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Yep, kids on the way; had to sell his home and move in on the couch of another silicone valley investor to finish the first rocket launch that landed his first contracts. Said he was days away from being negative. This is an amazing read <EDIT harmless joke out> https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/006230125X
Confessions of an Economic Hitman goes into great detail about the Bechtel Corporation. Very well written story about a guy who was unwarily caught up in instituting U.S. interests abroad.
I recommend reading "The Millionaire Next Door", it goes it to more detail about the spending/saving/investing habits of the ~~average~~ most millionaires in America. Living in a culture that prioritizes spending it's not surprising those who do the best financially go against the grain, and are also frowned upon.
Going to piggyback on this comment just to throw out a general recommendation for Masters of Doom by David Kushner. It's a fantastic in-depth look at the creation of Id, the history of its two lead developers (Carmack and Romero), and how much of a massive impact their games had on the industry.
False. Read up on Elon. He may not be bending the metal to build the rockets, or assembling the batteries that go into Teslas (what CEO does?), but he knows a great deal about the engineering behind all their products.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend you read this.
Jobs, OTOH, had no background in computer science or engineering and never claimed to. His thing was design, which he (obviously) did really well.
>>The jets and all that other crap seem like a better value renting. > >Huh? $3 million in total wealth isn't much, especially for that. Please, don't do that. I strongly recommend that you read The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy.
Yeah, that bit made me laugh. $3m isn't even remotely close to private jet territory. Try $300m. Lol
Most people that receive a large windfall like this do not fare well OP. At all. Be extremely careful with this money and do not tell anybody. Check out the "Windfall" section in the /r/personalfinance wiki. Also check out /r/fire and /r/fatFIRE.
If you enjoyed this you should read Masters of Doom, or listen to Wil Wheaton's very good reading of it (that's what I did).
It's a very interesting and entertaining book.
You still get a free audiobook when signing up to Audible, right?
Masters of Doom is an amazing book, and I've been yearning for it to get a good Hollywood treatment for years.
The thing that concerns me here is that James Franco is practically the age of John Carmack now.. 40something. He's way too old to star in a series about the early days of id in the 80s/early 90s when all those guys were in their 20s.
A quick trip to IMDB and I don't see him listed as a producer on anything that he isn't starring in.
Also.. I'd much rather see this as a proper movie, or a mini-series at most..
Good self-help books are underappreciated. They can provide the push needed to us in critical moments of our lives, e.g. to overcome short-term pain / excessive risk-aversion when making an important decision, and let us change the fundamental frames / instill useful mantras into our lives, changing our trajectories significantly. These two self-help books definitely changed my life, providing both motivation and timeless advice:
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams
Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odd by David Goggins
I recommend these to all my friends and everybody who read them so far loved them (note that for max effect probably best to space them out and to first read Adams and then Goggins a few months later).
Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!
Here are your smile-ified links:
Here's a "quick" primer
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I learned all of this stuff because someone left a copy of the book Skunk Works on a shelf in a storage closet at work. I never was interested in the topic beforehand and didn't expect to be so enthralled but it offers a fascinating insight into the world of US black military programs. I'm not usually one to offer endorsements but legitimately I couldn't put this book down. The matter of fact nature and the first hand account is fascinating.
From Ben Rich's book, SkunkWorks, he would take ball bearings and roll them across desks at the Pentagon "Here's your new plane on radar". Took them a while to prove to many that it was true.
>He was in the right place at the right time
Incorrect, read the book on him written by Ashlee Vance and you will understand that it was not just so.
My overall view is that he's an increadible, but deeply flawed, person.
He's simultaneously transforming the transportation, space exploration, and energy sectors all at once. He's already accomplished multiple things in aeronautics and transportation areas that nobody else had done before. I honestly think he's possibly the most important person alive, and we're really lucky to have him.
But... he's probably a narcissist, and at least appears to be an asshole.
Like many people who are increadible workers, he demands incredible amounts from the people around him. Often enough that he hurts them. If you read his biography it's replete with stories of Elon hurting people close to him because he doesn't seem to understand how they see the world. His ex-wife, Justine, wrote a really sad article about their divorce back in 2010. This doesn't excuse anything, but his biography strongly suggests he was abused as a child by his father.
He seems to share a lot of traits, both positive and negative, with some of the most successful people in history. It's possible to be that driven that something inside of you needs to be broken, or that you demand so much of yourself that you despise mediocrity in others.
I seem to recall, in Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works", more engine wasn't enough. They had to use the computer to constantly manipulate the control surfaces to keep the thing in the air.
It's outlined in his biography (which is a good read on the details of all these events).
The job was really dangerous and required working in a boiler room and insane temperatures and squeezing between small spaces.
>Donald Trump literally wrote the book on negotiating.
He had a ghost writer that did the work for him, and he had some rather unkind words about his former boss.
That story (or a variation on it) was in Ben Rich's Skunkworks memoirs, yep.
The radar demonstrator's RCS was considerably smaller than a bird—more on the order of a large bird's eyeball. Birds sitting on the test stand definitely would be noticeable.
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812972155/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_BisuCbWTTJ6X5
I don’t read much physical paper books but I read this over the course of 2 days.
If you have any interest in these guys or Doom or computer games from that era I highly recommend this book.
Why change subjects? Can you point to concrete examples of so called Chinese "debt traps"? I can point to an entire book full of real examples of Western economic imperialism http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081/
China's so-called Chinese human rights abuses are orders of magnitude less than America, but I don't hear you crying about America's human rights abuses that include an invasion of Iraq that killed about a million people, destroyed Libya, destroyed Syria, extreme police brutality/police state, global drone assassination programs, etc. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
Athletes constitute a extreme minority, especially superstars like LeBron. While his example was a little extreme in how lucky the beginnings was, the story is by no means rare. The is a popular book called The Millionaire Next Door which goes to explain how most millionaires in the US got their wealth.
In the vast majority of cases, it's quite straightforward: spend less than you earn, and maximize tax-advantaged investing. Don't waste money on expensive cars or other forms of wasteful spending. Keep doing that for a couple of decades, and you'll be a millionaire.
Of course, the above path does come with assumptions. First is that you need to have an employable degree, and not be crippled by student debt in a way that makes you lose a big chunk of your early earnings. Second is that you need to be not unlucky and e.g. not have an expensive medical emergency. Having a spouse definitely helps (but is not required), and not having kids also helps (but they won't make anything impossible).
Bottom line is that the most millionaires in the US are not sportsmen, nor are they born to immense privilege.
That's bullshit. Read about the development of New York's freeway system under the guidance of Robert Moses in the last century, captured in Robert Caro's Power Broker. Every time Moses went back to the "We need to build more highways" well, it just made the problem of traffic worse, and it was never, *never* about making things better for the city, but to secure his legacy and keep his authority / power intact.
The solution -- better support and improvement for public transit -- is what the city needed, but Moses vision of the city and its needs -- more freeways -- was a product of his own narrow imagination, dated by decades by the time he really got going with freeways. It was something for rich folk.
I read this like 20 years ago, and have the audiobook now. I've spent many a commute hour listening to Mr. Rich's memoirs. Here's a linky to Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
Fun side note, my stepmom's father (step-grandpa?) was a machinist @ Skunk Works. I mentioned this book to her and she said, oh yeah dad gave Kelly Johnson rides home every so often when his car was in the shop. Uhhh, what Mari?
It was in the book "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich: (assuming my memory isn't shot)
https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003/
That engine (Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3) was mostly written by John Carmack. A huge amount of games were based on that engine, or used pieces of that engine (Half-Life, Hexen, early CoD games etc).
If you want a really good perspective of the id Software guys while making these games check out "Masters of Doom" which is an excellent book chronicling the development of those id Software games.
Note: Carmack was really really good at coming up with creative solutions to hardware limitations without sacrificing what they wanted the gameplay to be like.
The DCA or lump sum argument, IMO, is a pointless argument. You're trading one risk for another. DCA invites the risk of missing out on a rising bull market, lump sum invites the risk of investing everything right before a downturn. Since we cannot time the market, and any successful timing is just luck, I always opt for lump sum. Markets are constantly at an all-time high, that's what happens when markets are historically on the rise more than they're on the downturn. DCA won't really hurt you though. It's more important that you focus on saving as much as you can.
IMO the debate between VT and WTI/VXUS is also pretty negligible. At your age, it's far more important to focus on investing in the first place, meaning staying frugal and saving money to invest. Either the VT or VTI/VXUS combo will outperform the vast majority of people in the long run, as long as you can save money and invest in the first place.
The average 25 year-old isn't concerned whatsoever with investing or retirement. As long as you make a concentrated effort to invest 20-30% of every paycheck, you'll be very wealthy in the future, regardless of what strategy you take in regards to choosing between lump sum/DCA or between VT and VTI/VXUS.
At your age, I'd highly recommend this book. Saving 20-30% of any money that comes your way may seem daunting, but it's actually not all that challenging.
The story of the development of the Stealth Fighter is absolutely riveting. The book to read is:
(Skunk Works)[https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003] by Ben Rich. Ben Rich was the head of Lockheed Martin's "Skunk Works" division that developed this amazing airplane. The book reads like a Tom Clancy thriller, but it's non-fiction and all true. Deserves the incredible 4.8 average star rating on Amazon, everyone loves this book.
When they were testing the car-sized wooden model of the initial stealth design, the radar operator at first thought the model had fallen off the 12 foot pole it was mounted on. The radar was only 1500 feet away from the model. Then, the radar operator all of a sudden picked up the model. A crow had landed on top of the model and the radar saw the crow. When the bird flew off, the model of the aircraft was invisible again. The stealth design technology was so unexpectedly incredible, they had to spend half a million dollars designing a new stealth pole, because the radar would see the pole.
If I remember correctly, the radar cross section of the final stealth fighter -- the first true stealth aircraft ever built -- was the equivalent of a marble, roughly the size of an eagle's eyeball.
Sure, here is a fantastic presentation of how SkunkWorks was created: https://youtu.be/pL3Yzjk5R4M It talks about U2, A-12/SR-71 and F-117. it's very interesting. Also, you can find a book from Ben Rich itself about SkunkWorks. https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
Honestly, I really can't stress this enough, reading Masters of Doom encapsulates the birth of id up to Daikatana (covering The Ultimate Doom and DOOM II into QUAKE 1) can describe it way better than I can.
The general gist is: Romero was a jock, Carmack was a nerd, Romero wanted to go big, Carmack wanted to go realistic, Carmack is a coding WIZARD, Romero is a slacker, Carmack is kinda an autist, Romero is kinda a douchebag (up till Daikatana kicked him in the balls).
It's a pretty good read, and heck, I don't like reading purely text books and I read it when I was very young.
I can help you out a little bit if you're okay with reading instead of watching. Masters of Doom tells the story of how DOOM and Quake were inspired by a D&D campaign run by John Cormack. Dungeons & Dreamers includes the story of how D&D inspired Richard Garriott to create Ultima. It might also have the stories about DOOM and Quake, but I'm not sure.