As much as we "say" we love programming and farming if ever we became so filthy rich that we could pay other people to do these things for us... we would.
I've never heard of a tech billionaire profess his love of programming so much that he's diving right back into the trenches. We're all human, we may love programming and farming, but let's be real, programming and farming are still work and we're all working toward retirement: a state where we no longer need to work.
There's always outliers, which is what I think Notch is... Without quantitative data I may be totally wrong though.
I still think most people would stop coding once they had the resources to command other people to do it for them. Take for instance, Elon Musk, I'm pretty sure he's no longer in the trenches. That guy started coding at 12.
Some of us aren't just "saying" we love programming; we do. If I were a billionaire, I would no more pay someone to do my programming than pay them to take my vacations.
I think your talk of "the trenches" is telling, though. The more money I have, the less I have to work on other people's projects and the more I can work on my own. Just as travel-lovers with more money can do less business travel to unpleasant destinations and more personal travel to favorite places, those of us who love programming just dream of doing more projects of our own choosing, not of escaping this terrible chore called programming that we only "say" we love.
Don't get me wrong. I love programming too, and I certainly have my own projects on the side.
But work is work, which this person is doing. People who say that working as a coder is like going to disneyland everyday because their totally enamored by programming... I find it hard to believe that many people are like that. Burn out is a real thing.
I agree with you here, that even for someone who loves programming, working as a hired coder to implement other people's plans can become very tedious if you don't care about the project personally, and few programming lovers would liken it to a trip to Disneyland. Also, that burnout is a real thing.
So, it sounds as though we agree that many people really DO love programming, they're not just saying they do, and would go on doing it even if they made billions, but loving programming doesn't mean loving all programming work. There are programming jobs that people who genuinely love programming don't love at all and wouldn't do if they didn't need the paycheck.
I can appreciate the story - it's a paean to a lost world when we didn't need to be competitive. The thing is, money provides more power for the fisherman, which he would need if his environment changed:
-rebuilding after an earthquake
-fleeing if the local government goes bad
-dealing with a crash in tuna price
We all still live in a competitive environment. Hunter-gatherers were replaced by massively-reproducing (but probably unhappy & unhealthy) farmers. In the example, fishing represents pure surplus value, produced from nothing - and in economic situations like that, producing less than others means you'll eventually be out-competed and replaced.
In reality the same tragedy of the commons applies to fishing, and we haven't solved it there either.
Until competition is restrained, we've gotta compete. Individuals can opt out but they're just removing their traces from the future - those left will still be struggling until we have a way to globally eliminate environments which force people to be maximizers. And in a big universe, it's uncertain whether we can ever really control enough to be able to relax. It may even be computationally impossible to really stop the continuous evolution of competition in how we live life
While I don't have access to Dillon's finances, his personal site http://www.backplane.com gives some hints:
BEST Internet was an incredible successs successs [sic]
These days most of my attention is focused on the The DragonFly Project
______
He isn't the only one, many open source developers contribute because they want to do it and not expecting any monetary compensation.
"If you really want to do something you’ll do it at night. You know, Bruce Wayne had a day job. He was Batman at night. If you really want to get something done you’ll just do it." - Nicholas Gurewitch (of pbfcomics.com)
I'm semi-retired and living in Thailand where the cost of living is a fraction of my (modest for a programmer) life in the US. I don't code as much as I used to, but I still write a fair bit. But it's not for the same reasons; now I'm coding in order to teach my children, and hopefully eventually other children too.
I certainly don't see myself spending my time coding another database-backed CRUD web application any time soon; instead it's games and art and possibly soon music. It changes things, but it lets you do it for the reasons that matter instead of just to feed yourself.
> if ever we became so filthy rich that we could pay other people to do these things for us... we would.
I disagree; "programming" is far too broad a field to make generalizations like the parent makes. I suspect "growing food" is too, though I agree it's probably true of any farming on a scale larger than your own back yard.
I love to cook, but I don't love to peel potatoes. Just because a chef pays someone else to do the drudge work doesn't mean he doesn't love to cook.
When people say they love programming. They mean they love building interesting things, solving interesting problems, and using interesting tools.
Unfortunately, actual programs are full of boring parts. Yes, most programmers would pay someone to finish the boring parts, but I don't think that means they don't love programming.
There certain folks who claim that going to a job everyday is like going to disneyland because they're doing what they love. I find this concept hard to believe. I'm just trying to express: yes people may love programming, but programming at work is still "work" which is very different from "play"; both of which can be done with a programming language.
I should mention lest I get accused saying everyone is like me, that there are outliers. There exists people who love programming so much that they never burn out.
I guess it is impossible to say for sure, but I feel like if I had billions, I would still want to farm commercially – just with much nicer equipment than I have now. Something like 30% of farmers are 65+ years of age. I would suggest it is not because they cannot afford to retire, especially with the price of land these days, but because it is something they love to do.
Anecdotally, a neighbour of mine made millions with the sale of his company (not tech) and then started farming with those proceeds.
I think most people wouldn't go into farming. They'd use the billion dollars to chase some crazy dream, retire, party hard, spend extravagantly, go on vacation, travel the world, start a new venture... anything but farming or doing something totally plain... but that's just my opinion, I'd actually like to see some hard data on what billionaires do with their time.
We can ascertain that at least 50 billionaires are classified as farmers[1] in the USA. How involved they are with the operation is more difficult to quantify, but being completely hands off would surprise me.
Even for my own farming operation, it only takes about four weeks out of the year of my time. It's not like I'm up at sunrise 365 days per year, breaking my back until sunset, like some people seem to picture. I consider it to be my vacation away from the day job as a programmer. I mean, what is more fun than operating highly advanced heavy equipment that costs more than high end sports cars? I can't imaging having billions of dollars at my disposal making that less exciting – it is a tech nerd's paradise.
"Billionaire" might be a stretch but there's plenty of people in tech that wouldn't need to work at all if they didn't want to. It would surprise me if Torvalds et. al would have to wait for retirement before they didn't actually _have_ to work.
Actually Linus Torvalds isn't that rich according to his post from Google+ [1]:
> Linus Torvalds: 3840x2160 resolution - it's the Dell 28" UHD panel - for $299 thanks to Microsoft's black Friday deal. Thanks MS!
> Vladimir Odessit: At a net-worth of $150M I wouldn't think that you would care for black friday deals :)
> Linus Torvalds: +Vladimir Odessit I wish. Not even close. My net worth means that I can happily avoid Walmart and feel good about myself, but it's nowhere near the number you seem to think it is.
I am a hobbyist programmer. I've never had a job where my primary role was programming. Nearly all of my programming in the past 5 years has been for open source projects.
Anecdotal, but Mark Zuckerberg was (and may still be) committing code at Facebook very recently. Some of us actually love programming for its own sake.
Dabbling in coding and being in the trenches are two different things.
Look up Bill Gates. Unlike Zuckerberg, who was just a mediocre programmer, Gates was actually an elite programmer who "loved" programming. Nowadays he mostly travels the world with his family, and does philanthropy.
He dabbles in code, on occasion. I'm talking about a love of code that takes you back into the trenches. I never said everyone is like me.
But in my opinion most people are like me. If you look at the world around you and how career paths are set up, how society is setup and the general nature of most human beings... imo it is the most logical conclusion.
> We're all human, we may love programming and farming
> we're all working toward retirement
I also appreciate how Bill Gates transformed from an elite coder into a dabbler as soon as it suited your argument. You're evidently not someone who ever let facts got in the way of a good story.
>> We're all human, we may love programming and farming
>> we're all working toward retirement
ok my bad, I didn't mean everyone as in everyone on the face of the earth. There's obviously outliers, I made a mistake for not specifying that.
> also appreciate how Bill Gates transformed from an elite coder into a dabbler as soon as it suited your argument.
What the hell is this? Can we not have a civil conversation without insulting each other?
I am NOT Changing my argument. As of what I KNOW, Bill Gates is currently a dabbler. He doesn't code regularly he's not part of any big coding projects. But back in the heyday he was an excellent coder and his code was responsible for much of early success in Microsoft.
Your attitude is not conducive to civil conversation and you're really pissing me off. You accused me of changing my argument even though from my perspective I did not. You say stupid shit about me like this:
"You're evidently not someone who ever let facts got in the way of a good story."
I understand we may have different perspectives, but there are better ways of expressing it then being excessively negative. You could of asked me what I meant by things that have been inconsistent in our conversation, you could have politely asked about the conflicting details. There is no need say I am "obviously" someone who ignores facts.
That's my last word. I'm not going to continue on with a whole flame war and populate this thread with anymore shitty comments that no one wants to read.
I've never heard of a tech billionaire profess his love of programming so much that he's diving right back into the trenches. We're all human, we may love programming and farming, but let's be real, programming and farming are still work and we're all working toward retirement: a state where we no longer need to work.