Daniel Kahneman

to define well-being in a way that people didn't seem to care particularly about.

So that was not a tenable position.

So I dropped back into saying that I had no idea how to deal with it.

No.

The research I did with Angus Deaton at Princeton, famous economist, we showed that in terms of happiness, in terms of emotional tone, positive and negative,

Having a lot of money doesn't make you happier, but being poor makes you miserable.

So that's above the threshold that was like $70,000 approximately in the U.S.

Then extra money didn't make you emotionally happier.

But with life satisfaction, it was a different story.

With life satisfaction, that doesn't satiate, so it's always good to have more.

Because basically, I think,

Money is a proxy for success and a proxy for subjective success in many cases.

Just getting it.

I mean, you know, you look at all those people, all those billionaires working their heads off.

And they're clearly not doing this because they need more money.

They're trying to get more money.

And they're trying to get more money because that would be an indication that they're good at what they do.

I think mostly it's a proxy.

Both, apparently.

But, you know, it's hard to separate.