to panels where founders told the crowd, perfect strangers, that their kids hate them because for most of their life, they were away from home working.

This all seems extreme to me, and leaves me wondering why that amount of sacrifice seems worth it to them. I don’t mean to condescend, I am genuinely curious what is driving this decision making. I consider myself a very driven and ambitious person, but my internal drive for career success could require that much personal sacrifice.

My sense from talking to some friends is that it comes down to money. One of my friends who founded a company ironically lamented that he “just wants $100 million dollars”. When I asked him why and what we would do with it, he said people with that much money are “just on another tier of life”, and likened it to creative mode in Minecraft. It’s a whole other form of game play, where you have special abilities and are not worried about your basic needs.

Another friend said it was “fuck you money”, if someone asked you to do something you didn’t want to do, you always had the flexibility to walk away. We talked about how he had gotten the advice to never hire a rich person at a start up because when it came time to push and work overtime on something, they could just say no and quit.

I’ve been thinking about this conversation ever since. This essay doesn’t really have a point of view like my others usually do. I’m trying to understand what is going on in other people's heads.

What is so special about living life with hoards of money? I understand wanting to meet your basic needs and go on nice vacations, but no one needs hundreds of millions of dollars to survive. What do people want to spend that money on?

Why do people want the ability to bail on a team when the going gets tough? Is it an unwillingness to sacrifice for the greater good? Or are companies asking employees to do too much? I feel like I’m missing something.

Like always, I leave SF with more questions than answers. As a recent college grad who is trying to figure out the role I want to play in the economy, I don’t know if I align with or reject this point of view, but I know it’s an important question. I would love folks to leave comments on this post or text me with any thoughts.