Ask HN: What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem?

[bokonist]

If you had a guaranteed, lifetime stream of steady income - say $100k a year, inflation adjusted - what would you do with your life? Would you still work? On what? Spend all day hacking on projects you loved? Do a startup? What kind of startup? Write a novel? Read on the beach?

Related questions have been asked on YC, but I don't think this one has, and I'm quite curious to find out what people will say.

Here are some things I might do:

1) create a series of educational games to teach math and science, based on the idea that math is actually additively fun to learn if you do it right ( example: sudoku).

2) Do another startup ( not sure exactly what the field would be, probably something software or web related )

3) Do research work in robotics, computer vision or AI.

4) Start a political party based on the idea that instead of changing specific politicians we need to alter the constitution to change the incentives by which our leaders make decisions.

5) Write books about history and/or economics

6) Start a city

How about you?

[plinkplonk]

Phil Greenspun says

"Ask a wage slave what he'd like to accomplish. Chances are the response will be something like "I'd start every day at the gym and work out for two hours until I was as buff as Brad Pitt. Then I'd practice the piano for three hours. I'd become fluent in Mandarin so that I could be prepared to understand the largest transformation of our time. I'd really learn how to handle a polo pony. I'd learn to fly a helicopter. I'd finish the screenplay that I've been writing and direct a production of it in HDTV."

Why hasn't he accomplished all of those things? "Because I'm chained to this desk 50 hours per week at this horrible [insurance|programming|government|administrative|whatever] job.

So he has no doubt that he would get all these things done if he didn't have to work? "Absolutely none. If I didn't have the job, I would be out there living the dream."

Suppose that the guy cashes in his investments and does retire. What do we find? He is waking up at 9:30 am, surfing the Web, sorting out the cable TV bill, watching DVDs, talking about going to the gym, eating Doritos, and maybe accomplishing one of his stated goals. "

:-D

Source: http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/

[qaexl]

True. The kind of things you want to accomplish if the money problem is solved should be things you are already working on; solving the money problem should just make accomplishing it faster.

[fgimenez]

Noble Causes:

-Be a high school teacher for math and computer science (a la lockhart's lament)

-Start some form of programmers without borders to see how tech can help those in 3rd world nations

-Write as much free medical software as possible (I.E. PACS servers and dicom viewers for MRI's. OsiriX already does this for mac, but nobody has even come close for windows or linux)

Eccentric Causes:

-Put a paintball turret on a golf cart, have a mad max style race with buddies

-Build a rocket with an autonomous guiding system. Seriously, fricken rockets with computer vision on their heads.

-Write stock picking software based on my own random math theories like Ed Thorpe did (Which was very well recounted in "Fortune's Formula)

-Surf more. I already get about a day a week, but I'd like to up it to 4.

-Related to surfing, tap into publicly available weather data to write software to predict swell sizes. FFT here I come!

-Build a poker server with an API for bots. Pit humans against AI.

A billion more things to put here...

[Edit for weird markdown formatting]

[nazgulnarsil]

I would run an experiment to figure out how long it would take me to get tired of sleeping with gold digging models.

[mroman]

Me too, and I would do it in a non-industrialized country (South America/Eastern Europe) which would save me money, and possible lawsuits/BS.

;)

[kaens]

1. Buy a warehouse, convert it into living / productivity space, a large room for any one "type" of productive activity (read: making stuff).

2. Contact everyone I know who is passionate about whatever it is they do, and inform them that they can live here, as long as they're productive and clean up after themselves, etc. Focus on people I know who are into green technology, and people that are just generally awesome.

3. Spend the rest of my life learning, implementing, and creating awesome stuff with other people doing the same. I personally would be making music, implementing an mmo where the npcs learned from their surroundings and the actions of past npcs, and were controllable by a human at the individual and group level, learning and working with electronics - making effects pedals and similar, and researching and implementing ways to use technology to improve the average humans existence without totally raping nature.

3.1 Try to set up more places like that.

EDIT: I wrote out a bit of an extrapolation on this idea, you can see it here: http://kaens.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-i-would-do-if-i-had-1... if you're interested.

[AndyKelley]

Awesome, can I live in your warehouse when you get it built?

[comatose_kid]

Randomly visit message boards posing rhetorical questions.

[wheels]

Working on hard stuff is in my bones, but it'd be nice at times to be able to live in a la-la land where monetization was completely irrelevant.

If I, say, "solved the money problem" in the sense that Paul usually uses the term, i.e. had a few million piled up, I'd probably get a small team together to rethink the way that music composition on computers is done. Start with a lot of research and interviews about how composers actually build up a piece and just build the best system for expressing musical ideas. I'd like to get around to that someday. It'd be cool being able to ignore the fact that it's a small, poor customer base. ;-)

The fact that computer interfaces are still designed to mimic tape recorders or wire cabling is a embarrassing.

[bokonist]

That'd be cool. One music related pie-in-the-sky project I would like do would be to create software that could in real time give my voice the timbre of a rock star. I'd change a setting and switch from Axl Rose voice, to Bono, to Robin Wilson.

[menloparkbum]

I've done this - you've got the right idea in solving the "money problem" first. ;-)

[robg]

Quite honestly, the most freeing moment in my life was when I realized I had already "solved the money problem". That is, I knew I could be happy and could survive doing exactly what I was doing. Every decision since then has been an effort to do more of what I most liked doing (and conversely less of what I didn't). The only problem now is how to find time to do it all.

[qaexl]

(1) Practice martial arts 4hrs a day, and travel around the world preserving some lineages that are disappearing this generation.

(1a) I want to meet some Khampas

(1b) I want to meet some of my teacher's teachers in Taiwan.

(1n) ad nauseum

(2) Set up a lab where I can play and build AI models, specifically relating to OpenCyc and neural networks, using Google news as training data then feed it people's RSS feeds and blog posts. Run the whole thing on the cloud and see what else I need to get it to start messing with people.

(3) Collect a huge library and read. Lots. Both non-fiction and fiction.

(3a) Get to the point where I can consistently beat the top Go software and can hold my own near the top kyu rankings. Then go back and read through history books with the skills I acquired from playing Go. Figure out if people make different strategic decisions based on whether they played Go or played chess. Maybe write a book about it.

(3b) Study all of Joseph Campbell's work, and identify the top active, modern myths operating on modern social psyche, both overt and hidden. Distill it and write something similar to Neal Stephenson's Primer (from Diamond Age).

(3c) Write a series of short stories in English using themes from classic wuxia theater (martial art fantasy stuff, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and embed in there how to survive high school with your sanity intact. Then slip it out in the wild.

(4) Write a mobile MMO.

(5) Learn Ancient Chinese, maybe take a crack at Sanskrit. Dig up some old stuff and figure them out.

[tc7]

Wake up earlyish, work in a small garden office with the windows open and the crisp fall air streaming in, break for lunch on patio with my wife, read a book, go on a walk in the countryside.

I dunno. I think I'd like it, though.

I'd still work on things, but I feel like the pressure would be released, so I could work on indie adventure games and not have a nagging conscience telling me to do something that will make money. I do want to write my novel. And create a board game. And a stop-motion animated film. And take up painting and drawing. And travel a lot.

Wow. In the meantime, I'll pack up here at the cube and head home. Then I'll come back Monday and do it again. Yayyyyy.

[yters]

Start a big family and be the best parent I could, and not give my kids a dime unless they earn it.

[thingsilearned]

I'm going to move to Argentina and build a sailboat. Its been my goal for 3 years.

[andreyf]

Have you started?

[mwerty]

Work on riskier ideas with bigger payoffs (financial or otherwise).

[yan]

Why aren't you doing some of those things during your free time right now? You certainly don't need money to create a series of games or research robotics in your free time. If you're not doing it now, what makes you think you'll do it if you are relieved of the job obligation?

I find that flaw with myself: come up with reasons why I'm not doing what I really want to be doing. I'm trying to overcome the friction of day dreaming and start actually doing something.

These thought exercises are cute, but in the end, counter-productive.

[bokonist]

I am doing some of these things now. The reason I asked this question is actually somewhat related to #6...

[sutro]

You're going to start a city with $100K a year? You must have mad city-building skills.

[andyking]

Hey, it worked on SimCity!

[qqq]

There's no reason you can't start a city for a profit and get investors so that you don't need much of your own capital. I guess it's hard though :)

[mpk]

1) I'd spend a year writing a web-app to teach mathematics and physics, open-source it, run it on my own servers and lobby to have it used in high-school education.

2) I'd put more time into promoting awareness of Humanism and showing people that morality isn't restricted to the belief that an omniscient police agent is judging your every move.

3) I'd try to get NATO to play nice with Russia and after that get China on board as well. A USA/Russian/EU/Chinese block should be strong enough to stop nuclear threats and have the added bonus of getting us to Mars faster.

4) Having brokered world-peace and ensured continuity for all mankind, I'd chill out, read Ceasar's De Bello Gallico in Latin, master Bach's violin pieces at solist concert level, learn Russian and Mandarin Chinese, polish my French and grow awesome grapes for delicious wine.

[tptacek]

Get a good night's sleep.

[lux]

Well, I've got one album recorded and another written (need to rehearse with a band again to record this one), so I'd get back into pursuing a music career. My lawyer actually made me promise my next "startup" would be my music, so I guess I have to now...

I'd read a LOT more (classics and non-fiction mainly), get back into Muay Thai (planning on starting again this fall anyhow, money permitting), donate some volunteer time instead of just money, and travel. I'm interested in studying chess too.

After all that, I'd most likely start another company. What else could I do? ;) In reality, I love the challenge of starting companies, and there's nothing like going from zero to success to prove to yourself you can (even if I had a safety net next time!).

[lux]

I'd consider going into teaching too, if for nothing else than to try to be different and make a difference (Alan Bloom or John Gatto style maybe :).

[bps4484]

I'd teach. Math, science, or computer science to high school aged students. I really think teaching is fun and fulfilling, you just don't get paid well at all. I'd also read a lot.

[nazgulnarsil]

i agree with this. recently I've been thinking about what to do when i retire. I know i'll get bored eventually. I think returning to school and getting a teaching degree and then working part time as a teacher would be fun and rewarding without too much stress. Ideally teaching math/science at a community college.

[tdavis]

I'd do the same thing with my life that I'm doing with it now. I'd just like to do it in a slightly more modern apartment that doesn't contain a futon. That's about it.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

$100k/year isn't that much. I barely get by on that, so I'd first have to sell the farm and move farther out to find a place that would be affordable at $40k/year. Easy to do if I don't have to limit my commute distance which is the main reason my current place costs so much (well, that and I didn't want to buy a 100 year-old house).

Then: - Raise money so I could do research in medical devices: barriers to entry are all about money in this field. - Start a company offering software services to the medical device/pharma/healthcare industry - Robotics research with a focus on elder care or construction assistance - Raise s few goats and a pair of cows (already have horses and chickens) - Farm software (already looking at this on)

I'm in the medical industry and I'd love to start a business in this field if I could afford to. At least with 100k/yr I'd have the time to raise the amount of money it would take.