From the (the free or inexpensive) The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness:
If you look at even doctors who get rich (like really rich), it’s because they open a business. They open a private practice. The private practice builds a brand, and the brand attracts people. Or they build some kind of a medical device, a procedure, or a process with an intellectual property. Essentially, you’re working for somebody else, and that person is taking on the risk and has the accountability, the intellectual property, and the brand. They’re not going to pay you enough. They’re going to pay you the bare minimum they have to, to get you to do their job. That can be a high bare minimum, but it’s still not going to be true wealth where you’re retired but still earning.
The problem with employment: “They’re going to pay you the bare minimum they have to, to get you to do their job.”
It’s always in the interest of the suits to pay you as little as they can get away with. It’s always in the interest of the hospital, the university, or the company to either pay you less, push you to produce more, or both. It certainly seems to be a very hard temptation to resist at the moment.
Speaking of retirement:
What is your definition of retirement? Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.
…one way is to have so much money saved that your passive income (without you lifting a finger) covers your burn rate. A second is you just drive your burn rate down to zero—you become a monk. A third is you’re doing something you love. You enjoy it so much, it’s not about the money. So there are multiple ways to retirement.
but…
Lusting for money is bad for us because it is a bottomless pit. It will always occupy your mind. If you love money, and you make it, there’s never enough. There is never enough because the desire is turned on and doesn’t turn off at some number. It’s a fallacy to think it turns off at some number.
When it comes to helping people turn their jobs from just the income-generation game or the I-need-a-passive-income-side-hustle game, we need to move more industries (and here I’m thinking about healthcare) into more of a cooperative venture and less of a competition.
My co-founder Nivi said, “In a long-term game, it seems that everybody is making each other rich. And in a short-term game, it seems like everybody is making themselves rich.”
I think that is a brilliant formulation. In a long-term game, it’s positive sum. We’re all baking the pie together. We’re trying to make it as big as possible. And in a short-term game, we’re cutting up the pie.
The scarcity mindset sours the calling.