> I see articles like this come past on the Internet every once in awhile, and they are invariably received with hostility. "Sampling Bias!" "That guy could only do this because of $X!" "That wouldn't work today in this economy!" "If all this stuff really worked, why tell us about it instead of milking it for millions. He's probably just trying to sell us his book!" Lots of reasons why we should quickly dismiss everything that was said above and carry on the way we were before.
Part of me thinks the worst thing I ever learned about was market efficiency. Once you've heard that argument from a professor, you can apply it to just about anything. Heck I even had colleagues use it against me, despite being specifically hired to beat the unbeatable market.
The guy in the article is right though, it's bogus. There's lots of little things you can do that might turn into a business. The existing players have not hoovered up all the opportunity, and new opps come along all the time. People talk about things that are profitable even if they haven't locked it all up for themselves.
Two economists are walking down the street and pass by a hundred dollar bill without picking it up. A little while later one turns to the other and asks “was that a hundred dollar bill on the ground?” To which the other replies “nope, if it was someone would have picked it up already.”
I’m with you, this joke haunts me daily. I studied economics in undergrad, and market efficiency is such a basic tenet that it’s really hard to see opportunities that don’t just look like a mirage.
Two economists are walking down the street and pass by a pile of dog shit. One of them (a sadist) turns to the other and says "I'll pay you $1000 if you eat that dog shit".
The other performs an internal utility calculation and eats the dog shit.
Continuing their walk, the second economist sees another pile of dog shit and makes the same offer to the first. The first economist also agrees, and eats the dog shit. They walk on.
After a while the second economist says to the first "it feels like we're both worse off than we were before this walk".
The first economist replies "impossible! We've just engaged in 2000 dollars worth of trade!".
This is quite a caricature of the profession. I studied economics in grad school and most of the time was spent discussing all the ways in which the market is not efficient. Not saying there aren't problems with economics, cough cough DSGE cough, but I don't think assuming efficiency is one of them.
This joke (despite being funny) is somewhat misleading of actual economic theory for 3 reasons: 1) market efficiency occurs over the long-term, 2) shocks (of the exogenous and endogenous kind) tend to reset the point at which markets clear, 3) both 1 (duration) & 2 (frequency) are far greater in magnitude under anything like real world conditions. Still more so within the tech industry.
Ya, economics would tell you that it very well may be a hundred dollar bill and you should take advantage. But it would also tell you that you probably aren't going to keep finding them and it won't be sustainable to go looking for them.
Surprised no-one mentioned this yet, but it's quite possible (probable even) that it's a fake, an ad designed to waste your time by getting you to pick it up. A very common in some parts of the world, which makes walking past the rational thing to do.
I used to do my morning runs in a park area which was frequently used at night for illegal partying. So every once in a while I would find wallets with IDs, passports and a phone. Naive and honest as I was, I always took these to a police station that was nearby. I stopped doing this when the police started to (informally) accuse of me of having stolen these items, like the stories of the firefighter that would start fires by himself. I changed my running route so it wouldn't take me near the partying spots anymore.
but to me it requires the economists to be so stupid to not consider the possibility that they might be indeed the first people who observe it after it has been lost..
The $100 is vaguely seen in the middle of the street during traffic. Is it actually $100? Maybe it's just a dollar bill. And are you good enough to grab it without getting hit?
Maybe it's true if you come from a rich background and have family wealth to fall back on, which I suspect is where most of these people are coming from.
Market Efficiency is a convenient argument of faith which has a more nuanced rational basis, but absolutely in the general case is untrue.
In the long-term, markets are certainly efficient. However, the period of inefficiency is determined by the absolute quantity of profit dollars available in the market which in itself determines the competition. That is, the quantity of ticks (time) required for a dynamic optimization w.r.t. profit extraction is the measure of competition in some market, and thereby the degree of efficiency.
It is then true, that in the most competitive markets, the ones with the most capital, have a very small window of inefficiency, but they do exist. It requires a lot of capital to dynamically extract profit from those inefficiencies. An example of this would be the near hegemony of Citadel Securities in making markets. It is impossible for anyone today to compete in the market-making (an advanced arbitrage) industry without tons of capital.
However, we are time-bounded beings so there is always present an inefficient market. The challenge of the proprietor is then to determine that market which can provide a return to his constrained capital.
For instance, a restaurant can give a 15% annual ROI, which outperforms the S&P. The Citadel is not going to be interested in this inefficiency because that ROI is unavailable to the amount of capital they're trying to invest. So what we see is that the most competitive markets beget the most capital, because they have the most profit available to extract absolutely; then the most amount of resources, where capital is the analogue, are invested into those markets--so any inefficiency is quickly eroded.
This means that just like the restaurant, there are markets that remain untouched for long periods of time due to their inability to return large amounts of capital in absolute terms. These markets then have a great ROI in terms of percent. It is these markets that are available to the proprietor with low capital.
This is why the startup advice of finding a niche first is so salient, they are always necessarily underserved non-competitive markets. There's the other cycle from crossing-the-chasm which removes enterprises from this market who have the same idea as they scale, that's a separate explication, but this cycle allows the period of inefficiency to be maintained in those markets through that self-regulation.
Efficiency isn’t about mathematical perfection, but when you dig into the numbers it’s rare to find significant exceptions.
First efficiency isn’t about winners and losers. A lottery has negative returns even though someone still wins. Similarly Google was an absolutely great investment yet venture capital firms tend to under preform the market on average.
The nuances run deep. T-Bills seemingly vastly under preform the stock market, yet buyers are generally being rational.
> Part of me thinks the worst thing I ever learned about was market efficiency. Once you've heard that argument from a professor, you can apply it to just about anything.
This is a really astute observation.
Both my parents were economics professors and I have a degree in economics. I feel like this concept was instilled in my core, and poisoned my thinking, but it’s fundamentally not true.
I’ve come to finally learn in old age that the market is full of inefficiencies that can be exploited, they are everywhere.
If you’re reasonably smart, or even just well-informed on a specific subject, things that seem obvious and trivial to you will in fact be observations you can profit from.
The world is full of $20 bills lying on the ground to reference a popular punch line.
I agree that there are ineffiencies everywhere. But does anyone actually teach that market efficiency means you shouldn't try to identify opportunities?
Doesn't market efficiency just say that someone is going to be the one to identify the inefficiency and make a ton of money in the process? The market doesn't become efficient unless people do things.
I found an arbitrage opportunity with cryptocurrency a few years back, but it took two months to convince my friend to let me run the trading bot I cobbled together to exploit it on his account (and that whole time I was waiting for my accounts to get approved..)
It magically generated about $8000 in a couple of days, and then the market came crashing down and the inefficiency it was exploiting disappeared forever
Pretty **ing frustrating, and it's all the Efficient Market Hypothesis' fault
You should look up the debates that Warren Buffett has had with people about the EMH, it's insane
Ah, nobody will ever share any details of an arbitrage opportunity if they find one, since you're competing on a single global market with everyone else who knows how it works
I'm hoping that whoever snatched this up won't be ready to grab it quickly if it ever reappears someday
Yes as a theoretical construct the concept is totally fine. But speaking as someone who has heavy exposure to mainstream academic economics it’s usually taken way way further than that.
There’s a concept called the EMH and I think there’s a very strong tendency in Econ and pop culture to skip ahead and assume the hypothesis is basically true most of the time, often in the face of painfully obvious evidence to the contrary.
There's definitely some survivor bias here - that doesn't diminish from what he's achieved in any way.
But also as Krishnamurti said "Truth is a pathless land." And as Lin Chi said "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him." Take the parts here that resonate with you and build the rest the way in a way that works for you. It will probably take commitment and multiple failed attempts to get there. Just accept that from the get-go. Not everyone has the tolerance for risk to go down this road though.
> Part of me thinks the worst thing I ever learned about was market efficiency
I agree and I think it's partially a circular argument. In discussions of stocks, you'll hear that one 'cannot beat' 'the stock market' and you'll hear phrases like, "already priced in" "efficient market hypothesis" and so forth. Which is different than the sentiment that it's 'very hard' or even 'unlikely' to do something like that, which I sympathize with.
I think an efficient market is for intro to economics what a frictionless vacuum is for intro to physics - a way of accessing some fundamental truths, rather than a description of something frequently encountered in the world.
The existence of the hedge fund industry is a paradox for the idea of efficient markets. If markets are efficient, then the value added of hedge funds is zero. And if markets are efficient, hedge funds should only be able to charge their value added in fees, which is zero. Hedge funds charge a lot of fees. PE and VC funds charge even more. So markets are not efficient.
lol. i have a software idea that i'm working on .. there are many competitors but they're all terrible.. and someone told me "if anything, that market today is in total equilibrium, why would you try to compete in it?"
it reminded me of the time i did start my own business and the number of people that tried to talk me out of it was overwhelming. that's when i learned that a lot of people hate the successes and freedoms that others have.
Of course market ineffiencies exist, but you need to stop and think if you're doing something novel. This would help people avoid pyramid and Ponzi schemes.
This honestly seems entirely reasonable compared to the "here's how I founded a billion dollar" company articles. There are only so many billion dollar companies, and no matter how many people try and do the exact same thing Paul Graham did, it isn't going to create more.
On the other hand, a small consulting company that allows you to vacation frequently and live on the beach is entirely achievable for a lot of people. The economy can sustain an awful lot of sub-seven figure one-man companies. I don't really see that this guy exploited any kind of market inefficiency as the current top comment seems to suggest. He just identified a career that pays more in return for less security.
As the author said, you gotta purchase your own healthcare, but catastrophe only coverage is cheap for a guy under 40.
The only real issue is you can't possible know if that's gonna be you. I suffered through years of spinal degeneration in my mid-30s. Definitely not typical, but part of the reason it didn't destroy me is I was at a boring enormous company that offered super cheap long-term disability insurance and could perfectly well afford to let people miss six months of work. If you've only ever experienced startups with a $5 million budget that are skirting by on margins of hours before going under, it may be hard to appreciate that all of the corporate world is not like that. You actually can get a reasonable level of security.
But you never know if you'll need it or not. It's not like the gods come down out of the sky and ask if you're okay with it before throwing you catastrophic health problems.
Healthcare is a non issue for most non Americans and if you travel outside the US you can buy a decent health care for much cheaper than what it cost in the US.
This is such a great article because it takes an existing genre (Lifestyle coach) and actually does what they're meant to be doing. There are all those people on social media who spend their entire time performatively having a good time in order to sell you material about how you too could live like a king whilst doing nothing (with the advice actually being worthless, because their true revenue stream is to sell you worthless advice and by definition, they can't advise you that you too should be selling worthless advice - what you really need is passive income).
At the end of the day, this seems like a great lifestyle for some people. But I'd soon miss my family, I'd soon be worried about which school I want to send my kids to etc. etc. Also, maybe I'm not in the same industry as this guy, but I would find it very difficult to pick back up if I went off traveling for months between gigs.
Oh also one thing I feel like I should always bring up - a really confounding problem to this advice is the pre-requisite is "actually be good at something". It's like when Gordon Ramsay walks in to a shit restaurant and tears them to peices about all the reasons it's failing, and you want the owners to turn around and say "Of course we're not as successful as you, we're not world-renowned multiple michelin starred chefs! We're not good at this!"
Biggest lesson I learnt was when talking to a dev guy I know about MigrateDBPro[1].
For those who don't know it, it lets you push / pull WordPress sites really easily - local to staging, staging to live, live to staging. It handles media files, database, and it's really solid.
Anyway. I explained it to him and he simply didn't get it. He was like "yeh, but I can do that by dumping the SQL from the live site then importing it to the destination and running a find-replace, then pulling down the media via SFTP".
It dawned on me then that - brilliant though he is (and he really is: one of the best all round devs I know) - he couldn't see the benefit because he 1) was too good at what he did that he didn't see that most people aren't like him, and 2) he simply wasn't the audience.
Now - me - I too can run a SQL dump, a find replace and an import. But - I'm running a business. I have about 50 clients, so about 150 sites (local/staging/live for each). My imperative is to be able to do these migrations with zero effort and in minimal time. I could do it manually, but the time it takes me would be non-trivial.
I fork out that $249 every year for the MDBP premium plugin without even pausing. It's a no-brainer.
It's the same for me with ManageWP. $100 every month - I don't even think about it. Gravity Forms - $259 p/a - ditto.
The point is: these tools are absolutely areas that I could save money on, but:
1) They make me look good to my clients / save my ass on a regular basis
2) They save me a shedload of time, every single day, time that I can spend actually working on client / paid work
3) They're all pretty unsexy: all 3 live in a crowded market, but they do what they do better, faster and in a more solid way than the competition
The lessons here are probably obvious: make things that make people look good, make things that save people time - but also, don't underestimate how apparently "dumb" or "simple" or "silly" a thing can be, and still be a viable, profitable business.
>Anyway. I explained it to him and he simply didn't get it. He was like "yeh, but I can do that by dumping the SQL from the live site then importing it to the destination and running a find-replace, then pulling down the media via SFTP".
There should be a name for this.. I want to call it Houston's Law. Basically when dropbox was pitched on HN everyone said it was dumb and easy. To paraphrase: "It's just rsync with a fuse filesystem..."
I think computer programmers / nerds in general don't adequately appreciate how entirely terrible the average user is at using the basic features of their computer, its OS, and its software, let alone doing anything advanced with it. Probably they've forgotten how hard it was for them to initially learn what files and directories really are, how networks actually work, how to issue instructions and read output on the command line, et c.
I know people in non-nerd office jobs where "not completely shit at using an OS and office productivity programs" makes them seem like super-heroes to everyone else. Most people don't get it, and don't really care too (and I'm sympathetic to their POV—computers and software are, in practice, largely terrible frustration-engines)
100%. Most people I know don’t really understand how a directory structure works from an end user point of view. I’ll say to some something like “ok, where did you put that file?” - no idea if it’s the folder called x on the F drive or the other one called x on the Y drive. Renaming files, opening zips, knowing that you can’t use a TIF file on a website, this is all magic to most users. Stuff like simple automation or find-replaces, absolutely no chance.
On the one hand I’m full of sympathy: UI’s and OS’s are rarely thought about really well. On the other, your “non nerd” users has a tendency to hide behind the tech. The number of people who say “I don’t do tech, I leave that up to my [son/daughter/cousin/friend/colleage]” and then don’t Google it is pretty high…
> It dawned on me then that - brilliant though he is (and he really is: one of the best all round devs I know) - he couldn't see the benefit because he 1) was too good at what he did that he didn't see that most people aren't like him, and 2) he simply wasn't the audience.
Does anyone have any tips on how to avoid this or books to read, as I feel like I have this problem. I've been trying for nearly a decade to start a profitable side project, but any ideas I come up with are too technical so end up being hard to sell and/or complicated to build. If someone told me of an idea like this I'd probably also dismiss it :-)
Find someone (I’m one!) who is sits between nerdery and business requirements. I spend 90% of my time being a sort of nerd-translation layer between dev / design people and clients. I’m sometimes frustrated by being a generalist (especially when I see the insane talent here on HN!) but it does serve a good purpose!
Also: try and unpick some of the successful business ideas (the real big ones!) and work out at a really high level what they do. Dropbox - already mentioned here - as an example, did one thing: kept that folder in sync wherever you went. That’s easy to explain to a non nerd, it’s blindingly useful for anyone in any work or home environment.
I’ve also found that identifying sources of pain is a really good start. Ask your average office worker what they hate most of all and then figure out if you can reduce even some of that pain just a little bit.
Become a contractor doing this stuff for clients. I do bookkeeping currently, which is super easy for me, but in trying to train clients who want to do it themselves, and in general just working with all kinds of business owners, I see so much about what “normal” people struggle with.
When I first started doing it, I thought what I did was so easy, there’s already lots of software to help, soooo thought clients could just do it themselves if you showed them how. But I’ve learned so much of it is so hard for people with no background in it, and also so hard for people who don’t Google stuff.
> Now - me - I too can run a SQL dump, a find replace and an import. But - I'm running a business. I have about 50 clients, so about 150 sites (local/staging/live for each). My imperative is to be able to do these migrations with zero effort and in minimal time. I could do it manually, but the time it takes me would be non-trivial.
Or you could write a script to do so. I don't use automated tools, because they all sucks, have limitations, and the time you spend learning and fixing tools written by others (assuming you can) is more than the time you spend writing your own scripts.
Instead of spending all that money on a tool that you will have to continue to pay, how much would have you spent to make a tool like that by built exactly for your needs and how you wanted? Probably a tool like that, without useless features like a GUI (a tool meant to be used by a technician doesn't need one), could have been built in a week, or even less time.
Ok, so say it took a week. (For me it’d be longer, I’m a mediocre coder at best…) - but say a week. That’s £2500 in my time.
That’s 10 years of me buying a license. Plus, my tool would be out of date pretty soon with no active development.
Granted, your way would be interesting (possibly fun!) and there are lots of things I do that I bring my own php skills to. But for something like this that has client data at risk, it’s a no brainer to pay someone else.
This is me in a nutshell. The only thing that I must do everyday is handle email. Which takes about 30 minutes a day. I can do practically nothing (work related) for months on end and than suddenly work almost day and night to either get a new feature of the ground or rewrite certain parts of the stack. There was a moment where it really hit me that unless I start some kind of SaaS business, I would always have to work for clients and bill hourly to generate income. After that realization all work for clients felt like a waste of time. That was the driving factor to build something that would be able to grow organically and sustain itself.
I'm a bit hesitant to share as I speak openly about active police investigations and have a non-mainstream opinion about the current vaccination policy. It comes down to a subscription based service where people request a service, and others advertise to provide that service. The users ads/profiles are also what drives organic search to the site, creating a feedback loop that allows me to more or less sit back and watch it grow.
Avoid debt. Don’t buy a new car with a 48 month loan. Don’t buy a house. Don’t get a high limit credit card. All these things work against your ability to live the lifestyle he describes.
So if you already have the debt, sell what you can, aggressively pay off the rest, and stop adding more.
Next, don’t fall in love with someone who isn’t of similar travel mentality. Otherwise you are torn between wanting travel and not wanting to leave your partner.
> Leverage and debt is the quickest way to supercharge your Investments and increase your net worth.
It's also the quickest way to lose your shirt in a downturn. The only widely accepted healthy debt is a primary home mortgage, because the alternative is to lose money. Any other type of debt has to be actively managed, which may not be something many people care for.
Having a family increases the risk factors too. Kids can incur significant medical expenses which a more traditional job at a big company might be able to cover.
Children always change the whole situation. It is simple for an adult or even two adults to live a minimalist lifestyle and take risks and cut back when they have to.
Once you have children, most people then have a goal of providing them with the best footing they can afford, which means stretching yourself thin on the house in the best possible neighborhood with the best possible schools and equipping the kids to do the best possible activities to maximize their chances of reaching the next level.
I wonder how many people really enjoy that lifestyle. Sure its fun to go backpacking for a while when you're young but after a while the most rewarding part of life has been to live in a house close to your family where you get to know your neighbors, become part of the community and watch your children go to the local school and make lifelong friends. To keep travelling so much after 30 is unappealing to me.
Trying to get hired but having a hard time enjoying the little dance I have to do to pass 5/7 steps interviews, dealing with hierarchies, schedules set by others, etc.
I should focus on my projects, scale my profitable SaaS and get more passive income streams.
Or as Lawrence says in Office Space, "Well you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Just take a look at my cousin, he's broke, don't do shit."
An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, “only a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15 – 20 years.”
“But what then?” Asked the Mexican.
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!”
“Millions – then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
The grasshopper and the ant obviously happens in a place with harsh winters. This is not the case in most Mexican beaches, what with most of Mexico south of the Tropic of Cancer.
It’s perfectly fine to know when and where you need to work hard to save for a snowy day, and when that’s not really necessary.
Indeed, but the winter is just a metaphor for hard times. Whoever made the observation above will have meant to liken the fisherman’s current lifestyle to the summertime plenty, with the potential of “something happening” in the future to make that situation unsustainable representing the Winter.
I think he might have even used the giant cannery from the mba’s plan as the thing that moved all the locals out of the ideallic village and caused that winter.
Go someplace with a lot of beach airbnb's. Offer to set up umbrellas and chairs everyday for the guests. Peopleeat this up when it's available Add upsells such as a cooler of drinks, sunglasses, kids toys, floats, etc. Put flyers near all the units. Contact the owners and have them add a flyer in the unit. Set up a website so people can schedule a setup. Buy used chairs and such online. Hire local kids to do the work. Franchise the model ...
> And catastrophic health coverage is like $100/month for a healthy guy under 40. The math kinda works out.
Love how every one of these articles is written from the perspective of somebody who has no idea what it’s like to deal with expensive chronic illness.
It's certainly a lifestyle that self selects for healthy people. That said, in the US, ACA coverage now means you can get insurance at nominal rates with annual caps that you can at least plan around. Chronic health issues previously meant you might not be insurable at all if you decided you wanted to freelance.
Family ACA plan around here is about $1,800/m for coverage that still leaves you with (IIRC) about $23,000 in annual risk exposure ("max out-of-pocket"). So in a bad year you're out nearly the entire household after-tax median income for my city, between payments for care and your insurance premiums. That assumes you don't accidentally do anything "out of network", and the ACA plans have really shitty networks, so that'd be easy to do.
Just in case someone outside of the US is reading this and thinking, "$1,8000/mo can't be right" - sadly, it is. It might even be on the low end. A self-employed person with a family must pay ~$25,000 p.a. for health insurance even if perfectly healthy.
Sometimes people look at the "nominal" cost of catastrophic insurance or their partial contribution as an employee and extrapolate - but that doesn't work when you're fending for yourself.
> Sometimes people look at the "nominal" cost of catastrophic insurance or their partial contribution as an employee and extrapolate - but that doesn't work when you're fending for yourself.
Another wrinkle with the "what do I need to pay for the equivalent of this without an employer", in my state, is that only two providers—both ones I'd never heard of before—offer individual insurance plans at all. The others do not deal in them any more, period. Call them and ask, that's what they'll tell you. Call an insurance broker and ask, that's what they'll tell you. "No, zero providers aside from the two on the exchange offer individual plans in this state now". IOW, it is impossible to pay for an individual plan as good as even mediocre employer-provided plans in my state.
For one thing, both exchange providers have far worse networks (lists of specific healthcare providers for which the insurance applies, for non-USians) than even some pretty terrible employer plans I've been on before. They're also worse value for the money, even factoring in the full cost (as one might with, for example, COBRA) even if their networks were as good.
Interesting. In my state there are still non exchange plans. Pricing is about the same, maybe a bit higher. But yeah they probably aren't constrained as much in terms of network breadth.
Nope! I was surprised, too. Brokers were basically like "LOL, I take it you haven't shopped for individual insurance in a while if you think I can do anything for you—your only option in this state is the exchange". Insurers, including BC/BS themselves, said essentially the same thing—nope, we don't do that any more, check the exchange, and no, we're not on it.
Reality: The average premium is actually under $1200 for a family plan with a max additional annual out of pocket is $17,100. For a single individual in their 40s it's around $400 a month premiums and $8550 max annual out of pocket.
I'd prefer single payer, but I was comparing to what we had before, where lots of people simply died due to being denied any insurance despite willingness and ability to pay. Even a condition as treatable as asthma would get you denied private health insurance.
Must depend heavily on the state. My numbers were accurate for mine (a middle-low cost of living state) as of earlier this year, for IIRC a "silver" plan. The levels don't—in this state, nor, actually, with most employer plans I've seen that provide coverage options—make much difference in max-out-of-pocket and mostly just shift around how much you'll definitely spend, except the bronze plans (again, in this state) which were just rip-offs even compared to the rest.
As I understand it, the max out of pocket is a federal legal limit that has nothing to do with level.
Some states do, unfortunately, have very high premiums because their anti-Obama leaders intentionally chose to screw over their constituents for political points.
> Some states do, unfortunately, have very high premiums because their anti-Obama leaders intentionally chose to screw over their constituents for political points.
True, something along those lines is very likely what's up with ours.
E.g. asking existing employers to step down to part time or going on contract while taking on part time contracts elsewhere. When I took my first contract (currently back on full time), I took a 40% contract and negotiated with my then-boss to step down to 60%, which let me build up a bigger cushion first before I went onto contracting full time.
Critical that people don't underestimate the multiple they should be asking for, though, and actually set aside enough money and ensure they're properly insured etc.
I had been driving ~1hr each way to the beach to surf every weekend, so when the pandemic hit and my work became telework, I moved to the beach so I can surf ~4 days per week with zero commute. Signed a 6-month rental lease, and then a 1-year rental lease, and now my employer wants me to work back on site starting sometime soon so I'll have a crazy commute. I think being on site will reduce my productivity and provide no benefits for me. I care about this employer a lot, and have a handshake agreement that I'll stay with them for at least a couple more years, otherwise I'd just move to another employer. Not sure what to do.
I built something like this where it allowed me to basically "live on the beach". The hardest part was as one gets older and has more responsibilities (family), that lifestyle wasn't sustainable. The kids need a stable environment where they can see their friends, play sports... that sort of thing. As well, it helps to be around family and to help them out when they need help, rather than finding out about family members having health problems or needing assistance and can't do anything about it.
I do think that if one is able to and afforded this lucky opportunity, it is a great experience to have. I never experienced the "living on the beach" part, but can see how operating a business like mine (and the author's) is a requisite for potentially having that kind of lifestyle. Just need to be young and have less responsibilities.
Am I the only one thinking that phrasing if awfully off, in the headline?
You didn't build a business that lets you live on the beach full time. You built a business, that makes enough money to live by while allowing you to work from a beach if you wish. Business and the Beach part is not technically tied together. It is more your own preference.
This makes it rather sounds like the OP wanted to emphasize he is living on the beach so much.
I never understood why people don't like cubicles or just the office in general.
The only thing I can't stand is the commute and area around the office, unless you are very fortunate to be working in a woodsy location with a lot of parking and open space.
I once worked for a few months (thanks to an acquisition) in an open-office plan a few stories up a tall building.
Whole floor was open except HR (team room along the outside, with windows), a few meeting rooms (along the outside, with windows) and managers' offices (along the outside, with windows). All those closed-in rooms around the perimeter were fully glass, since otherwise the rest of the place would have been really damn dark. One of four walls of exterior windows was part of the main, open, office area.
The specific situation at my desk: my back to my skip-level manager's glass-walled office, whose desk faced in at my back (else other people would be able to look over the manager's shoulder as they worked, and obviously that's horrible), area behind me also a major walkway for ~1/6-1/5 of the total floor, desks were truly-open cubicle-system-construction thingies–so, "walls" are the same height as the desks, nothing resembling an actual visibility- or noise-blocking wall anywhere. The woman whose desk was directly across and facing mine often hummed to herself while "in the zone". In my line of sight, just top-left of my monitor was a large TV mounted on the central pillar (bathrooms, elevators, tiny break & coffee room) playing (muted, mercifully) company propaganda and announcement-videos and slideshows all fucking day. The floor shook when anyone walked anywhere on our ~half of it, which meant my monitor shook. Probably 150 people on that floor. So, my monitor was shaking much of the time.
There were also some pretty astounding cultural problems that overlapped (the fucking nerf-fights the balding 40-year-olds a couple desks down from me would engage in daily, to pick maybe the most minor problem), but I'm sticking just to the problems with my desk per se. I have no idea how anyone was expected to get anything done in that environment. It was hell.
I have experienced remote work from my bed for 2 years now and I can confirm that I do prefer working from my bed in every circumstance.
But if push came to shove and these employers decided literally everyone must come back to the office (and not this bullshit where select politically alligned teams dont have to), then for $150,000 a year I can survive just fine in a cubicle.
yeah, when I went from retail to the cubicle, it was awesome. You mean, I can leave something here and it'll be right there the next day without anyone complaining? Finally!
My employer's open office is so loud. They literally just built a new one, bragged about how great the design is, and it has the same problems as the old one.
How am I suppose to work when I can hear every sound made by 100 other people?
You may want to setup a company to simplify things and have a stable entity in a single jurisdiction.
In terms of personal taxes, generally wherever you last spent 6+ months in a fiscal year last. more than half a fiscal year somewhere you are deemed resident there. If you haven't spent 6+ months somewhere you're still resident in the country you were resident last year.
Still, I know some nomads who just don't pay taxes and have some third world country as their last residence: they just hope they won't be bothered given their situation is hard to investigate.
If you're US then you also pay US taxes on top (unless you just ditch your citizenship).
Things may get more complicated based on having property / a family somewhere and laws / exceptions in some specific countries.
I'm an American and have been in SE Asia for >10 years. A lot of the nomads I knew in Bali flew under the radar. The Indonesian government started cracking down since covid.
Owning a foreign corporation (form 5471) and having foreign bank accounts (FATCA filings) really increases the burden of reporting.
I think it's great that he's accomplished this -- but he acts like he inventing Consulting, and is the first to live a beach life (or whatever one's paradise is) as a result. That's been a thing for decades now, especially for that 30-45 year old sweet-spot-o-life phase he's in. I'm glad for him, sincerely, regardless.
However, he does deserve to get bitten by clients who read his article and get offended by the (very immature and very unprofessional) condescension towards clients and their "silly ideas" that he _blogs_ about.
Yeah that may be true in most cases, but I think it's possible with much less experience.
This is anecdotal, but I graduated college a couple of months ago and I've been freelancing for the past year and a half in my free time by building things for crypto startups. It's a (little bit) niche, but it's worked out well for me and I'm on track to pay off my student loans from my freelance work while also working full time. I think you just need to go for it. I don't really have much formal experience (3 SWE internships in college), and I've been able to make good hourly rates at $50-100 an hour for my time.
Part of me thinks the worst thing I ever learned about was market efficiency. Once you've heard that argument from a professor, you can apply it to just about anything. Heck I even had colleagues use it against me, despite being specifically hired to beat the unbeatable market.
The guy in the article is right though, it's bogus. There's lots of little things you can do that might turn into a business. The existing players have not hoovered up all the opportunity, and new opps come along all the time. People talk about things that are profitable even if they haven't locked it all up for themselves.