“Part of it, which perhaps you and most other observers are not aware, is that I have enough passive income, and enough dispassion for conventional status signaling, that my marginal utility of money is pretty low compared to my disutility for doing busywork.”

—  Wei Dai

To put it in perspective, I quit my last regular job in 2002, and stopped doing consulting for that company as well (at $100/hour) a year later when they merged with Microsoft and told me I had to do a bunch of paperwork and be hired by Microsoft's "independent consulting company" in order to continue.
In a discussion thread https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Jter3YhFBZFYo8vtq/look-for-the-next-tech-gold-rush#ikKBYevf2aL2pBwsS on LessWrong, July 2014

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Part of it, which perhaps you and most other observers are not aware, is that I have enough passive income, and enough …" by Wei Dai?
Wei Dai photo
Wei Dai 14
Cryptocurrency pioneer and computer scientist

Related quotes

“Part of it, which perhaps you and most other observers are not aware, is that I have enough passive income, and enough dispassion for conventional status signaling, that my marginal utility of money is pretty low compared to my disutility for doing busywork. To put it in perspective, I quit my last regular job in 2002, and stopped doing consulting for that company as well (at $100/hour) a year later when they merged with Microsoft and told me I had to do a bunch of paperwork and be hired by Microsoft's "independent consulting company" in order to continue.”

Wei Dai Cryptocurrency pioneer and computer scientist

In a discussion thread https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Jter3YhFBZFYo8vtq/look-for-the-next-tech-gold-rush#ikKBYevf2aL2pBwsS on LessWrong, July 2014

Pete Yorn photo

“I’m old enough to feel the way I do. And I know that you are true, it’s just a part of my genes. ~ "June"”

Pete Yorn (1974) American musician

Song lyrics

Joan Robinson photo

“the merchant had observed that the marginal utility of daughters decreases with surprising rapidity.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 24, Beauty and the Beast, p. 268

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez photo

“It’s pretty sad that people think low Congressional staff pay is a good thing. Low pay a big reason why money in politics is a problem - you can make a lot more money becoming a lobbyist & setting up a relationship w/ one, since the actual job doesn’t pay enough.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

Twitter Quotes (2019), February 2019

“My life is over, for all practical purposes. I no longer have enough money to keep a women.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Emmett, from Gringos
True Grit (1968)

“I sell my time to get enough money to buy it back.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#151
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Rose Wilder Lane photo

“And I say again, you need not worry any more about money. If I were to drop dead this instant, I have enough to double your present income if you never touched a cent of the principle. If you take a notion to do something that costs more than your income warrants, you need only let me know. You can have it.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Letter from Albania to Laura Ingalls Wilder, (October 27, 1926).

Beiwen Zhang photo

“My life is pretty interesting now … I definitely can do better with more training and a coach but I don’t want to compare myself to others. I just want to enjoy my life, and my badminton”

Beiwen Zhang (1990) badminton player

"Zhang happy her destiny is in her own hands" in Today Online https://www.todayonline.com/sports/zhang-happy-her-destiny-her-own-hands (17 April 2016)

Frank P. Ramsey photo

“The first problem I propose to tackle is this: how much of its income should a nation save? To answer this a simple rule is obtained valid under conditions of surprising generality; the rule, which will be further elucidated later, runs as follows.
The rate of saving multiplied by the marginal utility of money should always be equal to the amount by which the total net rate of enjoyment of utility falls short of the maximum possible rate of enjoyment.”

Frank P. Ramsey (1903–1930) British mathematician, philosopher

"A Mathematical Theory of Saving", The Economic Journal, Vol. 38, No. 152 (Dec., 1928)

Moshe Safdie photo

“Architecture is not about building the impossible, which we can do if we have enough money and enough tools and enough computers, it is about building what is appropriate and about attaining beauty through such an approach. I describe this premise as "inherent buildability and I believe it is central to what I do.”

Moshe Safdie (1938) Israeli-Canadian architect

from lecture Megascale, Order and Complexity held in Emmertal, Germany on July 27, 2008

Related topics