There’s also his age as a factor, he’s probably more aware of his limited remaining lifespan than he would have been if he cashed out at 25, let’s say.
I reserve my praises until I learn how exactly he gave away the money. Family-controlled foundations that only do political lobbing while avoiding taxes are a thing .
I wasn’t able to find details with a quick search, but it sounds like it wasn’t his own foundation:
After the AppNexus sale, O’Kelley and his wife carefully chose which causes to support. Their donations focus on education, social justice, technology access, and healthcare initiatives.
https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2025/08/could-you-give-away-1-5-billion-like-this-ceo/
Perhaps the only good billionaire is one who isn’t.
Their donations focus on education, social justice, technology access, and healthcare initiatives.
Okay, but you realize the could just be the Gates Foundation, right? Or whatever bullshit charity Zuckerberg runs?
well political lobbying would be good if it’s lobbying for socialism i’d say
I would argue that legalized corruption is bad, even if you happen to agree with the cause.
Well, the current method of taking the high ground to make change for good ain’t exactly working out too well.
Lobby for removing that legalized corruption?
The question is: does it bring lasting benefits to the people?
If he gives away a billion once, eventually it will be consumed and then we’re stuck in the same situation again. The rich must give money away repeatedly, that’s the only way to sustain society going forward. For that, solid and robust policy changes will have to be implemented.
Well, yeah, I mean you are not wrong but in this case the guy sold his company for a billion (or rather more) and I assume that company wasn’t running for just a few months. So in order to do it again he’d first have to start another company that reaches that selling price.
Other billionaires of course would need to keep giving back money they continuously amass, yes.
Oh. I thought this was The Onion for a second when I saw the title.
He’s not wrong. Being circled by scavengars like some kind of dying leviathan is not a sane way to live.
yea well trying to increase your wealth to billions is pretty much an addiction much akin to gambling addiction.
If only he believed in himself, he could have been a billionaire…
O’Kelley’s [sic] says billionaires represent “such an incredibly ludicrous waste of money in a world where there’s so many people who don’t have that,” but he says actually being one is also “othering”—separating you from the limits and consequences that define normal life. “There’s something about keeping connected to normalcy that is really, really important,” the entrepreneur explains. “I don’t want a yacht and I don’t ever want to be able to be without consequences. I think that’s the biggest risk, is, how can we be accountable when we have so much money we can buy anything?”
He gets it. Past a certain point, wealth erodes your humanity. I think I’d have picked $100M too - at a safe 4% return that’s $4M per year, plenty for anybody to live on but not megayacht money.
I’ve always said If I could have enough where I could purchase in cash a cottage in a small cottage town here in Canada with a top of the line internet connection and I’d never have to work or worry about money for the rest of my life I’d be happy. what would I do? nothing. I’d pursue my hobby projects, more FOSS development, gaming, painting, build model kits, drink beer, eat whatever I wanted, and socialize with as few people as possible.
That’s all i want. I just want enough money right now to achieve that.
And you would only pick 100mil because of how fucked up the world is. You can easly burn half a million in US if you have a serious health condition.
Plenty for a normal yacht, the kind you can sail by yourself or with a partner. Megayachts are basically private cruise ships that need a full staff to sail. Even if I had the money I wouldn’t want that!
The only people that should want one are cruise ship operators and you can rent one for a lot less.
Motherfucking $4MM total is enough to live on with a return like that.
Sure, but choosing to live on $160k/yr would be a bit much when you’re starting with $1.6B. I can’t fault him for still wanting to enjoy being wealthy instead of upper-middle-class and definitely don’t think it’s reasonable to complain that giving away 95% of his wealth is somehow not enough.
Even if it still feels a bit wrong, I can somehow reason with there being wealthy people and the motivation of potential lavish life, since some seem to really need it to make any effort in society. It’s somewhat understandable at least. Talking about tens of millions, with a bit of stretch hundreds - okay, I can stomach it even if it still seems extremely excess.
But billions… that’s already ten times more than that. How anyone can stomach that, I don’t get.
While my heart disagrees, my brain can get, with some effort, behind what this guy says. It kind of makes sense at least. Retaining your humanity and giving up such an inconceivable amount of money for that, really sounds pretty good in this world we’ve been living in lately. Sounds fucking weird to feel good about someone still having such excess in comparison to all the people struggling with next to nothing, but at least there’s some amount of backbone and clear thought involved.
Not sure what to think still. Like someone else commented, better reserve outright okaying this until we know how the money was given away.
But if it turns out to be sensible and humane, I can honestly say I’m fine with the kind of millionaire this one is. It’s not ideal, but it’s tolerable and in some niche sense, justifiable. If it’s all good, I even wish all the millionaires were like this… if we have to have them, as a compromise with the part of people who need all that, the “dream” to strive for, for whatever reason, at least let them be sensible and moral in some way, such as this…
I don’t think the premise that you can “make it” is wrong, and being somewhat wealthy is definitely motivation for many great things. If you’re running a tech start-up you’re probably putting in 60-80 hours a week and have to cope with a great level of stress. Of course being passionate about your product is a very important factor but without the allure of living very well afterwards I think it’d deter a lot of innovation, sports talents, musicians and whatnot.
I don’t blame this dude for still wanting to live his life while being quite ethical; hate the game, not the player (in this case at least). This is about how fiscally conservative I can be. Billionaires shouldn’t exist - and especially these insanely wealthy individuals taking over the world with tech, but I don’t think you can take it away completely. In an ideal world there wouldn’t even be millionaires but people are gonna be people and sociopaths and narcissists are always gonna exist and trying to rig the system.
My point is that $160k is enough for anybody. That much per person would give any household a very comfortable lifestyle even in a HCOL area.
You’d think that, but hcol is hcol. Then add kids. Now those kids can drive, go to college and need a lot of shoes (seriously, I feel like I should get a part time job at a shoe store). Gotta put some up for retirement too.
It goes faster than you’d think, and that’s with buying used cars, no luxury vacations, little travel, bargain shopping and doing a lot of my own home/car repairs.
This is why I live in my medium size city in a “fly over” state.
I’m living very comfortably with my partner in a desirable part of Seattle with a mortgage and high medical bills for just over $120k annually.
You’re doing great! But I’m guessing that’s double income no kids, or at least no kids. I think we can allow this anti-billionaire ex-billionaire to reproduce and give his kids the luxury of graduating without debt.
Single income, kids grown up.
I have to disagree with this unfortunately. Myself and many of my friends all make $160k or more each, but when it comes to life’s debts and surprises, family, medical bills, etc. - $160k is not enough. And that’s with me renting a room from family and not even really saving for retirement yet.
The fuck are doing with your money? Ive never made more than £35k a year. And debt free at 47 with a fully paid off 3 bedroom detached house and fancy as fuck german car.
Doesn’t the UK also have expensive housing? I’m guessing you bought 27 years ago? Wise move.
I tried to start / invest in 4 businesses prior to COVID and lost everything and then some.
That’s part of it. I’ll be paying for that the rest of my life probably.
But even ignoring most things related to that, $160k wouldn’t be enough and my wife and I don’t even have kids.
Yup, we make in that neighborhood. We live comfortably and frugally, and we still can’t just do what we want. We don’t sweat small purchases as much, and are upgrading things quicker than when we made less than half of that. But we still need to be smart about what we spend, especially with inflation the last few years.
What’s the net income? $160k after paltry long-term capital gains tax is going to go a lot further than a single person being taxed fully.
What’s the net income? $160k after paltry long-term capital gains tax is going to go a lot further than a single person being taxed fully.
- Federal Income tax of $160,000/year from long term capital gains: $24,000
- Federal Income tax of $160,000/year from ordinary income (without FICA and Medicare): $ 27,938.50
So in this case its only a $3938.50 cent difference between federal taxation on ordinary income vs capital gains income.
State and local taxes are all over the place for capital gains. My State, as an example, treats any capital gains income as ordinary income at the full tax rate.
FICA and Medicare count. But then so does health insurance premiums.
I don’t think there’s anywhere in the world where you can’t get by on $160k. There are plenty of places where it can be tight, especially if the comparison is just a number of your choice.
EDIT: corrected post with biweekly to monthly pay
My point is that $160k is enough for anybody. That much per person would give any household a very comfortable lifestyle even in a HCOL area.
$160k/year is way low to live a “very comfortable lifestyle”, even more so especially in a HCOL area.
Lets use NYC as an example of a HCOL area. Here’s what that looks like for take-home pay:
Lets call it $8,800/month to make it easy.
So a person needs to house themselves. Lets look at NYC rents. Here’s median prices:
And here’s some specifics from a few places in the city:
So looking at the cheapest of the 3 listed here, the small 1 br 1 bath place in the East Village will set you back about $3200/month. Of our $8,800, we now have just $5,600/month for every other living necessities including food, transportation, clothing, and the big budget killer we haven’t talked about yet…health insurance/healthcare.
All of this also assumes a person would be single. If they have children a 1br apartment isn’t going to cut it, and the costs for raising children are also a large increase in monthly money burn. People still have to save for retirement too.
$160k/year is way low for: “That much per person would give any household a very comfortable lifestyle even in a HCOL area.”
$160k / 12mo. ≈ $13k / mo.
You threw away $100k annually, chum.
First, thank you for pointing out I made a mistake. I didn’t see the calculator broke it into twice a month paychecks.
Take home for one month for $160k/year would be: $8,784
I’ll correct my post, but $160k/year is still way too low to meet your “That much per person would give any household a very comfortable lifestyle even in a HCOL area.”
You’re taking out too much tax. Closer to $9,300.
A household of two adults would have $320k gross annually, so twice that.
Also, I’m comfortably supporting two adults in a HCOL area, with a mortgage and high medical bills, for under $125k annually.
Can you just let this story be a good thing? In a sea of shit there was a nugget if uplifting news. Go be negative in one of the bad things post.
Ha ha ha ha no. Lemmykins hate people with money almost as much as they hate cops.
He could have given it all away and they would bitch about who he gave it to.
Probably. I’ll take the W. So shines a good deed in a weary world.
Actually it’s not. I used to live in a moderately HCOL area (Denver metro, Colorado). Not even the highest. On a low six figure salary I was worried about rising rents and couldn’t afford to buy a home anywhere around there, they were all like $400-$650k.
Mind you, this is just me and my wife, no kids, and few debts, the costs were just extreme. Looking at the costs I was looking at a mortgage of $2500 to $3200, and that was when the interest rates were only a bit over 3%, they’re much higher now.
I’ve moved to the boonies and had a cheap home built for around $200k, and I’m on track to pay it off while also saving for retirement since I’m in my 40s and can’t do this shit forever. Thankfully, my job is fully remote and I’ve built my skills to be able to be fully remote, but not everyone can do that.
It doesn’t make any sense to keep just enough, because then you may have to worry about weathering any economic storms in the future.
I think the amount he kept is reasonable, especially when they are pretty much one of a kind for doing this.
Sadly, not necessarily true. In the US, all it takes is one family member with a severe chronic illness tovery quickly erode that to the point that you are back at work. I think $10MM is the magic number but $100MM is a really good number to ensure that you and.your loved ones are taken care of.
To add to this, this also probably goes to something that seems to have been largely lost between the Baby Boomers and the next generations: the concept of passing on generational wealth. I know my parents have flat out said that they’re planning on using all the money they saved working.
Keeping enough money not just to ensure that your family is taken care of today but in the future for possibly generations to come is the kind of thing I can only wish to do.
That’s a good point, I’m currently leaning on corporate sponsorship to support my wife’s severe chronic illness. It’ll be a lot easier once Medicare kicks in.
Wishing the best buddy
Joe Rogan’s punk ass couldn’t handle $100M
$4 million a year is absolutely mega yacht territory.
Not even close - megayachts are 9 figures and that doesn’t include the absurd crewing and other operational costs. There’s no way he could own let alone operate one on a $4M income.
I definitely underestimated the cost of mega yachts. But $4mil/yr is still and insane amount of money.
I mean, I could probably retire right now with 4 million and live comfortably. But hey, I’m not gonna fault this dude for doing the right thing here and still being wealthy. Dude put over 90% of the funds back into causes and recirculating instead of hoarding it like some sociopathic dragon.
Oh I don’t want anything I’ve said to come off as a criticism of what he’s done. I think it’s amazing.
Nah, just regular yacht
Yeah, and uncrewed, one where you can operate everything solo or as a couple. Big crewed ones can easily be 20k per day to run.
Uncrewed regular yachts small enough to singlehand are cheaper than a normal middle-class house. Hell, you can get an old one for $1 and some sweat equity.
(That’s a slight exaggeration – fiberglass and resin costs money – but there are definitely people who sail around on boats worth 5 figures and work occasional odd jobs when they need money.)
To buy, sure, but how much is fuel and dock fees? (I’m asking, I have no idea)
It’s definitely really nice yacht territory but can’t afford the floating 100+ room compounds all the billionaires are buying.
I’d take just one single measly Canadian million dollars, buy a ~300-400K small house far from the city with enough land to have peace and quiet, and maybe try a greenhouse for vegetables.
That leaves enough money with what I already have to cover never working again, various moving expenses, some repairs and renos, and maybe the occasional weekend transexual escort in my whirlpool.
600K definitely can’t cover your incidentals over 20+ years.
First I said "That leaves enough money with what I already have " and second CPP and QPP will kick in before that. I can live easily on that. I need little.
Cpp and qpp is not a lot. You’ll want to reinvest to subsidize Luckily with the house market when you have to go into a home you can sell the house for a decent retirement home. Just make sure you book into a good one early enough. They have 2 yr waiting lists in some places.
I’d rather blow my brains out than end up in a home. They’re organized fleecing and meat warehouses.
Yes, but between that and the absolutely miserable situations I’ve seen some elderly end up in… I’d take the fleecing. At least there you’re guaranteed a change of diaper and clothing before the inspector comes through.
Aging is an absolute horror. We as a species sit here with our opposable thumbs up our collective rectums and hoot and holler about 8K streaming and AI instead of focusing on anti-aging.
Fix it then if you’re going to be abrupt about it. Stop whining and acting entitled to something better and do something better.
Invested carefully, even at an underperforming 5% return, that’s still $30k/yr. Not really enough to live the easy life but it’s enough to pay for health insurance while you work on selling artisinal Swedish fire torches.
enough to pay for health insurance
What a savage notion. Civilized countries have socialized healthcare.
Thanks for rubbing it in
Substitute whatever you’d like to spend that money on, maybe you have great single payer so maybe you want to spend it on travel, maybe it’s a new car, maybe you want to gamble it all away. The point is that even a relatively small amount of money buys you enough “wiggle room” to pursue more leisurely ways of making a little money.
It’s easier to make a living walking dogs when you don’t have to worry about keeping the lights on.
Kinda buried the lede there at the end… 😂
I’m only sorta kidding. I would for sure do all the other stuff.
Wait is this really a good rich person? I have to think something’s up
Better than most but at the end of the day it would have been nice to give that money to the people that built the company he sold for $1.6B.
I would think there’s a lot of talented people that worked hard to build the value of that company such that he could sell it for a huge amount of money.
Definitely better than buying a yacht, but he still got to decide what to do with the value created by others.
AppNexus employs 1000 people across 5 continents. If the ceo has an extra $1.5B kicking around he could have given every person that helped build AppNexus $1.5M, which is a truly life changing amount of money for your average person.
Gen Xer, we’re mostly cool. Still some ass hats but most of us try to be cool, do the right things
Oh, sorry, forgot you were here
most of us try to be cool
i’m also gen X. your experience doesn’t match mine
Sorry man. I hope you’re ok.
not really, but thanks. for some reason gen x went “i love fascism.”
https://williamfleitch.medium.com/why-did-generation-x-go-so-hard-for-trump-ab5ce5ac8659
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/gen-x-politics-explained-republicans.html
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-gen-x-went-maga/
personally: a lot of the dudes i grew up with are absolutely full-blown “my purpose in life is to be better than everyone else, and trump is going to give me that” mentality
again, i’m glad that your experience is better, but please don’t assume that it’s across the board
the maga fascist cult is a fucking cancer that afflicts every age group. make people afraid, give them an “enemy” to hate, profit
fucking nazis
I hear you and agree, I know some people I grew up with went full maga. I think my use of “most” could have been “some”. Which probably applies to all generations, sadly. Also, fuck Nazis. 💯
Boomers: we went to woodstock! Free love
Gen X: I know just the way to rebel against that!
(I kid, of course)
Seeing the Woodstockers of yesteryear become the Boomers of today means that my secondary retirement plan is a bullet. If I ever so fundamentally betray my values like that my friends and family have explicit instructions to put one through my brain stem and put me in a hole. There is no event, experience or injury that exists that can turn me into a conservative without first removing all parts that make me myself. At that point, that is no longer the Skul you once knew, that is a zombie, and it needs to be put down. I will never, ever understand how yesteryear’s free love hippies became today’s “fiscal conservatives”.
You won’t… The so-called “hippies” turned Trumpers never actually believed in anything, they just enjoyed the music, vibes, and aesthetic.
I should know, my dad is one of them.
I was told my whole life that I’d become more conservative as I got older and started working and paying taxes, etc. Literally the exact opposite has happened. If anything, those things radicalized me against capitalism.
I’d say we Gen-Xers are at a crucial age in human development where, for whatever biological or other reasons, people lean into their base beliefs hard. Much like booze, age reveals who you really are.
I hear you bro I’ve been drunk for as long as I can remember and it really does make you an honest human being. Sometimes it’s painful but most of the time it’s beautiful. I could just be a normal sad guy but instead I choose to be this
Aren’t most MAGA Gen Xers?
Idk about most. But, yeah, Gen Xers are roughly 45-65yo right now, so there’s definitely a whole lot of ladder pulling being done by that group.
I’m too lazy to read, but they probably didn’t grow up in this wealth they ran into it later and didn’t hold on to it long enough to be corrupted.
Also see Chuck Feeney
if i ruled the world no single person would have more than 1bn, hence why it would never happen. (id be very unqualified)
Most of the assclowns running shit now are horribly unfit. At least you have some perspective.
A lot of people say and/or think that until they have a billion dollars, unfortunately. Absolute wealth corrupts absolutely, absolute power corrupts absolutely, so on and so forth
Russian Nobleman paradox. 100 million is still a lot though. Company was AppNexus, name rings a bell. Sold to AT&T.
Even still, $100m is more than enough to live a very comfortable life and secure your family’s future. No one needs $1b.
What about $300b though?
That’s like, occasionally order off the value menu rich
100 million is still a lot though.
To be fair, the article does mention that he’s considering using that as a way to fund his current startup if it ever needs a cash injection, rather than turning straight to more VCs, which is probably good in the long run in terms of reducing how much the company could have to cater toward predatory investors over customers, so I’d consider at least part of his remaining wealth just a means to fund a separate venture from his private life, but still, he probably does have more than enough even after that.
Also, I’d never heard of the Russian Nobleman paradox before, but I looked it up and it seems interesting. Thanks for sharing it.
I’m not criticizing him for keeping enough to keep him and his family comfortable for a few generations. Giving away a comma is a big request that he did without needing to be asked.
A young Russian nobleman intends to give his estate to peasants upon inheriting them. He also realizes that over time, his ideals might fade. Thus, he puts his ideas down into a legal document that can only be revoked by his wife. He makes her promise not to consent if he changes his mind later on.
At the time, he argues these core beliefs are an essential part of him, stating: “If I lose these ideals, I want you to think that I cease to exist.”
Now suppose 50 years later, he changes his mind and asks his wife to revoke the documents. The wife made a promise to the young nobleman. Is the old nobleman, with all his memories and new beliefs, the same person as the young nobleman? What should she do?Is the old nobleman, with all his memories and new beliefs, the same person as the young nobleman?
Count Theseuski
Maybe I’m missing something, seems like an easy “paradox” to solve:
The legal regime recognizes the person as the same person, proven by the very premise of the question, that the older nobleman retains ownership over the funds. The wife should honor the promise because she made the promise with a person continuous with the younger nobleman in the relevant aspect (it is legal document). The fact that the older nobleman has different beliefs is irrelevant because the question already concedes primacy to the law, implicit in the law protecting the older gentleman’s right to dictate disposition of the funds. Someone enlighten me if I’m missing the point?
Now… if the younger nobleman disclaimed his old self and all prior inheritance (or had amnesia and lost all connection to his prior self), and built a new fortune somehow covered by the earlier promise, that would be a more interesting question. Then the person may not be continuous for ethical/duty purposes yet still continuous for legal purposes.
AppNexus is a cloud-based software platform that enables and optimizes programmatic online advertising. It was founded in 2007…
Yeah, I would feel bad keeping all of the money from that, too.
I felt like this guy was doing the right thing but the amount of visual pollution he must have enabled in his career is wild. I hope it keeps him up at night.
Gave the rest… to his employees… right??
Lol, they probably set up a foundation and now don’t have to ever pay taxes again
Removed by mod
He accomplished an ideal that if every other billionaire upheld and followed suit, we wouldn’t have the problems we do.
The Woz™ recently commented on this topic: https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23765914&cid=65583466
by SteveWoz ( 152247 ) on 2025-08-11 20:36
I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.
[replied to the wrong comment]
He accomplished donating 1.5 billion dollars to causes and charities, and still got to live worry free for the rest of his life. I’d say at that point he shouldn’t be expected to live like a struggling laborer just to prove himself to unimpressed dickheads who don’t recognize a good thing.
More than you have, I’d guess.
More than what was expected.
