Young tech millionaires keeping 1-bedroom lifestyle

[EMJ]

By Jessica Guynn
Los Angeles Times
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Aaron Patzer lives in a 600-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto with an old couch and TV. His favorite shoes are hand-me-down brown leather wingtips that, at 39, are older than he is. He gets $12 haircuts.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... tus11.html

[TheWanderingScholar]

That is pretty flippin' awesome.

Also I can't access the webpage.

[JasonR]

o

[TheWanderingScholar]

Thanks Jason. He seem quite interesting.

[jacob]

I like the "keeping up with Steve Jobs instead of the Joneses" comment. I think maybe the issue here is that if you're in a situation where you feel like you got way more money than you've earned---e.g. you won at IPO or you made it via investments rather than studying for 10 years and working 100 hour weeks as a lawyer or a doctor---just spending the money on stuff doesn't seem like much of an achievement.
I think many of us here can relate. If you yourself could in principle easily buy status symbols, are you really impressed with people who do it? Would you be impressed with yourself?
Of course, then there's the eye-rolling "relative frugality", like being a big person and 'only' spending $7 million on a house when you could have bought a $700 million one. Hmmmm ... That not frugal, that's simply living below your means for the exclusive reason that your means are enormous. It doesn't have anything to do with financial/economical character.

[paxprobellum]

I was thinking the same thing about the 7 million dollar house. Sure, it's cheap if you are a billionaire. Other than that, it's 7 million dollars!

[Maus]

I don't know. $7M in Palo Alto is like a 800 sq. ft. 2BR-1BA fixer upper. (I jest.) But, seriously, I paid $800 per month for my half of an old, 2BR apartment three blocks from downtown, and that was in 1994. Living in PA is insanely expensive.

[dragoncar]

You can roll your eyes at someone buying a $7 million house instead of a $700 million house. But I can roll my eyes at the guy in the story buying a $700 condo in SF. That's still not really frugal (not that he has to be).

[jacob]

The eye rolling is not that these guys buy these homes but that the journalist describes it as being simple/frugal/...
I think frugality is an absolute standard. It's not relative to income.

[Maus]

@Jacob

I am inclined to agree with the "absolute standard" concept. While Warren Buffett might applaud Zuckerberg for his $100M donation to NJ schools, he'd likely deplore the $7M home purchase. Buffett reputedly enjoys living in a modest 3BR in Omaha that he bought before he was a billionaire (for what I'm guessing was low five figures based on our own 4BR family home in the late 60s).
I even take exception to Zuckerberg's choice of donees. More money is unlikely to improve the educational outcome of the vast majority of NJ pupils, but the vaccines and basic medical care that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has flooded Africa with will certainly have significant health outcomes.

[George the original one]

I've seen pictures of Buffett's home... it is modest by the standards of well-off people, but most of us would still find it aspirational.