David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

First of all, so what?

I don't have to have all the money.

But second of all, maybe the money wasn't on the table at all.

When I look at an upcoming week and I see that I have no scheduled meetings at all, which is quite common, or maybe I just have one thing for one hour on one day, I think to myself, do you know what?

This could very easily have been very different.

We could have been running a company of hundreds of people or thousands of people, and my entire calendar would have been packed solid with little Tetris blocks of other people's demands on my attention and time, and I would have been miserable as fuck.

Yep.

And I look at that and go like, what more can I ask for?

Which is a really nice state of being, I'd actually say.

I didn't have this always.

I did have, early on in my career, some sense of, like, I need a little more, a little more security.

And I remember this really interesting study where a bunch of researchers asked people who had made certain amounts of money, how much money would it take for you to feel secure?

They'd ask people who had a million dollars net worth, how much money do you need?

Probably need two million.

Two million, then it'd be good.

Then they asked people with a net worth of five million, how much do you need?

10.

I need 10.

Ask people with 10 million.

What do you need?