回头看看左边
English summary available ↓
In a meeting yesterday, Alan pulled up a table from The Star about retirement at 60. If you want RM10k a month in passive income after retiring, at a conservative 3 percent return you need about RM3.9 million; for RM100k a month, RM39.06 million. How much is enough differs from person to person, but Alan shared the perspective behind the numbers. In the startup world we're used to staring at the right side of the table: the results, the astronomical figures, IPOs, Fortune 500, strings of zeros. Few stop to look at the left side, the real entry point to life, the floor price of the life you want. Alan told us about a friend worth billions who had long won the money game, yet still goes all in and can't sleep over a small market move. Asked what he wants, he said he wants to be stronger than the richest man. When desire has no structure, it becomes a black hole that swallows time. Many founders treat IPO as the finish line and the Fortune 500 as a medal, forgetting these are by-products of solving problems. If the goal is only more, money creates new disasters instead of solving anything. If we can't define enough, we can never be free. Entrepreneurship should trade time for control over your life, not end as a balance sheet with numbers and no warmth. Look back at the left side, so you don't lose yourself on the way to the right.
Read full English version →昨天和 Alan 开会。他随手切了一张图，那是《The Star》的一组回测数据，聊的是 60 岁后的退休生活。
如果你希望退休后每个月有 RM10k 的被动收入，按 3% 的保守回酬算，你得赚够 RM3.9 million。如果你想要月领 RM100k，那个数字是 RM39.06 million。
钱多钱少，因人而异。可是 Alan 分享了这组数据背后的视角。
在创业圈子里，我们太习惯盯着「右边」看。右边是结果，是天文数字，是让人肾上腺素飙升的千万或亿万。我们聊 IPO，聊世界 500 强，聊那一串长到数不清的零。但很少有人愿意静下心，看看「左边」。
左边是什么？左边是生活的真实入口，是你通往理想人生闭环的底价。
Alan 提到他一个朋友。身价几十亿，早已赢下了这场金钱游戏。但他依然在疯狂 All In，也因为市场的一丝波动整夜失眠，焦虑得像个刚入行的学徒。Alan 问他到底想要什么。他说，他要比首富更强。
当欲望没有了结构，它就成了一个吞噬时间的黑洞。
很多创业者在设定目标时，带有一种莫名其妙的执念。我们把 IPO 当成终点，把 500 强当成勋章，却忘了这些都只是解决某些问题后的副产品。如果目标仅仅是「更多」，那么钱非但不能解决问题，反而会带来新的灾难。
创业本身是一场修行。它把枯燥的商业逻辑，拆解成了活生生的人间烟火。我们在这场烟火里狂奔，却时常忘了审视：我到底要多少？
大多数人的痛苦，在于想要右边的结果，却从未理清左边的成本。
如果我们不能定义「足够」，就永远无法获得自由。创业的本质，应该是用时间去交换生活的掌控感，而不是被欲望吞噬，最后活成一张只有数字、没有温度的资产负债表。
回头看看左边。看清你的需求，才不会在通往右边的路上，丢掉了你自己。