Home of Emanuel Ferm

Recently an old friend asked me if I wanted to be rich. “Of course” was my answer. A simple question with – for me – an obvious answer. But judging from the shower of various accusations, the subject of money apparently is more provoking than I thought. Since I couldn’t care less about having money to spend, but I still wish to be rich, I gave it a second thought.

Money is nothing more than a means of measurement. I have an ambition of creating something, be it a company, a product or an idea. And since I want to be a part of the development, from idea to (hopefully) establishment, I probably will want my own company. From here the argument is really simple – if I’m good at what I do, and play my cards right, I will earn relatively much money.

Is my motivation money? Of course not. It couldn’t be. It’s no different than the philosophy of truly great companies. Take Apple as an example. The same thing is also clearly described in Good to Great, by Jim Collins: one of the main reasons for a persistent success is the ability to value what the company creates more than creating stockholder value. It’s a paradox, yes, but one that has to be dealt with.

You seldom create something lastingly great if your primary ambition is money. Instead this occurs when your passion and focus is solely on the creation of a product. If what you create is good, money will follow. Christopher Ahlgren, founder of Spotfire and earning 125 MSEK from the Tibco acquisition, also stressed this fact at a lecture at Chalmers earlier this year. I remember him saying that “it’s a sign that many people like what you created”. He also said something like “Is it fun to get that much money? Hell yeah! But that’s not why I created Spotfire.”

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that there are far more ways to measure if what one works with is great or not. Access to cool technology, for example. Or the ability to travel and meeting many talented people. Or the ability to generate lots of money through innovation. Money is certainly not the only measurement possible.

To me, asking if I want to be rich is thus like asking if I want to contribute with great things. Of course I want to, and I’m going to do my best to fulfill it all.

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One could also say that it’s about survival, in a biological sense. The more wealth you’re able to accumulate, the more fit for survival you are in the modern jungle. It’s the same as the cave man with the most wolf skins – he was better at killing wolves thus climbed the food chain. Also, the cave man probably got more cave girls…