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Actually, his ideal is not having to work hard at earning a living so that you have more time to do the things that you love, whatever that is. If you are doing

Actually, his ideal is not having to work hard at earning a living so that you have more time to do the things that you love, whatever that is. If you are doing what you love and earning a living off it anyway, then fair enough, but his book is probably aimed more at people who dream about escaping the rat race, but don't think that's possible.

qaexl 18y ago
Continuing on that vein, the outcome Ferris's model is different from Paul Graham's. The Paul Graham model involves the growing of wealth in terms of stock value, with an exit strategy of selling those shares to an outside company or possibly an IPO. The main goal is increasing shareholder value and building net worth. Tim Ferris, on the other hand, is talking about a business asset that generates income with the least amount of personal time in its day-to-day operation. You don't want to sell the asset because it is generating cash into your pocket. Instead the exit strategy involves leaving it running -- exactly like setting up a headless server with background daemons, instead of hooking up a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and babysitting it 24/7. There's also a big misunderstanding about "working less". If you actually read the book, the initial setup still requires patience and effort, particularly if you're coming from a regular 9-5 job background. The other "track" in the book are for people who already own a small business, but they are doing the mom-and-pop thing and need to be owners of the business, and not merely self-employed. These people essentially own their own jobs, often work significantly more hours than regular corporate jobs, and don't have the upside of startup since these people want to keep their small business. This idea, by the way, is not new, and has been written about by other authors, such as Michael E. Gerber in his book, E-Myth. By the way, once you created one income-generating asset, there's no reason not to go on and create another one. The time that is freed up from one such asset lets you go on to the next asset. The payoff isn't as large, but you only need to generate enough income to meet your expenses. At which point, you are free to pursue anything you want, including a proper startup -- just that you would not have to worry about mortgages and food at that point. In short, Paul Graham writes about startups and Tim Ferris does not. One strategy is about net worth, the other is about income-generating assets. They are strategies should be used consciously, not blindly.

qaexl 18y ago

Continuing on that vein, the outcome Ferris's model is different from Paul Graham's. The Paul Graham model involves the growing of wealth in terms of stock value, with an exit strategy of selling those shares to an outside company or possibly an IPO. The main goal is increasing shareholder value and building net worth. Tim Ferris, on the other hand, is talking about a business asset that generates income with the least amount of personal time in its day-to-day operation. You don't want to sell the asset because it is generating cash into your pocket. Instead the exit strategy involves leaving it running -- exactly like setting up a headless server with background daemons, instead of hooking up a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and babysitting it 24/7. There's also a big misunderstanding about "working less". If you actually read the book, the initial setup still requires patience and effort, particularly if you're coming from a regular 9-5 job background. The other "track" in the book are for people who already own a small business, but they are doing the mom-and-pop thing and need to be owners of the business, and not merely self-employed. These people essentially own their own jobs, often work significantly more hours than regular corporate jobs, and don't have the upside of startup since these people want to keep their small business. This idea, by the way, is not new, and has been written about by other authors, such as Michael E. Gerber in his book, E-Myth. By the way, once you created one income-generating asset, there's no reason not to go on and create another one. The time that is freed up from one such asset lets you go on to the next asset. The payoff isn't as large, but you only need to generate enough income to meet your expenses. At which point, you are free to pursue anything you want, including a proper startup -- just that you would not have to worry about mortgages and food at that point. In short, Paul Graham writes about startups and Tim Ferris does not. One strategy is about net worth, the other is about income-generating assets. They are strategies should be used consciously, not blindly.