top | item 29189433

A Death-Aware Career Plan

75 points| KentBeck | 4 years ago |medium.com | reply

64 comments

order
[+] magneticnorth|4 years ago|reply
A little bit in the same vein, I'm a big fan of the "rich, broke, or dead" retirement calculator - in addition to telling you the odds your money will run out by age X, it includes the odds you'll be dead by then. I feel like it helps me put my retirement savings in a bit better perspective, as someone who also doesn't want to work in a corporate job until I die.

https://engaging-data.com/will-money-last-retire-early/

An important caveat: the probabilities are based on historical back-testing, and the degree to which the past accurately predicts the future is difficult to estimate.

[+] omgwtfbyobbq|4 years ago|reply
Thank you for that link. It validates my hunch that holding mostly equities and reducing spending during lean times can be better than holding equities/bonds and maintaining spending.
[+] sokoloff|4 years ago|reply
How can I get the grey wedge to be smaller on that chart?
[+] adamredwoods|4 years ago|reply
They should define death-aware career plan a little better. This seems to be an investment driven piece for someone with plenty of money.

I don't feel NFTs or crypto are logical choices, feels like gambling. I would rather incrementally invest in ETFs, and/or start a business that I have a little more control over. If you want work to be worthwhile, consider helping non-profits. You will be paid less, but the goal is altruistic, not money.

[+] wrs|4 years ago|reply
He’s not saying he’ll invest in NFTs. He’s saying he wants to put his writing into NFTs so people will read it. It’s kind of like teaching philosophy with TikTok videos because that’s where the audience is. (At least I think that’s what he saying!)
[+] Traster|4 years ago|reply
It took me a couple of read-throughs of this to really see what he's trying to say about NFTs, and (having been skeptical elsewhere about NFTs) I kind of understand what he's saying. He thinks that everyone is obsessed with NFTs, he thinks he has wisdom to share, by packaging up his wisdom into NFTs he can smuggle his wisdom to a wider audience. Am I getting that right? If that really is what he's doing I think it fits much better into a conversation about how you do stuff that interests you whilst still working, than in a conversation aobut financial freedom.
[+] roughly|4 years ago|reply
I feel like the thing missing or not conveyed here is a purpose. Between my last job and the current one, I took a lot of time off to figure out what I was doing and why - more broadly, what is the purpose of my life? What is the impact I want to have in my limited time here?

I found an answer to that, and it's made all the difference for me - I know why I'm doing what I'm doing, I know that my work makes a difference, and that makes the rest of this much easier. If I suddenly had $50M, I would still be working in the space I'm in.

Simultaneously, it's given me balance. I don't have the same frantic energy I had before - I'm doing meaningful work, I'm in this for the long haul, and I can't do this alone, so I can pace myself instead of panicking that I need to keep studying so I can reach my next career milestone.

The philosophers were right - find your meaning.

[+] phuff|4 years ago|reply
What are you working on now that was different between the last one and this one?
[+] MeinBlutIstBlau|4 years ago|reply
The purpose of life is whatever you give it. At the end of the day, nobody will remember you, and you will be forgotten.
[+] gota|4 years ago|reply
Side comment - the visualization linked from flowingdata is absolutely cool (and to me much more interesting than the linked article)

https://flowingdata.com/2015/09/23/years-you-have-left-to-li...

I wish there was a dashboard where you could input more data about yourself (diet, habits, family health history, location) and watch the animation change accordingly

[+] excalibur|4 years ago|reply
> A dollar today is worth infinitely more to me than a dollar after I’m dead.

Either you're single or you're about to be.

[+] actually_a_dog|4 years ago|reply
Hypothetically, where would "societal collapse" fall in this framework? I'm thinking that you'd just consider it the same as "sudden death," if it happens, assign it a prior probability distribution, update that prior every year or so, and act accordingly.
[+] rhv|4 years ago|reply
There is one thing that might change the time value calculation and make a big payoff in decades be worth much more than a dollar today. That would life/health extension technology & medicine. When it starts becoming available, it will cost millions.
[+] jimbokun|4 years ago|reply
I'm actually slightly surprised Kent Beck is not financially independent at 60. I would have assumed he had gotten some equity somewhere along the way that would have had a big upside.
[+] georgeecollins|4 years ago|reply
You can't really tell from this post that he doesn't have enough to be what most people consider financially independent. Michael Mechanic, who wrote this book called Jackpot interviewed a lot of 100m+ rich wealthy people.

He says that if you ask any of them how much money they need, they will consistently tell you they need about 1/3rd more than they have. It's a phenomena of psychology not material well being.

We are on the Hacker News forum. We probably all do well in a relative sense, but will probably all go to our grave with goals ahead.

[+] AutumnCurtain|4 years ago|reply
At 60, in a country and industry that has experienced unrivaled growth over his lifetime. It is surprising given that a very basic balanced stock portfolio over that time frame should have returned phenomenal results.
[+] zelag|4 years ago|reply
The next post medium recommended to me was about him playing poker..
[+] Matthias247|4 years ago|reply
He just mentions he doesn't have 50M vested. That doesn't preclude him having 10M or any other still very high number that would be considered financially independent
[+] bdavisx|4 years ago|reply
>equity somewhere along the way that would have had a big upside

That's more about luck than hard work and good ideas.

[+] adfgaertyqer|4 years ago|reply
This is a person whose retirement plan includes NFTs but not mutual funds. I am not surprised.
[+] bla3|4 years ago|reply
Not sure NFTs should be part of your retirement plan.
[+] KentBeck|4 years ago|reply
They're convex--small investment, small chance of a large return. Also, I've been curious what mechanism will fund creators creating & NFTs seem like a contender.
[+] dgb23|4 years ago|reply
To me the culture and mechanism show all the signs of a speculative bubble mixed with euphoria, memes and a severe lack of substance. In some cases I‘m worried about the mental health of the actors, because of the full blast gold-rush vibe.
[+] UncleOxidant|4 years ago|reply
> I’m going to try minting my more popular tweets as NFTs

I totally don't get this. They're tweets meaning that they're already out there. There's no scarcity here. Am I missing something?

[+] sokoloff|4 years ago|reply
He’s talking about selling NFTs not buying them (at least as far as I can tell). Selling NFTs (or the infrastructure for others to do so) seems like a reasonably sensible plan.
[+] adamredwoods|4 years ago|reply
Have NFTs even been legally tested as inheritance?
[+] tengbretson|4 years ago|reply
It seems odd that a discussion about facing your death would contain more references to NFTs than to your family.
[+] tuckerpo|4 years ago|reply
This is how your brain operates on big tech futurism larping.
[+] taraskuzyk|4 years ago|reply
anyone else getting 404 not found on the article? clicking the link redirects me to HN. not surprised if everyone who upvoted so far just saw the title and the username :)
[+] klodolph|4 years ago|reply
I saw the article, but closed it when it started talking about something called “NFTweets”.

As far as I can tell, the lesson is, “I might die, so I should work on NFTweets, which has some shot at giving me financial independence before I die, so I can spend more time on my true passion, which is watching Marvel movies and drinking craft beer.”

I made the last part up… apologies for the cynicism, I just observe that the kind of people who fill up their time with hustle to make money often don’t know what to do with their time once they’ve made enough money to be independent. Retirement takes some people by surprise. No judgment for how people want to live their lives, but if you plan on spending your retirement not working, you should probably get some preview of that beforehand so you know what you like.

A lot of people want to spend more time with others after they retire. It turns out that if you spend all your time at work, and you retire, you don’t have a lot of other people in your social network to spend time with. Hence, Marvel movies and craft beer.