Notch is going stir-crazy

[mizzou]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ive-never-felt-more-isolated-153600734.html

His excessive richness is driving him bitter and lonely. Very sad. This is kind of depressing because I hear he is a really nice guy and he did great things for a niche PC genre. Whether or not I actually respect him as a programmer or game designer is a different story, but he was always a very intriguing figure and beloved by fans.


So how the heck could he be bored? Why not just start up a new development team and actually finish some of those projects he shelved? I wonder if Microsoft put a gag order on him as part of the sale....

 

[Belegost]

Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and make the public offer to help him. If the stress of dealing with more money than the average person would make in a 1000 lifetimes is absolutely ruining his life, then it seems like someone, myself, needs to man up, and take that burden off of him.

Notch may reach out to me anytime, through email, telephone, IM, posted letter, personal courier, telepathy, or smoke signals, and I will provide account numbers where he can safely off-load his depressingly vast horde of cash, relieving him of that weight.

 

[alcoholbob]

Needs to find a new passion in life; he already has the funding taken care of. Getting drunk/high and partying will get tiring eventually if it's the only thing you are doing. Even Paris Hilton figured that out.

 

[MongGrel]

I have a lot of trouble trying to relate to a person who has 2.5 billion dollars I guess.

Maybe he should sit down and have a talk with Warren Buffet.

 

[JSt0rm]

He needs to continue to tap his creative side. In the end the only things that matter are family, friends and creative endeavors.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and make the public offer to help him. If the stress of dealing with more money than the average person would make in a 1000 lifetimes is absolutely ruining his life, then it seems like someone, myself, needs to man up, and take that burden off of him.

Notch may reach out to me anytime, through email, telephone, IM, posted letter, personal courier, telepathy, or smoke signals, and I will provide account numbers where he can safely off-load his depressingly vast horde of cash, relieving him of that weight.

Closer to 50,000 lifetimes.

 

[MrPickins]

Closer to 50,000 lifetimes.

You must not make very much money.

$2.5Bn/50k = $50k

Or are you referring to the entire world's population?

As for Notch, I agree that he needs to continue creating.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

His problem is he has too much money to deny his own selfishness now. And apparently cowardice too if running into a few assholes is keeping him from even trying to save the world.

 

[Gryz]

In the end the only things that matter are family, friends and creative endeavors.

Is he single ? In that case, he doesn't have a family. (Well, he got parents and brothers and sisters probably. But a grown man need to detach himself from his parents. He should have found a wife before he made his billions. Too late now. See friends below).

Friends ? I hope he had a lot of friends. Because with $2.5B in the bank, he won't be making new friends. Never. Ever. When people know you got money, they start acting weird towards you. Lots of people want to take advantage. Other people won't have anything to do with you, because you're rich. He can't meet new people, who get to know him as "Markus, that friendly guy". Because when you step into a room, everybody will already know who you are. And they will all see you as "Notch, the guy with $2.5B". It's gonna be lonely when you can't make new friends. Or even have a casual chat with a stranger. (Because he will never be a stranger for long).

Creative ? Maybe. Probably not. The problem is that you will lose your own judgement. You can not reflect your ideas off of others. Because everybody will suck up to you. Half of them will do it because they hope to make some money off of you. The other half will look at you in awe, and will not dare to oppose anything you say.

If you make that much money, you better have all your professional networks and social/family/friends networks in place. Because it will be almost impossible to build new ones.

 

[Phokus]

Needs to find a new passion in life; he already has the funding taken care of. Getting drunk/high and partying will get tiring eventually if it's the only thing you are doing. Even Paris Hilton figured that out.

She did?

 

[Blue_Max]

Is he single ? In that case, he doesn't have a family. (Well, he got parents and brothers and sisters probably. But a grown man need to detach himself from his parents. He should have found a wife before he made his billions. Too late now. See friends below).

Friends ? I hope he had a lot of friends. Because with $2.5B in the bank, he won't be making new friends. Never. Ever. When people know you got money, they start acting weird towards you. Lots of people want to take advantage. Other people won't have anything to do with you, because you're rich. He can't meet new people, who get to know him as "Markus, that friendly guy". Because when you step into a room, everybody will already know who you are. And they will all see you as "Notch, the guy with $2.5B". It's gonna be lonely when you can't make new friends. Or even have a casual chat with a stranger. (Because he will never be a stranger for long).

Creative ? Maybe. Probably not. The problem is that you will lose your own judgement. You can not reflect your ideas off of others. Because everybody will suck up to you. Half of them will do it because they hope to make some money off of you. The other half will look at you in awe, and will not dare to oppose anything you say.

If you make that much money, you better have all your professional networks and social/family/friends networks in place. Because it will be almost impossible to build new ones.

Very astute and well said. His only hope is to either:
1) stay "big" and develop something new if he's allowed, and/or join Microsoft's team doing so.
Or,
2) hide his identity of "Notch" and have a completely new look, heck, even a name change. Problem with that is possibly burning bridges with the existing friends/family/colleagues he has now, but may gain new ones who can judge him on equal terms, and not as a big burlap sack with a dollar sign.

Still, if we met, I'd be more than happy to buy him lunch rather than suck up for him to buy mine - he's given us something my boys and I love to share together. :thumbsup:

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Sounds like he needs to do something. I do believe he made something great with Minecraft but that was all he had in him (which is one more than anyone on this board). He knows this too that is why nothing he started every made it past the first few steps, he also used to say people aren't going to want to play my games.
He probably has non compete clauses so maybe he should start something new and rewarding like a programming school for poor kids or something similar.

 

[werepossum]

Well . . . He could begin researching the next world's smallest violin. I think the existing model has just become outdated.

 

[Subyman]

People care that he's bored? He made a derivative game that ended up taking off because it had a unique business model. He's not a gaming god with great ideas.

 

[Moonbeam]

His problem is that he thinks. He thinks he has a problem. He thinks there is no solution or the solution is out there. But the problem is that he thinks, and the problem ends when he stops thinking. How do you stop thinking when the you you think you are is thought itself? Maybe if you lay down and collapse inward, Grace will take over.

 

[Joepublic2]

Persson certainly looked like he was having a blast, living the big life. He bought a $70 million mansion, complete with a massive wall of candy, and has been hosting wild parties ever since.

Found a great girl, but she's afraid of me and my life style and went with a normal person instead.

Just a guess but maybe ostentatious displays of wealth and a selfish hedonistic lifestyle attracts the wrong kind of people and drives away those you'd want to/could form lasting relationships with?

 

[Kaido]

Needs to find a new passion in life; he already has the funding taken care of. Getting drunk/high and partying will get tiring eventually if it's the only thing you are doing. Even Paris Hilton figured that out.

Yeah. Living on earth is an incentive-based experience; if you remove the incentives you need to stay motivated, then you're going to have to use willpower to keep going, which is hard to keep up for 99.9% of people. There are people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk who have the mental fortitude to push through because they have a vision, but if you lack that personal drive, then life can get pretty meaningless, especially if you don't have the self-discipline to go out & find something to motivate you. Especially since you typically get sucked into the party scene, which typically results in:

1. Staying up late constantly
2. Not eating too well
3. Drugs & alcohol
4. No vision to drive you forward

He has a cool house, and the pictures from the various articles show a giant wall of candy, an extensive wine cellar, his friends eating McDonald's, parties, etc. Just about anything is fine in moderation, but when you have a big pile of money & don't have to go to work anymore, it's easy to spiral into the depressed state that he appears to be in because you don't have any normal responsibilities anymore...you don't have to show up for work, if you have kids, you can just get a nanny, you can simply take vacation, shop, and party all the time if you want to...it's easy to slide into an "idle rich" lifestyle. There was a thread on Reddit last year about how being rich feels & it is pretty eye-opening: (12k+ replies, long but interesting read)

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/...e_of_reddit_what_does_it_feel_like/?limit=500

Lots of take-away lessons from reading that. Anyway, I feel bad for the dude. He's stuck in a lonely situation, and of course, it's more comfortable to be sad & rich than sad & poor, so why would you give up your money? Unless he plans on donating all of his money to charity, he's going to have to find fulfillment somewhere else. He'll have a hard time finding a girlfriend who isn't a gold digger, and friends who aren't either. Maybe starting his own charitable foundation & flying around to personally administer aid would make him feel better, I dunno. He's kind of stuck because he's already famous. Maybe he could become an angel investor for awesome Kickstarter projects or something.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

You must not make very much money.

$2.5Bn/50k = $50k

Or are you referring to the entire world's population?

As for Notch, I agree that he needs to continue creating.

Sigh, I was thinking a year. Was ballparking per capita. I'm a maroon. 1k is probably about right.

 

[CitizenKain]

If having too much money is isolating you from other people, then the solution is to start spending that money. He should look at what Bill Gates did and find a cause he feels strongly for and turn that money into something useful rather then a lot of numbers.
Hell, he could start the Notch Foundation, which simply runs PSAs during Adult Swim telling people to stop with fedoras and neck beards.

 

[Murloc]

didn't he have a depressive character to start with?

Still, there is a reason rich people fill their lives with charities and stuff.

He could travel or do something banking on the fact that he hasn't a very known face and he can change his looks by dropping the hat, and that his name is pretty much John Smith-tier.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Well . . . He could begin researching the next world's smallest violin. I think the existing model has just become outdated.

Can they make a violin that's small enough?

 

[werepossum]

Can they make a violin that's small enough?

Researchers have built motors out of individual molecules; I have every faith that violins are within our capability, given a $2.5 billion budget.

If dude really hates being rich, he can find himself an 8-5 job and give away his billions. Beyond that, his "lifestyle" is far more within his control than than of most of the world.

 

[rockyct]

didn't he have a depressive character to start with?

Still, there is a reason rich people fill their lives with charities and stuff.

He could travel or do something banking on the fact that he hasn't a very known face and he can change his looks by dropping the hat, and that his name is pretty much John Smith-tier.

Yeah, he sold Mojang because a very vocal minority of people turned on him. Instead of ignoring them or try to reason that they were just a bunch of anonymous assholes, he sells Mojang to try to fix the problem. I'm glad he sold out since he lost interest but he does need to find another purpose. Personally, I would have sold Mojang on the condition that I join whatever Microsoft skunkworks team they have as an unpaid consultant or something. It would have been perfect for him as it would give him a reason for getting up and he'd get to play with some cool stuff all day and make friends with the uber nerds.

I'm sad though. I knew he got married a few years back but I had no idea he got a divorce less than a year later. That probably didn't help his mental health.

 

[NTMBK]

Hope he finds a way to be happy. If I had his means, I'd buy a cabin next to a lake somewhere with no internet connection, a massive stack of books, and take a long vacation. Get away from everything.

 

[sandorski]

Like many suddenly Rich and Famous, he just went nuts living the High Life. It's kind of hard maintaining enthusiasm for and doubly hard to step back from it.