Delving further into its favorite class war between the Haves and the Have-Mores this weekend, The New York Times found that in Silicon Valley, people who are rich don’t feel rich compared to their very rich neighbors. And they’ll try anything—even working a whopping twelve hours a day—to move into that next tax bracket. You know, the one that will make them feel a sense of superiority and self-worth and raison d’être. Just like us (you)!
Yes, many members of this “digital elite” feel bad about themselves because they are “surrounded by people with more wealth—often a lot more.” One gilded geek, Gary Kremen, pouts, “It’s just like Wall Street, where there are all these financial guys worth $7 million wondering what’s so special about them when there are all these guys worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” Reminds me of this story Keith likes to tell about sitting in the steam room of the 92nd Street Y with an inconsolable Daniel Seth Loeb, weeping over the fact that he made $150 million last year, sure, who cares about that when James Simons is spending that much on cigarettes annually?
But lest you think you and your West Coast brethren are too much alike, the Geek Squad makes sure to point out a notable difference: they feel bad about it. Sure, talent played a role in their good fortune, but so did “being at the right place at the right time” and many feel “sheepish, even at times guilty about their piles of cash.” See, they’re just as obsessed with money and chasing the top one-tenth of a percent (if squarely in the top one percent), or the top one-one-hundredth of one percent (if in the top one-tenth of one percent) as you, but in Silicon Valley, they’re introspective and self-doubting and have issues about their stacks of gold. Sometimes they even cry about it (when was the last time you shed some salty discharge over your bonus? And not the “I feel bad about my bonus because I got screwed out of three extra zeros so I’m going to silently weep about it in a little locked room” kind).
Which begs the question: Is it better to be a rich prick who questions his/her rich prickocity or a Dealbreaker reader? (I love you people, I do).
In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich [NYT]