[Sifo]

Hello everyone just checking in to say hi and that I'm alive. I was in LA for Anime Expo and to no one's surprise caught covid so I've been bed ridden. While I was gone, In Ear Germany delivered my custom PP8 that I won't from the canjam NYC giveaway. Unfortunately haven't spent a whole lot of time with them as one of my symptoms is horrible sinus pain and plugging my ears air tight doesn't exactly help. But I've heard this iem long ago in universal form and it's just as good in custom.

I've been getting by with some custom buds from our friend tgx.

 

[morserotonin]

I can make a contribution to this discussion. First, you are asking the wrong question. Being a millionaire does not determine whether or not a person can afford to buy every TOTL IEM in the market. What determines a person's ability to buy them is their free cash flow. Basically, this is whatever money you have left after all of your life's needs and investments are covered. This is why many lottery winners who become millionaires over night, are poor again after 10 years. They don't know how to spend, save and invest their money properly, over spend and end up poor again. Sadly, I believe that our country spends too much time focusing on cultural issues rather than financial issues. Therefore, our schools under invest in financial education for our children. We have an entire generation of people who are financially illiterate.

So, how do you create enough free cash flow to buy up any TOTL IEMs you want? Well, the first thing you need to know is do you actually have free cash flow. How do you figure that out? Well, you map out a high level set of lifetime requirements for money. You need to account for your own personal needs to fund your current lifestyle, you need to set aside funds for future needs for large purchases such as homes, cars, vacations and luxury items, and you need to account for children, their education and your own retirement. That can be daunting. The first time you do this, you will be shocked at how much money it is. If you convert that into an annual salary, it will depress you. Even if you make $300,000 per year, you will only be able to live a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle. You will not be rich. Don't get me wrong. You will be financially secure and you will have nice things. But, to make $300,000 per year, your employer owns you. You will work 100 hours per week with no time for vacation or spending money the way you want. You will start assigning tremendous value to vacations and small perqs like flying first class on that free upgrade.

So, how do you get rich and create the kind of free cash flow that some on this board appear to have? You must create surplus cash when you are young and invest it into appreciating assets so that when you are older, those pay for everything in your life. Anyone less than 35 whose parents didn't offer you a trust fund should live as meager a lifestyle as you can tolerate and invest the surplus funds into stocks and bonds, real estate, their own business either in the form of private ownership or stock options / restricted stock in their company. It's because when done right, those investments will generate the free cash flow later in your life to do anything you want. Working hard is not enough. You need investments into real assets or you will never be rich.

There are lots of paths to the future to get rich. I am a big advocate of getting a good education that will lead to a good job. That first job will lead you to creating surplus cash to invest. Engineering is my favorite because you can kill 2 birds with one stone. You get high pay and you always get restricted stock if you work in a tech company that can generate investable cash very quickly. And, you can easily get into a start up that makes it big fast and you get rich right out of the gate.

I can go on, but this post is already too long. So, I will conclude with this. Your standard of living is defined by your income. Your wealth is determined by your investments. Invest as much as you can as early as you can in life and before you know it. You will have free cash flow that will allow you to live any way you want.

I wish some one had written all this down for me 20 years ago... great post and lots of wisdom here. Though having worked multiple start ups with options/restricted stock remember that its still a gamble and a lot less likely to pay off now then it was even 10 years ago. I only made out well at one of the 8 start ups I worked with. The 100 hour work weeks mentioned are not a joke though... working for an established company that does restricted stock long term incentive plans as well as a 401k is also good and if lucky might only be working 50 or 60 hours a week.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

I wish some one had written all this down for me 20 years ago... great post and lots of wisdom here. Though having worked multiple start ups with options/restricted stock remember that its still a gamble and a lot less likely to pay off now then it was even 10 years ago. I only made out well at one of the 8 start ups I worked with. The 100 hour work weeks mentioned are not a joke though... working for an established company that does restricted stock long term incentive plans as well as a 401k is also good and if lucky might only be working 50 or 60 hours a week.

Luck is the biggest variable in tech and in business. It can be the difference between average performance and super performance. But, you can't control luck. You can only control the decisions you make. So, you either need an intuitive feel that you develop over time. Or, a keen ability to determine probabilities in real time. For instance, I go to Las Vegas 4-6 times per year. But, I never gamble. Why? Because the odds are against me. I like to play games where the odds are in my favor. The great thing about business is you are creating an organization where you get to do determine most of the odds of success. Most of it is determined by natural laws, but the rest you can fashion so that it is in your favor. If you make good decisions over time, then eventually, one of those start ups with pay off.

 

[AnalogandDigital]

I wish some one had written all this down for me 20 years ago... great post and lots of wisdom here. Though having worked multiple start ups with options/restricted stock remember that its still a gamble and a lot less likely to pay off now then it was even 10 years ago. I only made out well at one of the 8 start ups I worked with. The 100 hour work weeks mentioned are not a joke though... working for an established company that does restricted stock long term incentive plans as well as a 401k is also good and if lucky might only be working 50 or 60 hours a week.

If you got the knowledge and know how why not start your own company and work perhaps 100 hours for yourself ...

Luck is the biggest variable in tech and in business. It can be the difference between average performance and super performance. But, you can't control luck. You can only control the decisions you make. So, you either need an intuitive feel that you develop over time. Or, a keen ability to determine probabilities in real time. For instance, I go to Las Vegas 4-6 times per year. But, I never gamble. Why? Because the odds are against me. I like to play games where the odds are in my favor. The great thing about business is you are creating an organization where you get to do determine most of the odds of success. Most of it is determined by natural laws, but the rest you can fashion so that it is in your favor. If you make good decisions over time, then eventually, one of those start ups with pay off.

I never gamble
I rather buy a nice pair of IEM
Still sort of a gamble but an experience in the meantime as well ...

 

[morserotonin]

If you got the knowledge and know how why not start your own company and work perhaps 100 hours for yourself ...

I never gamble
I rather buy a nice pair of IEM
Still sort of a gamble but an experience in the meantime as well ...

I did as a consultant for a few years... I didn't like all the other things I had to do. Accounting, sales, shopping for health insurance the second full time job around my actual deliverables I've never had that one good idea that's worth all that to see come to life, so I found a comapny whose work I admired and had excellent compensation both monetarily and long term investments/life perks and have enjoyed the reduced workload and focused on what I love about what I do... architecting computer systems that make peoples lives easier and solving problems. Plus I also get to spend more time with my family which is a huge win!

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

If you got the knowledge and know how why not start your own company and work perhaps 100 hours for yourself ...

True, but most people don't have the knowledge and need to take several jobs to get that experience to know what to do. The first 7-8 years of a person's career should be spent deliberately building skills and contacts and raising capital to invest where they can achieve the best return on their skills and assets. It rarely happens by luck alone.

The biggest deterrent to future success is being good at what you do. If you are good, you can rise quickly in a company at which time they put the golden handcuffs onto your wrists. Often times, the best thing that can happen to people is getting fired or laid off. Then, they are unencumbered by that payroll check. The payroll check is the biggest enslaver of people in the country and people don't even realize it. Once you learn how to make money in the modern economy, you will never again go back to earning a paycheck because you are making money for someone else instead of yourself.

 

[morserotonin]

True, but most people don't have the knowledge and need to take several jobs to get that experience to know what to do. The first 7-8 years of a person's career should be spent deliberately building skills and contacts and raising capital to invest where they can achieve the best return on their skills and assets. It rarely happens by luck alone.

The biggest deterrent to future success is being good at what you do. If you are good, you can rise quickly in a company at which time they put the golden handcuffs onto your wrists. Often times, the best thing that can happen to people is getting fired or laid off. Then, they are unencumbered by that payroll check. The payroll check is the biggest enslaver of people in the country and people don't even realize it. Once you learn how to make money in the modern economy, you will never again go back to earning a paycheck because you are making money for someone else instead of yourself.

I agree with this though as stated above I went back to the golden handcuffs for my own reasons.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

I agree with this though as stated above I went back to the golden handcuffs for my own reasons.

Which is completely fine. Not everybody wants to do what it takes to get rich. They don't get joy out of it and derive more meaning from life doing other things. There is nothing wrong with that at all.

Interestingly, this country is going to be experiencing tremendous job dislocations in the next 20-30 years. Jobs that were once safe and high paying, won't be here forever. Call centers, truck driving, retail jobs are going like the buggy whip. In order to prevent social unrest, our leaders need to prepare the country economic policies and system to address it or we will be in a world of hurt. We all know it's happening, but who is actually taking action to educate the population on the very topic that we are discussing now so that they can end up in a safe place?

 

[morserotonin]

Which is completely fine. Not everybody wants to do what it takes to get rich. They don't get joy out of it and derive more meaning from life doing other things. There is nothing wrong with that at all.

Interestingly, this country is going to be experiencing tremendous job dislocations in the next 20-30 years. Jobs that were once safe and high paying, won't be here forever. Call centers, truck driving, retail jobs are going like the buggy whip. In order to prevent social unrest, our leaders need to prepare the country economic policies and system to address it or we will be in a world of hurt. We all know it's happening, but who is actually taking action to educate the population on the very topic that we are discussing now so that they can end up in a safe place?

Yes things are changing again or should I say still... I have thought a lot about this especially as a lot of what I am paid to do especially when I was a consultant is automate things to a point where you need less junior positions to maintain something or the golden egg none. While this saves a company millions of dollars in salary and benefits who is learning to build and fix these things when the people who are now engineering them are out of the workforce. the positions you describe are going the way of automation as well or the big web stores, support bots and the like. Since we don't really manufacture here any longer what is left? I am not sure, but I agree with you that someone needs to start thinking about it. I am sure there are plenty of conversations like this one happening in the world but I see nothing from government leaders anywhere.

 

[Progisus]

One of the funny phases to me was those old dial up modems that were being installed so systems could be monitored remotely, and then the battle of competing technologies of PLC or DCS control infrastructures.

Telemecanique couldn’t believe what we were doing with dialup modems and their PLC for remote monitoring. They sent a tech from France to investigate.

Just had coffee with my retired Schneider rep to talk old war stories.

Sounds like we had parallel career experiences. This hobbie lets us keep that techie feeling.

 

[northsider]

Drat thought I was oldest here at 71@Claude beats me.I’m very lucky retired at 55 after 33 frontline nursing.Just me & my lovely partner.Since I pulled the pin have done numerous storm chasing vacations in Central plains USA, and WW2 battle field toursEU.Since CV have not traveled..@rockwell75 this is the best & most pleasant forum on head Fi..The knowledge is astonishing.Just got W2 Dongle .. @Scubadevils any thoughts on LP6K? I have one excellent little machine.My best portable audio? iPod touch 7g & MTW2 for podcasts & audiobooks.John

 

[northsider]

GLer superb photos & thoughts

 

[RTodd]

Telemecanique couldn’t believe what we were doing with dialup modems and their PLC for remote monitoring. They sent a tech from France to investigate.

Just had coffee with my retired Schneider rep to talk old war stories.

Sounds like we had parallel career experiences. This hobbie lets us keep that techie feeling.

Yes very familiar with those companies products legacy and current. I was managing mostly early on I wrote programs for the PLCs of Telemecanique, Modicon, Omron, Allen Bradley, and Siemens. Our company also worked with lots of hydraulics and pneumatics, the team of engineers I had in those departments could do anything across all platforms, we were brand agnostic and as such market disrupters.

To the other conversation this is the kind of business (disrupters) to look for to be part of or invest in. As long as the management team has clear vision and brings something interesting to the market than it could be a great success.

As far as automation goes I think of it this way, human beings need work that takes advantage of their brain power. Jobs that can be automated are the jobs humans should not be doing in the first place. Servicing all that automation is not something that I can think of a way to automate so there will always be those jobs. Lucile Ball picking candies off a belt not so much.

There are products that will always be made locally because the cost of shipping makes no sense, like bottling soda and making sewage pipe for example.

 

[Frankie D]

I can make a contribution to this discussion. First, you are asking the wrong question. Being a millionaire does not determine whether or not a person can afford to buy every TOTL IEM in the market. What determines a person's ability to buy them is their free cash flow. Basically, this is whatever money you have left after all of your life's needs and investments are covered. This is why many lottery winners who become millionaires over night, are poor again after 10 years. They don't know how to spend, save and invest their money properly, over spend and end up poor again. Sadly, I believe that our country spends too much time focusing on cultural issues rather than financial issues. Therefore, our schools under invest in financial education for our children. We have an entire generation of people who are financially illiterate.

So, how do you create enough free cash flow to buy up any TOTL IEMs you want? Well, the first thing you need to know is do you actually have free cash flow. How do you figure that out? Well, you map out a high level set of lifetime requirements for money. You need to account for your own personal needs to fund your current lifestyle, you need to set aside funds for future needs for large purchases such as homes, cars, vacations and luxury items, and you need to account for children, their education and your own retirement. That can be daunting. The first time you do this, you will be shocked at how much money it is. If you convert that into an annual salary, it will depress you. Even if you make $300,000 per year, you will only be able to live a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle. You will not be rich. Don't get me wrong. You will be financially secure and you will have nice things. But, to make $300,000 per year, your employer owns you. You will work 100 hours per week with no time for vacation or spending money the way you want. You will start assigning tremendous value to vacations and small perqs like flying first class on that free upgrade.

So, how do you get rich and create the kind of free cash flow that some on this board appear to have? You must create surplus cash when you are young and invest it into appreciating assets so that when you are older, those pay for everything in your life. Anyone less than 35 whose parents didn't offer you a trust fund should live as meager a lifestyle as you can tolerate and invest the surplus funds into stocks and bonds, real estate, their own business either in the form of private ownership or stock options / restricted stock in their company. It's because when done right, those investments will generate the free cash flow later in your life to do anything you want. Working hard is not enough. You need investments into real assets or you will never be rich.

There are lots of paths to the future to get rich. I am a big advocate of getting a good education that will lead to a good job. That first job will lead you to creating surplus cash to invest. Engineering is my favorite because you can kill 2 birds with one stone. You get high pay and you always get restricted stock if you work in a tech company that can generate investable cash very quickly. And, you can easily get into a start up that makes it big fast and you get rich right out of the gate.

I can go on, but this post is already too long. So, I will conclude with this. Your standard of living is defined by your income. Your wealth is determined by your investments. Invest as much as you can as early as you can in life and before you know it. You will have free cash flow that will allow you to live any way you want.

Could you kindly present the solution to get rich for those of us already at retirement age?

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Could you kindly present the solution to get rich for those of us already at retirement age?

You have been blessed with the gene of long life. You are probably the richest person on this board.