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From: Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Motivation of High Performing People
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2025 14:56:44 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On 2/14/25 4:51 PM, D wrote:
D>>> I think Elon is quite a nice guy as long as he doesn't see you as an enemy. 
D>>> ;) And you can always take comfort in his limited life span. ;)

On Sat, 15 Feb 2025, c186282 wrote:
c186282>>  Elon IS mostly a Good Guy. He's also WAY
c186282>>  successful enough to where he doesn't have
c186282>>  to obsess about money or power. Rare case.

On 2025-02-15, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
D> The thing is, you don't reach that level of success without obsessing over 
D> money and power. It is a small internal psychological complex that was 
D> created in childhood, and propels the individual forward all his life. It 
D> is close to impossible to change this allconsuming drive yourself. You 
D> need deep psychological inspection if you want to change it in order to 
D> take it easy and enjoy life. Billionaires, for all their money and wealth, 
D> tend to work until they die. They know no other life.

When Microsoft was at its peak, Bill Gates was roundly criticized
for his predatory business practices. People with that much money
were expected to play nice and make room for others to become
successful as well. Gates answered that he was not smart enough to
make money and to give it away at the same time. That made sense
to me. After Melinda French married him, she softened him up quite
a bit.

When I was in my 30s, I had some ideas that in retrospect were
pretty good, but I did not act on them for 5 reasons:
- I did not have any capital to invest in them, and I did not think
  it was fair to take my employer's money and not give him my best
  work.
- I did not have mentors or role models for how to get started.
  Now I kow that you don't need complicated legal infrastructure
  to set up a business, but I had no idea back then.
- I was not sure that my idea was legal; maybe it was stepping on
  governmental privileges
- There was not the physical infrastructure. This was before Gore 
  created the framework for the commercial Internet. So no ISPs
  offering inexpensive co-location.
- I had no idea how to protect an idea (patents? You need a whole
  law office inside your business, right?)

The best of these ideas was to get rid of spam by selling digital
postage stamps. Provide an email forwarding service, charging
USD 0.10 for each message tagged with a crypto hash for
identification. But I had seen up close how not even the US
Post Office was allowed to create an email service.

D> When my mother died she asked me not to become like that, but to remember 
D> to enjoy life. I try to, sometimes I do succeed. ;) My wife forces me to 
D> travel, so I do work outside, in the sun for a couple of months per year.

Good woman!