Why do billionaires keep working?

maybe it isn't about winning per say, but more likely - the money part is how you keep score. Like a marathon PR or golf handicap.

Probably because they don't want to have to rely on someone else to turn Chinese journalists in to the Communist government for incarceration. But at least they're getting more worldwide market share, right?

My dad has a net worth of over a million and these day's that's not a lot, he works to maintain a certain lifestyle.

When you're used to living a certain way and have to downsize quality of life it's often enough to convince a person to work thru the "golden" years.

why do sub 4 milers keep running?

i'd rather work 16 hours a day for billions of dollars a year than for a measily 500,000 like most careerists

yeah, and if you have a library in your town, you probably have andrew carnegie to thank for it. here's another one for you: where do you think the preponderance of the money dedicated to the research of malaria and other infectious diseases today comes from?so there's your lack of conscience.

Whaaaaaaaaat? wrote:

Rockefeller and Carnegie were leading robber barons. They overpowered, cajoled and threatened smaller firms, crushed everyone.

JDR Sr. was in the right place and the right time (oil). Cripes, the Rockefellers had national guards shoot down the family members of striking miners out West once upon a time. Ludlow, perhaps?

They had no consciences until they got older...only JP Morgan, old Joe Kennedy and perhaps Gates today were equals.

Puh-leeeeze...

Don't you just love the Robber Barons. Perhaps they underpaid the millions of workers who made them rich, busted unions and hired young children to save money. But they gave us libraries, fine art museums, and opera houses. They rock.

[That rant aside, today's technology titans are not all bad.]

They don't. When you are so rich you no longer need an income, it ceases to be work & becomes a hobby.

webby wrote:

Don't you just love the Robber Barons. Perhaps they underpaid the millions of workers who made them rich, busted unions and hired young children to save money. But they gave us libraries, fine art museums, and opera houses. They rock.

[That rant aside, today's technology titans are not all bad.]

This is really beside the point of the thread, but I'll adress it anyway. I have never heard of Rockefeller paying below market wage. As for Carnegie, he explains a lot in his writtings. In "How Young Men Can Succeed" he explains his ideas about how people should work their way up, saying that he began his career sweeping floors and that "it is well that young men should begin at the beginning and occupy the most subordinte possitions." He believed that a man should work his way up. He gave people the opportunity to do so. Some of the highest ranking men in U.S. Steel started out at the very bottom of the company as workers on the floor. He seems to believe in a certain type of social Darwinism (you can see this when you read "Wealth"). He believed that men who were rich were rich for a reason and men who were poor were poor because they lacked the skills required to improve themselves. You may or may not agree with him on this, but at least his ideas are founded in some sort of well thought out ideology. Carnegie had an interesting idea of paying people based on what he felt they deserved. Again, you might not agree with his decisions, I don't know that I do, but he really seemed to believe that he was doing the right thing.

This being said, it really has nothing to do with the topic. I only brought them up to show some past examples of people who work increadibly hard knowing that they wouldn't reap the benifits of the wealth that they had gained.

flashback wrote:

They don't. When you are so rich you no longer need an income, it ceases to be work & becomes a hobby.

This is THE answer. No one else need respond. Nice post.