www.csua.org/u/j9u -> www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/technology/05rich.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
The Rich Are Willing to Take Risks (August 5, 2007) Age of Riches No Rest After Success Articles in this series are examining the effects of the growing concentration of wealth.
More Video Mr Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. Yet each day Mr Steger continues to toil in what a colleague calls "the Silicon Valley salt mines," working as a marketing executive for a technology start-up company, still striving for his big strike. Most mornings, he can be found at his desk by 7 He typically works 12 hours a day and logs an extra 10 hours over the weekend. "I know people looking in from the outside will ask why someone like me keeps working so hard," Mr Steger says. Maybe in the '70s, a few million bucks meant Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,' or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. Silicon Valley is thick with those who might be called working-class millionaires -- nose-to-the-grindstone people like Mr Steger who, much to their surprise, are still working as hard as ever even as they find themselves among the fortunate few. They are amply cushioned against the anxieties and jolts that worry most people living paycheck to paycheck. But many such accomplished and ambitious members of the digital elite still do not think of themselves as particularly fortunate, in part because they are surrounded by people with more wealth -- often a lot more. When chief executives are routinely paid tens of millions of dollars a year and a hedge fund manager can collect $1 billion annually, those with a few million dollars often see their accumulated wealth as puny, a reflection of their modest status in the new Gilded Age, when hundreds of thousands of people have accumulated much vaster fortunes. "It's just like Wall Street, where there are all these financial guys worth $7 million wondering what's so special about them when there are all these guys worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars." That puts him firmly in the top half of 1 percent among Americans, according to wealth data from the Federal Reserve, but barely in the top echelons in affluent towns like Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton. So he logs 60- to 80-hour workweeks because, he said, he does not think he has nearly enough money to ease up. "You're nobody here at $10 million," Mr Kremen said earnestly over a glass of pinot noir at an upscale wine bar here. Not every Silicon Valley millionaire, of course, shares that perspective. Celeste Baranski, a 49-year-old engineer with a net worth of around $5 million who lives with her husband in Menlo Park, no longer frets about tucking enough money away for college for their two children. Long ago she stopped bothering to balance her checkbook. When too many 18-hour days running an engineering department of 1,200 left her feeling burned out and empty, she left and gave herself 12 months off. Yet like other working-class millionaires of Silicon Valley, she harbors anxieties about her financial future. Ms Baranski -- who was briefly worth as much as $200 million in 2000 but cashed out only $1 million before the collapse of the tech bubble -- returned to work in March. Along with two partners, she founded a software company, Vitamin D, and already she is resigned to the sleepless nights and other stresses that await her. "I ask myself all the time," Ms Baranski confessed, "why I do this."
Tips To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.
|
http://csua.com/feed/