Great post. Media coverage in silicon valley is slanted towards great financial success. It can aggravate the envy in any of us.
The most successful people I know are remarkably disinterested in money as a motivator, and mostly view it as a tool. In most cases, a tool to give control over the work they do more than anything else.
Statistics are a useful reminder of the actual incidence of super high incomes in the country. Reading about silicon valley it's easy to think that loads of people are making $100M left and right. But actually it's closer to one in a million:
(1) Yes, idiots are getting rich. But most idiots are still poor, just like most smart people are poor. No human society has managed to create a lasting positive correlation between merit and success, because we, as people, are too fucking stupid and prone to complacency for that to be stable.
(2) People everywhere exaggerate their success and connections to important people. In finance, you encounter this around bonus time because the bonus is a performance review, so everyone claims to have received the top bonus available to their year.
The most successful people I know are remarkably disinterested in money as a motivator, and mostly view it as a tool. In most cases, a tool to give control over the work they do more than anything else.
Statistics are a useful reminder of the actual incidence of super high incomes in the country. Reading about silicon valley it's easy to think that loads of people are making $100M left and right. But actually it's closer to one in a million:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Census_income_discrep...