Inside The Post-Minecraft Life Of Billionaire Markus Persson

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Every time I read one of these articles about how Markus Persson made $2.5 billion off Minecraft, the only thing that comes to mind is "good for him." :)

But there are also a slew of younger Markus Perssons who are hungrier and more attuned to what the next generation of kids wants. Asked about this, the Minecraft creator responds that he’s completely comfortable being a one-hit wonder. Being insanely rich and prematurely washed up apparently trumps the stresses of responsibility over a virtual nation that alternately reveres and despises you.
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[quoteBeing insanely rich and prematurely washed up apparently trumps the stresses of responsibility over a virtual nation that alternately reveres and despises you.[/quote]

Pretty much. Can't blame the guy for enjoying his well-earned money. He was never a businessman, it's good that he stepped away while Minecraft was near its peak.
 
With that kind of money, I'd just go back to school, get whatever degrees/certs suited my fancy, and do contract work for interesting projects.
 
With that kind of money, I would never ever work again. Not for pay at least. I might do various projects for my own interests, or do some volunteering for a good cause, but not traditional work. And I would probably spend at least the first year just traveling the world.
 
i960 said:
With that kind of money, I would never ever work again. Not for pay at least. I might do various projects for my own interests, or do some volunteering for a good cause, but not traditional work. And I would probably spend at least the first year just traveling the world.
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Some people argue this will prevent you from being rich. Its a negative feedback effect. The better you do the more you pull back your effort until you are no longer doing better.
 
As talented and creative Notch is, I think the chances of him coming up with another game of equal success is very low. It takes plenty of luck too for everything to fall into place at the right time. So instead of wasting several years of his life painstakingly chasing that same success, he might as well use the money he have and enjoy the remaining years of his life.
 
jpm100 said:
Some people argue this will prevent you from being rich. Its a negative feedback effect. The better you do the more you pull back your effort until you are no longer doing better.
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Something is wrong with you if you burn through 2.5Bn in a year or two. If you do, you should probably take a step back and re-evaluate your life. Tons of people could live off of just $1 million if they were careful and spent it right, let alone 2.5Bn.
 
TheOneKnownAsMe said:
Something is wrong with you if you burn through 2.5Bn in a year or two. If you do, you should probably take a step back and re-evaluate your life. Tons of people could live off of just $1 million if they were careful and spent it right, let alone 2.5Bn.
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Hell with that. I want an island, and not just any island, i want one that is populated and has its own power plant and water treatment plant.
 
jpm100 said:
Some people argue this will prevent you from being rich. Its a negative feedback effect. The better you do the more you pull back your effort until you are no longer doing better.
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I've long accepted the fact that I will never be rich, unless out of dumb luck I fall into a pile of money (such as winning the lotto). I'm not the type of person who will work myself to death chasing riches. Because even with hard work, it still often requires quite a bit of luck and knowing the right people or being at the right place at the right time to truly become rich. Markus was lucky. Plenty of people have created better games and worked significantly harder, and they aren't rich. Like others have said, I doubt Markus could ever repeat what he did with Minecraft, and that's perfectly ok. We get a unique and interesting game, and he gets to live out the rest of his life without financial worry (provided he doesn't do something stupid). It's a win win for everyone.
 
Hornet said:
As talented and creative Notch is, I think the chances of him coming up with another game of equal success is very low. It takes plenty of luck too for everything to fall into place at the right time. So instead of wasting several years of his life painstakingly chasing that same success, he might as well use the money he have and enjoy the remaining years of his life.
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x100

He will NEVER make that same smash hit. One in 1,000,000,000. Luck ass bastard. :D

He would be better off traveling, doing philanthropy, working with kids etc.
 
I would be quite content being a one hit wonder for a few million. I have enough to do outside of work and I'd like to think I'm smart enough to make the money last the rest of my life.
 
Every time I see an article like this...

I wonder why people are so damn open with their riches. Granted its public knowledge that Microsoft paid him a ton of money for his property, but I would not be telling everyone the 80 million dollar house I just bought, I would not be giving interviews on "what I'm doing now", I would really try to stay as much out of the radar as possible. I mean he's not really a celebrity, paparazzi are not going to be chasing him. Buy a big estate in Hawaii or something, and just chill for the rest of your life.
 
If you're rich and want publicity, simply donate toward a noble cause or start a foundation. You can't expect that level of maturity out of anyone involved with the video game industry, though.
 
Megalith said:
If you're rich and want publicity, simply donate toward a noble cause or start a foundation. You can't expect that level of maturity out of anyone involved with the video game industry, though.
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If I were rich like that, I wouldn't go looking for publicity. What is the point unless you are an attention whore?

You don't even have to be rich to get a lot of publicity.

You can go out and have a shooting spree or be any other type of mass murderer, or even just murder some lame attention whore public figure.

And again, what is the point?
 
There is no point, at least to the few like to us. I'm just saying that there are better ways to go about it for the many others who crave attention.
 
When you are that rich, you no longer have to work to make money. You pay someone to invest and live off the interest... And lets not forget that you get dropped down to the lowest tax bracket for income from investments (15%), minus all the rich people deductions (dressage horse, jet fuel etc....), he'd pay almost nothing.

I would love to cash out like that and retire early, go see the world without worrying about money. I'm totally jealous, but good for him.
 
There are some "young billionaires" that I can hate because they just inherit their money (even if some try hiding that fact). But, I could never hate Notch. He used to post videos of making Minecraft and the early versions were a huge community project (well technically the best versions of Minecraft still are a community project). I am glad that Microsoft bought him out, because it lets him go to work on something new without the pressure to duplicate the success of Minecraft. Hopefully, Microsoft will bring some new talent into Mojang and rewrite the core in something other than Java or hire some of the guys who started doing so.
 
Ruoh said:
With that kind of money, I'd just go back to school, get whatever degrees/certs suited my fancy, and do contract work for interesting projects.
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With that kind of money you don't need certification from anybody. You are the institution.
 
Megalith said:
If you're rich and want publicity, simply donate toward a noble cause or start a foundation. You can't expect that level of maturity out of anyone involved with the video game industry, though.
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Why would you say that?

I've been playing video games for 25 years. It's no more out of the ordinary then someone in their 30's that still go and "shoots hoops" periodically. In my household (with me being the head), game time is how the family spends time together...before my generation (and still my generation) it was board games. No difference.

The point is, that video games have become a staple aspect of the Gen X/Y'ers and above life and it's not really a "game" anymore. It is a way of life and it is a very active industry. The people that grew up playing games can get a real legitimate job making games and it can pay well. It can also be an utter shitbox of a career just like working for any other traditional industry.
 
Ruoh said:
With that kind of money, I'd just go back to school, get whatever degrees/certs suited my fancy, and do contract work for interesting projects.
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With 2.5 Billion why would you do that.

Just pay people smarter than you in those fields to do the work for you.

And collect profit!

Win!
 
westrock2000 said:
So lesson learned.

Be like Notch

DO NOT be like Groupon

^^^ Dumbasses!!
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Man completely forgot about Groupon. And here I was giving Mark Cuban shit, saying "who would say no, when someone basically writes a check with 9 zeros after the first number, when the largest paycheck you've gotten from your company only had 5 zeros after it" welp, found someone who said no
 
i960 said:
With that kind of money, I would never ever work again. Not for pay at least. I might do various projects for my own interests, or do some volunteering for a good cause, but not traditional work.
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This.
 
Holy bananas, he spent 180K in one night at a Vegas night club? More than once? That would be expensive fun. That works out to about 0.0072% of his net worth. So that would be like me spending $43 bucks...which wouldn't even get me into the same club. :(

Yay math!
 
i960 said:
I've long accepted the fact that I will never be rich, unless out of dumb luck I fall into a pile of money (such as winning the lotto). I'm not the type of person who will work myself to death chasing riches. Because even with hard work, it still often requires quite a bit of luck and knowing the right people or being at the right place at the right time to truly become rich. Markus was lucky. Plenty of people have created better games and worked significantly harder, and they aren't rich. Like others have said, I doubt Markus could ever repeat what he did with Minecraft, and that's perfectly ok. We get a unique and interesting game, and he gets to live out the rest of his life without financial worry (provided he doesn't do something stupid). It's a win win for everyone.
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Yeah, in the USA at least, the #1 indicator of how wealthy you will be is how wealthy your parents are. The class you are born into determines the fate for the majority of people. Like you said, other factors, particularly luck play into people rising above that.

It's kind of bizarre to think about, you mention he won't have to live out his life with finamcial worry, that would be true of him for 1000th or even a 10000th of what he has now. I feel like if I was worth BILLIONS I would have some responsibility to try and improve the world somehow. With THAT kind of money, I would have plenty for just about every fantasy project conceivable with ENORMOUS amounts left over for something more substantial. For me personally, not doing something worthwhile with that kind of money would be practically a crime.
 
I would disappear. No interviews, no press. Just flat out gone. Maybe I'd spend a few months watching whales. Then I might go to a remote cabin and read for a long while (and fish, enjoy myself, etc).
I would be just fine. Heck, give me just 1 billion and I will be beyond good.
 
Hornet said:
As talented and creative Notch is, I think the chances of him coming up with another game of equal success is very low. It takes plenty of luck too for everything to fall into place at the right time. So instead of wasting several years of his life painstakingly chasing that same success, he might as well use the money he have and enjoy the remaining years of his life.
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He's been very up front about this, going so far as to say that if he accidentally made another such success that he would just can the project.

Good for him to sticking to his guns and knowing what makes him happy.
 
jpm100 said:
Some people argue this will prevent you from being rich. Its a negative feedback effect. The better you do the more you pull back your effort until you are no longer doing better.
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That theory only holds for retards. Like MC Hammer spending tens of millions on mansions and losing it all.


It's incredibly easy once you have enough wealth to keep it relatively safe and earning money for you.
 
All he has to do is find someone smart in the stock market to invest for him and he is set til the end of days. With that much money he can easily break even if he has investments, unless he buys one too many yachts.
 
Makaveli@BETA said:
With 2.5 Billion why would you do that.

Just pay people smarter than you in those fields to do the work for you.

And collect profit!

Win!
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Because not working would drive me insane. I'd rather better myself, and work on interesting projects.
 
Orgies and pot, every night for the rest of my life.
 
If I was rich I would still keep a job. Jack N The Box, for example. I would work there until I got fired for standing around and constantly eating curly fries.
 
People say good for him, but IMO its TOO good for him.

We have limited resources in this world, and while its fantastic that someone that has created a useful product gets rich off it (that's supposed to be the reward incentive to encourage such activity after all), there's rich and then there's stupid rich. Money is just the representation of "stored" resources, exchangeable at any time.

So IMO, no, I'm not happy for the guy, as its just too much and reminds me of how broken our global resource distribution is.

Remember the global GDP per capita is currently $13,101 a year.

People generally can't even imagine what a billion is, they can't actually fully wrap their minds around how large of a number that is. It may help to say that its one thousand thousand thousands... but even that doesn't really do it justice.

Since the average person makes $13K a year, that means that in a lifetime (50 years) of working, they will make $650K. Lets say that 25% of their income (pretty high) goes towards paying off a house in 50 years, that means they would over their lifetime pay off a $160K home.

If we take $2.5 Billion and divide it by $160K, we get a bit under 16K. So in a few years, the guy could pay off the homes that would take 16K people a lifetime to pay off.

But can you even picture 16,000 homes? I mean you can picture 100 homes in a large neighborhood, then think of climbing up a tall tower and seeing twice as far out to 200 homes and then use binoculars and see twice as far as that to 400 homes. But 16,000 homes?

Its just f'ed up, and I don't see how anyone can claim otherwise.
 
Ducman69 said:
People say good for him, but IMO its TOO good for him.

We have limited resources in this world, and while its fantastic that someone that has created a useful product gets rich off it (that's supposed to be the reward incentive to encourage such activity after all), there's rich and then there's stupid rich. Money is just the representation of "stored" resources, exchangeable at any time.

So IMO, no, I'm not happy for the guy, as its just too much and reminds me of how broken our global resource distribution is.

Remember the global GDP per capita is currently $13,101 a year.

People generally can't even imagine what a billion is, they can't actually fully wrap their minds around how large of a number that is. It may help to say that its one thousand thousand thousands... but even that doesn't really do it justice.

Since the average person makes $13K a year, that means that in a lifetime (50 years) of working, they will make $650K. Lets say that 25% of their income (pretty high) goes towards paying off a house in 50 years, that means they would over their lifetime pay off a $160K home.

If we take $2.5 Billion and divide it by $160K, we get a bit under 16K. So in a few years, the guy could pay off the homes that would take 16K people a lifetime to pay off.

But can you even picture 16,000 homes? I mean you can picture 100 homes in a large neighborhood, then think of climbing up a tall tower and seeing twice as far out to 200 homes and then use binoculars and see twice as far as that to 400 homes. But 16,000 homes?

Its just f'ed up, and I don't see how anyone can claim otherwise.
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The people that claim otherwise have that kind of money.
 
Then start a social media site like Facebook but call it something else.
I would buy the Clippers from Ballmer pay him double what he paid.
 
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