Wealth: the link between Hacker and Hustler

tl;dr;

hackers generate wealth, hustler's turn wealth into money

Longer version:

I was thinking about wealth the other day. How do you define wealth?

I think wealth is best defined by the ability to satisfy your want. If you want something and can't have it, then you are not wealthy (i.e. poor). So, I'm an inventor-hacker, and most of my want is satisfied with some work (except for things like space travel... I'm very space-travel-poor).

What about money?

Now, where does money play into this? When I grew up, my parents fought about money. My dad made it, and my mom spent a lot of it. So, I wanted nothing to do with money, and I put on the hat of the academic monk. I was happy in that role, but then I needed money (due to personal reasons). My personality isn't the type that settles for nickels and dimes when I actually have to go out and earn, so some friends and myself did the cool thing before it was cool. We did a start-up, and we were going to be bigger than Facebook and Texas! Multiplied!!

It was a failure; the next business wasn't a failure. I learned about money, and how to make it.

Money is time. It's someone else's time for doing something that neither you (nor them) want to do. That's the only thing that it is. It's nothing else.

So, if you want money, then you do things people don't want to do (or can't do) (like math), and do it well.

So, back to wealth. Wealth is satisfying want. If you have a lot of money, then you should be able to satisfy your want and be happy. What if your want can't be satisfied by money, yet you have it?

"There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else." - Andrew Carnegie

What do you want? Answering this question is the key to your happiness. If you are a hacker, then the shear act of satisfying your want produces wealth. I've invented things my entire life, and I have to say that makes me very happy. I like making obscure tools for obscure problems. I like optimizing the shit out of the things. I like automating tedious things (because tedious things are bullshit). I oddly enjoy taking some shit ball mess of code and figuring out where it leaks memory. I like to solve problems, and I really-really love math.

The things that I do to satisfy my wants generate wealth.

What about the hustler?

The hustler's job is very straightforward: Transform the wealth that hackers generate into money. Build a nice cave, make the hackers happy on all non-hacking related dimensions, hire more hackers, and hire people to sell the wealth. Build a business that is good at transforming the wealth of your hackers into products for people, and then you win.

Extra credit: what do managers do? They make sure the hackers are producing the right kind of wealth. Tada!