This article is from “ still speaking without raising your hand (ID: JustBB2) “, author: Hang Zhou (cis capital investment partner, former founder and easy to car), title figure: IC photo

Under the world’s attention, Space X’s Falcon 9 launcher rockets into space. Twelve minutes later, the Dragon spacecraft aboard two NASA astronauts was sent into space, and the rocket successfully landed and recovered. Musk, the often questioned “Silicon Valley madman” “dreamer” and “smoker”, once again said it was done, once again made everyone’s blood boil, and once again made a big step forward.

Why do you do this? Is it just a boy’s dream? Is it just because of “coolness”? Of course, this is really cool. And in a deeper sense, Musk explained on Twitter with a sentence of Hawking: “I don’t think humans can survive for thousands of years unless we spread to space. On a single planet, we are facing too many survival threats, But I am an optimist, we will eventually reach the sea of ​​stars. “

Musk finally arrived.

Earth is not worthy of me, my journey is the sea of ​​stars

Besides Musk, Bezos of blue origin also said: “If human beings cannot develop space and live on multiple planets, then the development of civilization will eventually stall.status. “This is not a false statement. Perhaps the plan to immigrate to space may last for hundreds of years, but generations need to work hard for it. Musk also said on Twitter the next plan:” 2021, Mars. “

This makes me think about the question, where is the end of wealth to be more valuable.

Several destinations of wealth

Let ’s take a look first. When a person has enough money, how will he spend it?

The first is to continue to invest and make more money.

It sounds very simple. Continue to increase investment and get involved in more business fields. Money makes money, so more and more money. Let wealth create new wealth. But if money is just to create more money, then? Is it just looking at a house of gold and silver treasures, watching the huge number of changes in the account and secretly ecstasy, or is it because of the continuous listing on the rich list, the ranking continues to advance and enjoy the envy of others? Haha, managing wealth is also a very annoying thing. A friend bought hundreds of houses. He joked that his wife had to rely on Excel to manage these houses. Maybe at this moment, you want to say “the days of rich people are so simple and boring.”

Second, spend it and make yourself happy.

Materials can bring pleasure, and sometimes even a little contentment will make you happy. I remember when I started a business in the 1990s, I lived with a few colleagues, and sometimes I felt a lot when I spent 100 yuan a day. At that time, if the business was doing well in a week, a few people would eat a KFC to reward themselves. This was a luxury at the time, and I can still recall that satisfaction until now.

But the pleasure that material brings is not always proportional to wealth. I know a rich man and bought four private jets. I asked him why he bought so much? He said that the previous one could only run short distances and could not fly directly to the United States, so he bought another one that flies directly to the United States. Later, when he saw a newer and more luxurious one, he bought another one. This comparison may bring unexplained unhappiness, in fact, this anxiety is for yourself.

When I entered the field of art, I found this to be another Vanity Fair. Originally artwork is a very pleasant thing for people, but seeing others spend tens of millions of dollars, or even hundreds of millions of dollars to buy a piece of art, if the mentality is not good, there will be a sense of powerlessness, I am very poor and unhappy. It can be seen that wealth is used to satisfy materialThe economic utility of demand and desire will become worse and worse, so that in the end there is no utility or even a negative utility. Obviously, material desires will not be the ultimate destination of wealth.

“Great Gatsby”, the loneliness of the rich Gatsby

There are not many people who have such troubles. Buffett said: “There are some material things that make my life more comfortable, but there are many things that can’t. It is good to have an expensive private jet, but it is a burden to own half a dozen luxury houses. , It is often occupied by matter. “

So, Buffett, who does n’t want to be controlled by material, chooses to do charity. This is the third end of wealth: to disperse, to save the suffering of others.

Buffett and Gates have long planned to donate all their property to the foundation for charity. Under the influence of this kind of charity concept and practical action, many new rich people do the same now. The problem is coming, I said in a previous article, Most public welfare do n’t pay much attention to efficiency, it is possible that the charity you do is just a process of burning wealth, because donation does not necessarily inspire or encourage the recipients. The creative ability of the company will even form a negative incentive.

There is a coal boss who built a villa for every household in the village after gaining hundreds of millions of wealth. Unexpectedly, I received the verbal abuse of the villagers very quickly, and even people often came to the house to make trouble. The reason is simple. The villagers think that if you are so rich, why only give me a little? You are not right. So even during the holidays, he distributed rice and noodles to every household, so he still had to hide in the field because there were too many people asking for help.

This big brother is indeed very generous and benevolent, but the fact is that villagers are gradually losing their self-sufficient creative ability, so it is said that such a distribution mechanism will make people lack the motivation to create wealth, and society will gradually lose the incentive to wealth mechanism.

I have also participated in some of these yearsIn the process of public welfare undertakings, I deeply felt that public welfare organizations have a natural sense of moral superiority, but they do not pay much attention to efficiency. I think about it: It seems that no major problem in human history has been solved through public welfare.

Let wealth fly into space for human exploration

Because of economic laws and systems, wealth is inevitably concentrated in the hands of a small number of people. This small group of people has a lot of wealth in society. In fact, only 1% of this money may be used for their material consumption. Most of it is used for investment, and another part is used for charity, so what other things can be done to make more sense?

This is the fourth option I want to talk about: exploring for humanity.

Entrepreneurs or rich people are willing to take out part of their wealth to solve major problems on behalf of humanity as a whole, for example, in the case of “God”. As Musk believes that the exploration of space is of great significance to the continuation of humanity, human beings as a race must survive to spread to other planets. A lot of “useless things” in the eyes of ordinary people may have huge historical significance after a few years, a hundred years or even longer.

In the 1970s, a Zambian nun wrote to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Dr. Sturing, questioning the research conducted by the flight center on the manned mission to Mars. I did n’t understand that there are still many children on Earth who suffer from hunger. , Why invest billions of dollars in a plan to explore space. Dr. Sturinger answered well why these distant “useless things” should be done-“Why are people so arrogant on the moon?”

This letter touched me very much, and my mood is like the famous saying in the letter, “I look at the future with anxiety, but I am still full of good hope.”

Why go out of the earth? Although humans have many unresolved practical problems, as the species on earth, humansThere must be an urge to go out. If we do not go out, human civilization will remain locked in a certain dimension and cannot be broken through. Civilization itself, like humans, is constantly seeking breakthroughs. If it cannot develop, we will die like life, and we, without civilization, will like other species that disappeared on the earth, such as dinosaurs, eventually go to extinction.

So, in order for civilization to continue to advance, mankind must break free of the gravity. In the process of breaking free and breaking through, only when a person has enough energy and wealth and a high degree of thought will he think about the overall destiny of mankind. Fortunately, many people have already taken “Star Ocean” as a journey, and are working hard for this. Especially today, after seeing Musk rewrite the history of human spaceflight after several failures and efforts.

When a person begins to think about the overall destiny of mankind, he will not be limited by the physical nature of the earth. Imagine that if you stand on a certain planet in the galaxy and look back at the blue planet, you will definitely jump out and rethink the overall destiny of mankind. You will find that when you go out, you do n’t have to worry about the problems that need to be solved urgently on the earth, whether it is environmental problems or social problems, or what to do if you are impacted by foreign organisms. Only by seeking breakthroughs in dimensions beyond time and space will it be possible for civilization as a whole to gain huge opportunities for development.

will turn into creation

The plan for immigration to space may be hundreds of years or even longer, and may not eventually break through, but at least we cannot stop exploring. Once stopped, human civilization will also stagnate. Would it be more valuable if some of the wealth could be made to shine on the “God” thing? And this will not affect your normal consumption and investment.

Of course, exploring space itself is also an investment, for the investment of mankind as a whole, for future investment. Of course, the difficulties and failures encountered in this process are unimaginable, but it does n’t matter if you fail, Musk said: “In my opinion, failure is a choice. If there is no failure, then your innovation not enough.”

Wealth is like life, and it needs an ultimate destination. Those who control huge amounts of wealth will release their imagination and focus on the problems of humanity as a whole. I think this is the new direction of wealth and will have great significance.