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Who Wants To Be a Billionaire Coder?
theodp writes "Computerworld reports that 60-year-old billionaire John Sall still enjoys cranking out code as the chief architect of JMP ('John's Macintosh Project'), the less-profitable-but-more-fun software from SAS that's used primarily by research scientists, engineers, and Six Sigma manufacturing types. 'It's always been my job to be a statistical software developer,' explains SAS co-founder Sall. So if you didn't have to work — and had more money than George Lucas and Steven Spielberg — would you be like Sall and continue to program? And if so, what type of projects would you work on?"
I would work on open source alternatives to software which currently only has good commercial options. Anything which I didn't have the knowledge to work on myself (artwork, interface design, low level algorithms, security...), I would hire experts to work on.
I quit my 100 hour a week job and picked something a little bit less stressful. Now I'm only working 35 hours a week and don't program for a living. I live 5 minutes from work. I have plenty of time to do whatever I want including coding. I hate this attitude that you need to have more money that many small countries in order to do what you want. There are many routes to happiness. Programmers are supposed to be good problem solvers -- find a solution that works for you!
The man's 60, and the clock is ticking. The number of good years he has left could be 10 or 20, or it could be 1. If you could do anything you wanted, but were sure to die in a decade or two, would you really spend time programming computers? Programming can be fun, but there's more interesting things to do in life.
No, I would buy a nice, quiet island out in the middle of nowhere. And blow it up.
I've been programming for, like, uh.... about 27 or 28 years. Arguably longer if you wanna go back to really little kid stuff.
If I had that much money - was basically (if I wanted to be) in the leisure class - what I would like to believe about myself is that I would try to secure my family's material conditions really well, try to make as efficient as possible my wealth management program, and, as to hacking.....
There are *so many* really great and valuable potential projects that (a) nobody is investing in; (b) have an investment horizon that is tough because these are projects that will take a good 5 years, let's say, to get to where seeing a return is on the table. A good 10 years before you start to see the possibility of "done".
I would start an R&D lab but a very small one - perhaps 10 people - and while we'd try to have some positive income spin-offs each year from 0 onward, the goal would be to create the kind of environment where we can take off some of the bigger, long-neglected problems.
You kids these days don't know what's possible in a GUI framework. You don't know how to do language design, systems software generally, databases, file systems, or a whole lot of other basics. You've inherited really mediocre crap and you take for granted that that's where things are at. And the industry has ceased production of grey-beards. (Also: get off my lawn!)
"like tears in the rain", -t
I retired eight years ago. I write code almost every day. Being ultimately lazy, I try to automate everything that I see. If it's a function that has to be performed more than once, and some aspect can be simplified with software, I write the code.
Most everything is for my own use, and not generally applicable. A few things are more broadly useful, and those I've released under the GPL. Even those only get a few hundred interested people with the same niche interests.
Some people are carpenters, and they work in their shops. Some people are artists, and they work with their medium. People that are really programmers must write code.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
If I was financially independent, I'd probably be working on flight control systems for UAVs.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Does this mean his code only probably runs correctly?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Of course I'd program if I didn't have to work for a living. I mean, I didn't get into this business because I thought it would be profitable. I got into it because it's want I enjoy doing. The fact that I happen to get paid fairly well for it is just bloody awesome, but if it wasn't profitable, I'd have some crappy day job I hate and would code in my spare time. Likewise, if I simply didn't need the money, then I wouldn't need the crappy day job, but I'd still code in my (much more significant) spare time — in addition to all the other things that I enjoy doing.
The tougher question is what projects I'd work on. I suppose I could do anything I want, so I'd probably do less useful coding. I'd build things that have already been built just because I want to see how I would do it. I'd build things that are silly just because the idea popped into my head. I'd probably start tons of projects that I'd never get around to finishing.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Money buys one the freedom to do what makes one happy.
At my day job in the software industry, I often feel like a musician who has to make a living writing advertising jingles. At least I get do use my talent, but it's not what I'd create if I had complete freedom.
I often dream about having the freedom and unlimited time to code whatever I want, on my own schedule, to my own standards, without any concern about whether the product could make money or not. One lifetime would not be long enough to code all of the cool ideas which I'm constantly thinking up.
I had the opportunity to do something I would consider a 'dream job' for a couple of years. I was living at home, and accepted a job as a Martial Arts instructor, something I had been doing in my spare time for a while, anyway.
What I learned in the process is that when you take on your hobby as a job, you find that you end up doing a lot of work you wouldn't have originally considered fun. Teaching was great, and I'm proud of it. It could also be tiring. But sales, and accounting? You don't think of that when you accept a job at a martial arts school.
The same is true of open source projects. How many guys really want to run the entire project themselves -- writing documentation, offering customer support. Even when you're just a coder, you're eventually put in the position of taking on responsibilities that you might not want.
Personally, I like to work on cars. There's no way in hell I'd do it professionally.
Conversely... I'd like to be the billionaire, but I absolutely could not stand having an eternal weekend. I'd need pursuits. The money would free me to choose my own work, and hire people to do the stuff I wasn't particularly interested in.