[tmnvix]

For me, there are a couple of motivations:

1) Financial freedom and security. Aside from ensuring material needs this is important because it provides a good foundation for autonomy - an important part of self-fulfilment.

2) The means to make things happen. I don't want to own things or show off. I do want to facilitate things that I think will be beneficial to people I care about (e.g. help a friend or relative start a business, fund a non-profit, etc).

For a lot of people 'getting rich' means flash cars, big houses, and extravagance. I don't want any of that. I want the means to make my world (the one I interact with) a more pleasant place (for myself and others).

[r0brodz]

Indeed friend. I would love more people like this in mass. We need good friends and altruistic folk that think of others. I would love to be rich too and do the same as you say yet I highly dislike the entire flock of zebras who regulate who gets it and who doesnt. Hard work is important but Network is truly luck. I may have a library of ideas never implemented yet I am blocked by who I know and even if I go and find folk I am blocked by their perception of me. Its certainly interesting to see US as the land of opportunity.

[deepnotderp]

Ding ding ding.

Couldn't care less about fancy cars and houses. I want to push processor speeds forward by an order or two of magnitude, and to make that happen I need funds.