Find Work That Feels Like Play
Find Work That Feels Like Play
Humans evolved as hunters and gatherers where we all worked for ourselves. It’s only at the beginning of agriculture we became more hierarchical. The Industrial Revolution and factories made us extremely hierarchical because one individual couldn’t necessarily own or build a factory, but now, thanks to the internet, we’re going back to an age where more and more people can work for themselves. I would rather be a failed entrepreneur than someone who never tried. Because even a failed entrepreneur has the skill set to make it on their own. [14]
There are almost 7 billion people on this planet. Someday, I hope, there will be almost 7 billion companies.
I learned how to make money because it was a necessity. After it stopped being a necessity, I stopped caring about it. At least for me, work was a means to an end. Making money was a means to an end. I’m much more interested in solving problems than I am in making money.
Any end goal will just lead to another goal, lead to another goal. We just play games in life. When you grow up, you’re playing the school game, or you’re playing the social game. Then you’re playing the money game, and then you’re playing the status game. These games just have longer and longer and longerlived horizons. At some point, at least I believe, these are all just games. These are games where the outcome really stops mattering once you see through the game.
Then you just get tired of games. I would say I’m at the stage where I’m just tired of games. I don’t think there is any end goal or purpose. I’m just living life as I want to. I’m literally just doing it moment to moment.
I want to be off the hedonic treadmill. [1]
What you really want is freedom. You want freedom from your money problems, right? I think that’s okay. Once you can solve your money problems, either by lowering your lifestyle or by making enough money, you want to retire. Not retirement at sixty-five years old, sitting in a nursing home collecting a check retirement—it’s a different definition.
What is your definition of retirement?
Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.
How do you get there?
Well, one way is to have so much money saved that your passive income (without you lifting a finger) covers your burn rate.
A second is you just drive your burn rate down to zero—you become a monk.
A third is you’re doing something you love. You enjoy it so much, it’s not about the money. So there are multiple ways to retirement.
The way to get out of the competition trap is to be authentic, to find the thing you know how to do better than anybody. You know how to do it better because you love it, and no one can compete with you. If you love to do it, be authentic, and then figure out how to map that to what society actually wants. Apply some leverage and put your name on it. You take the risks, but you gain the rewards, have ownership and equity in what you’re doing, and just crank it up. [77]
Did your motivation to earn money drop after you become financially independent?
Yes and no. It did in the sense the desperation was gone.
But if anything, creating businesses and making money are now more of an “art.” [74]
Whether in commerce, science, or politics—history remembers the artists.
Art is creativity. Art is anything done for its own sake. What are the things that are done for their own sake, and there’s nothing behind them? Loving somebody, creating something, playing. To me, creating businesses is play. I create businesses because it’s fun, because I’m into the product. [77]
I can create a new business within three months: raise the money, assemble a team, and launch it. It’s fun for me. It’s really cool to see what can I put together. It makes money almost as a side effect. Creating businesses is the game I became good at. It’s just my motivation has shifted from being goal-oriented to being artistic. Ironically, I think I’m much better at it now. [74]
Even when I invest, it’s because I like the people involved, I like hanging out with them, I learn from them, I think the product is really cool. These days, I will pass on great investments because I don’t find the products interesting.
These are not 100 percent-or-nothing things. You can start moving more and more toward that goal in your life. It’s a goal.
When I was younger, I used to be so desperate to make money that I would have done anything. If you’d shown up and said, “Hey, I’ve got a sewage trucking business, want to go into that?” I would have said, “Great, I want to make money!” Thank God no one gave me that opportunity. I’m glad I went down the road of technology and science, which I genuinely enjoy. I got to combine my vocation and my avocation.
I’m always “working.” It looks like work to others, but it feels like play to me. And that’s how I know no one can compete with me on it. Because I’m just playing, for sixteen hours a day. If others want to compete with me, they’re going to work, and they’re going to lose because they’re not going to do it for sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. [77]
What was your figure where you thought you were financially safe?
Money is not the root of all evil; there’s nothing evil about it. But the lust for money is bad. The lust for money is not bad in a social sense. It’s not bad in the sense of “you’re a bad person for lusting for money.” It’s bad for you.
Lusting for money is bad for us because it is a bottomless pit. It will always occupy your mind. If you love money, and you make it, there’s never enough. There is never enough because the desire is turned on and doesn’t turn off at some number. It’s a fallacy to think it turns off at some number.
The punishment for the love of money is delivered at the same time as the money. As you make money, you just want even more, and you become paranoid and fearful of losing what you do have. There’s no free lunch.
You make money to solve your money and material problems. I think the best way to stay away from this constant love of money is to not upgrade your lifestyle as you make money. It’s very easy to keep upgrading your lifestyle as you make money. But if you can hold your lifestyle fixed and hopefully make your money in giant lump sums as opposed to a trickle at a time, you won’t have time to upgrade your lifestyle. You may get so far ahead you actually become financially free.
Another thing that helps: I value freedom above everything else. All kinds of freedom: freedom to do what I want, freedom from things I don’t want to do, freedom from my own emotions or things that may disturb my peace. For me, freedom is my number one value.
To the extent money buys freedom, it’s great. But to the extent it makes me less free, which it definitely does at some level as well, I don’t like it. [74]
The winners of any game are the people who are so addicted they continue playing even as the marginal utility from winning declines.
Do I have to start a company to be successful?
The most successful class of people in Silicon Valley on a consistent basis are either the venture capitalists (because they are diversified and control what used to be a scarce resource) or people who are very good at identifying companies that have just hit product/market fit. Those people have the background, expertise, and references those companies really want to help them scale. Then, they go into the latest Dropbox or the latest Airbnb.
The people who were at Google, then joined Facebook when it was one hundred people, and then joined Stripe when it was one hundred people?
When Zuckerberg was just starting to scale his company and panicked, he was like, “I don’t know how to do this.” And he called Jim Breyer [venture capitalist and founder of Accel Partners]. And Jim Breyer said, “Well, I have this really great head of product at this other company, and you need this person.” Those people tend to do the best, risk-adjusted over a long period of time, other than the venture investors themselves. [30]
Some of the most successful people I’ve seen in Silicon Valley had breakouts very early in their careers. They got promoted to VP, director, or CEO, or started a company that did well fairly early. If you’re not getting promoted through the ranks, it gets a lot harder to catch up later in life. It’s good to be in a smaller company early because there’s less of an infrastructure to prevent early promotion. [76]
For someone who is early in their career (and maybe even later), the single most important thing about a company is the alumni network you’re going to build. Think about who you will work with and what those people are going on to do. [76]
找到像玩乐一样的工作
人类起初作为猎人和采集者生存，我们都为自己工作。直到农业的开始，我们才变得更有阶级性。工业革命和工厂让我们变得极为等级化，因为个体难以拥有或建立工厂。但如今，得益于互联网，我们正回到一个越来越多的人可以为自己工作的时代。我宁愿成为一个失败的企业家，也不愿成为一个从未尝试的人。因为即使是一个失败的企业家，也拥有能够独立生存的技能。[14]
这个星球上有将近70亿人。某一天，我希望会有将近70亿家公司。
我学会了赚钱，因为这是生活的必要。它不再是必要之后，我也就不再在意它。至少对我而言，工作是一种手段，而赚钱也是一种手段。我对解决问题远比对赚钱感兴趣。
任何终极目标只会引向下一个目标，再引向下一个目标。我们在人生中只是在玩不同的游戏。小时候，我们玩的是学校的游戏，或者社交的游戏。然后是金钱的游戏，接着是地位的游戏。这些游戏的时间尺度越来越长。但至少在我看来，这些其实都是游戏。一旦看穿这些游戏，它们的结果就不再重要。
接着你会对这些游戏感到厌倦。我觉得我现在就是已经厌倦了这些游戏。我不认为有任何终极目标或目的。我只是按照自己的意愿生活，真的只是顺其自然地过好每一个瞬间。
我想要跳出享乐主义的无尽循环。[1]
你真正想要的是自由。你想要摆脱金钱困扰，对吧？我觉得这没问题。一旦你能解决自己的财务问题，不管是降低生活成本还是赚足够多的钱，你就会想要“退休”。不是那种65岁在养老院里拿支票的退休，而是另一种定义。
你对退休的定义是什么？
退休就是不再为虚幻的明天牺牲今天。当今天本身就是完整的时候，你就算是退休了。
怎么实现呢？
一种方式是存够了那么多钱，你的被动收入（哪怕你一根手指不动）就足以覆盖你的花费。
第二种方式是把你的生活成本降到零——成为一个僧侣。
第三种方式是做你热爱的事情。你非常享受它，它不再关乎金钱。所以，有多种方式可以实现退休。
摆脱竞争陷阱的方式就是做真实的自己，找到你比任何人都做得更好的事情。你之所以做得更好，是因为你热爱它，没有人能与你竞争。如果你热爱它，保持真实，然后想办法将它与社会真正需要的东西相结合。施加一些杠杆，在上面打上你的名字。你承担风险，但也获取回报，拥有你所做事情的所有权和权益，然后全力以赴。[77]
在你实现财务独立后，你的赚钱动机是否下降了？
是，也不是。下降的部分是因为绝望感消失了。
但某种程度上，创造公司和赚钱现在更像是一种“艺术”。[74]
无论在商业、科学还是政治领域——历史会记住那些艺术家。
艺术是创造力。艺术是为了自身而做的任何事。那些纯粹为自身而做的事情，背后没有其他目的的，是什么呢？爱一个人，创造一些东西，玩乐。对我来说，创造公司就是一种玩乐。我创造公司是因为它有趣，因为我对产品感兴趣。[77]
我可以在三个月内创建一家新公司：筹集资金，组建团队，并推出它。对我来说，这很有趣。看看我能拼凑出什么真的很酷。赚钱几乎是附带的效果。创建公司是我擅长的游戏。只不过我的动机从目标导向转向了艺术性。讽刺的是，我现在反而更擅长了。[74]
即使我投资，也是因为我喜欢参与的人，我喜欢和他们在一起，我向他们学习，我觉得产品非常酷。如今，我会放弃很好的投资机会，因为我对产品不感兴趣。
这些事情并不是百分之百非此即彼的。你可以在生活中逐渐向那个目标靠近。这是一个目标。
当我年轻时，我曾经对赚钱如此渴望，以至于我什么都愿意做。如果你当时出现并说：“嘿，我有个污水运输业务，想加入吗？”我会说：“好啊，我要赚钱！”幸好没人给我这个机会。我很高兴我走上了科技和科学的道路，我真的很喜欢它。我得以将职业和业余爱好结合在一起。
我总是在“工作”。对别人来说这看起来像是工作，但对我来说更像是玩乐。而这就是我知道没人能与我竞争的原因。因为我只是在玩，每天16个小时。如果别人想与我竞争，他们是在“工作”，他们会失败，因为他们不会每天16小时，一周七天地坚持。[77]
你认为达到财务安全的数目是多少？
金钱不是万恶之源，它没有什么邪恶之处。但对金钱的贪欲是有害的。对金钱的贪欲在社会层面上没有坏处，并不是说“贪钱的人是坏人”。它对你自己是有害的。
对金钱的贪欲对我们有害，因为它是一个无底洞。它会一直占据你的心智。如果你热爱金钱并且赚到了它，就永远不会满足。因为这种欲望一旦打开，就不会在某个数字上停止。认为在某个数字上会停止是一个谬误。
对金钱的爱本身就是惩罚。当你赚到钱时，你只会想要更多，并且变得担心失去你已经拥有的东西。世上没有免费的午餐。
你赚钱是为了解决金钱和物质问题。我认为避免陷入这种对金钱的无尽爱恋的最佳方式就是在赚钱的过程中不要升级你的生活方式。随着你赚钱，很容易不断升级生活方式。但如果你能保持生活方式不变，并且希望你能一次性赚到大笔财富而不是一点一点赚，这样你就没时间升级生活方式。你可能会大大领先，从而真正实现财务自由。
还有另一件有帮助的事情：我把自由看得高于一切。各种形式的自由：做我想做的事的自由，摆脱我不想做的事的自由，摆脱情绪或干扰我平静的事物的自由。对我来说，自由是我的首要价值。
在某种程度上，钱能买来自由，这是件好事。但在某种程度上，它也确实让我变得不那么自由了，所以我不喜欢它。[74]
任何游戏的赢家都是那些上瘾到即便边际效用递减仍继续玩下去的人。
我必须创办公司才能成功吗？
硅谷最成功的人群之一，要么是风险投资人（因为他们多样化且控制曾经稀缺的资源），要么是那些擅长识别刚刚找到产品/市场契合度的公司的高手。这些人具备那些公司真正想要的背景、专长和资源，以帮助它们扩大规模。然后，他们进入最新的 Dropbox 或 Airbnb。
那些曾在 Google 工作，然后加入 Facebook 时它还只有一百人，然后又加入 Stripe 时它也只有一百人的人？
当扎克伯格刚开始扩大公司规模并感到恐慌时，他说：“我不知道该怎么做。”于是他打电话给吉姆·布雷耶（Accel Partners 的创始人之一）。吉姆·布雷耶说：“我在另一家公司有个非常出色的产品负责人，你需要这个人。”这些人在长期风险调整后的收益方面往往表现得最好，除了那些风险投资者本身之外。[30]
我见过的一些硅谷最成功的人在职业生涯早期就有了突破。他们很早就被提升为副总裁、主管，或者创办了成功的公司。如果你不能通过层级快速晋升，后来要追赶就变得更加困难。早点进入一家小公司是好的，因为没有太多的基础设施阻碍早期晋升。[76]
对于刚刚起步（甚至是稍晚一些）的人来说，公司最重要的事情之一是你将建立的校友网络。想想你会和谁一起工作，以及这些人未来会做些什么。[76]