[calambrac]

My big problem with this whole "FU" money concept, and your thought I quoted above, is that people seem to think they need to get this opportunity from someone else.

That makes no sense. Of course you need to get that opportunity from someone else: your customers, your family, your investors, or your buyer, whoever is handing you the money you need to meet your needs. At the end of the day, if someone else hasn't given it to you, you aren't getting it.

[iamwil]

While in the literal sense, you get opportunity from others, I think people get stuck in a mode of thinking that they need to get lots of money to pursue some vision or objective that they want. It becomes a mental barrier where they say, "I can't do this because I don't have a million dollars" Where in truth, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Just because something takes a million dollars to do, doesn't mean that it has to be your million dollars.

I think Jason Fried's just saying "Be relentlessly resourceful" in a different way. You don't need anything like lack of personal money to stop you from doing what you want to do.

It's odd to me how many on HN readily accepted pg's "Be relentlessly resourceful" idea, but when it comes to the idea in a different form, how many rally against it.

"Be relentlessly resourceful" applies to things beyond startups, from paying your kids' tuitions, getting to drink mojitos on an island, and pursuing your economically unviable project.

[calambrac]

That's not what they're saying, though, at least not since they started posting these essays after the Mint sale. They've been talking as though taking a giant payday is somehow morally wrong, that it's backing down and giving up some kind of good fight. That's a much stronger stance than "Don't wait for a rich man to come along and give you permission to chase your dreams, just chase them anyways." - it's actually editorializing on what the content of those dreams should be.

[jasonfried]

I was alluding to a big external event (investment, sale, IPO, liquidation), not to the day-to-day exchanges that are part of your business (selling product, offering services, etc). You can do anything you want on your own without the blessing of someone with a lot more money than you.

[calambrac]

I know what you're alluding to, I'm just saying it's an arbitrary distinction. There's absolutely no reason taking a giant payday from a single source is somehow inferior to taking money from thousands of customers in terms of your personal freedom.

[GHFigs]

In that sense, all money is fuck you money.

[aditya]

Unless you're the government and can just print as much as you want. :-)

I think the 37signal's viewpoint is interesting, and the point they're trying to make is this, you can chose to do interesting stuff that will make you money while you work for the man.

It is _not_ easy. You have to come back from a long day of "meetings, politics, and code" and shut everything out and just create. Sometimes it'll be fun, sometimes it'll be downright boring and impossible seeming, but you own that time, and you can choose how to spend it. If you spend it watching TV then that is your choice. But, there are plenty of ways to make people pay you for stuff that you want to do if you just take the opportunity.

(Sorry if that sounds too guru-ish or self-helpy but thinking that way has made it much easier to rationalize working evenings and weekends for me.)

[calambrac]

Unless you're the government and can just print as much as you want.

Yeah, ask Zimbabwe how that's working out.

you can chose to do interesting stuff that will make you money while you work for the man.

I don't think that's the point they're making at all. They're saying don't work for the man, and don't look for an opportunity to sell your work to the man for a giant payday - "do your own thing" and keep doing it.

[hughprime]

Yeah, ask Zimbabwe how that's working out.

Hey, if anyone has Fuck You money it's Robert Mugabe. (He also has a Fuck You army though, which I guess helps).