Gems on Quora: My Motivation

All I Wanted was a Fucking Lambo

With so much talk about changing the world, and making a difference… I’m almost ashamed to admit my initial motivations for starting a business. When I was a management consultant back in NYC, a partner saw my Lamborghini wallpaper on my shitty Lenovo and exclaimed, “That your dream car? You’re not going to get that in THIS business.” I’ll admit, my heart sank a little when I heard that.

A couple months later, I quit and moved out to SF. I didn’t want to be another cog in the wheel anymore, I wanted to do big things, I wanted to make a name for myself, but most importantly, I wanted my fucking Lambo. 

Most people think a Lambo is a symbol of wealth and success, which it is, but for me, it’s more than that. It’s a symbol of personal accomplishment, a trophy that signifies that you’ve created value, and made some sort of impact in this world. And really, it’s just a sexy car… imagine all those numbers from girls! Kidding. (sorta) 

I know I know… material possessions don’t boost happiness in the long term, life is all about experiences, blah blah… People who say that usually don’t own a fucking Lambo. With that said, I love my job, I love my company, and it’s great that I can do all these things and have the goal of owning a Lambo still there, but sitting in the back burner. Here’s the obligatory part of the post where I talk about how awesome building a company is, and how the reward goes beyond just the monetary aspects and that success is more than just becoming rich… yep all that and more. 

But still… even to this day… the car… THAT car… It’s still a small reason why I wake up in the morning wanting to kick ass at what I do.

I think I push myself to work hard not only to be able to provide for my [soon-to-be] family and my parents, but also because I'm scared of living a "normal" life: having to worry about sufficient leisure funds, having to put up with annoyances that can be solved with money, etc etc -- mediocrity, or what seems like the opposite of a fulfilling life.