Comment by kalkin

Right. There's no rule that if you get a hold of $XX million that you need to keep it. I'd argue, in fact, that there's a pretty good case you're obligated to give most of it away; you can keep single-digit millions and have total financial security for all practical purposes while sacrificing only a few luxuries that, as the author of this essay appears to have noticed, won't actually give your life meaning. Meanwhile, each $1M donated to insecticide-treated bednets (for one well-quantified example) could save hundreds of lives: https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf#What_do_you_get_for_y...

If there's a moral case for keeping the cash, it's the leverage it could provide to do something that (at least has a chance of being) even bigger. But few are the people who have legitimate reason to believe the expected value calculation comes out positively. People who feel directionless or jump on the latest Elon thing on a whim seem especially unlikely to be among those few.

(I'm not going to provide documentation, so take this for what little it's worth, but I myself gave away the majority of the several million I received for being a sufficiently early employee at the right startup. And I do not regret it.)