Not Enough

Last year Mark McGoldrick made $70 million running the special-situations group at Goldman Sachs. He earned about a thousand times—give or take—what the average American family makes, yet he felt underpaid.

Mr. McGoldrick and some of the partners in his unit griped that they weren't being rewarded as well as counterparts at hedge funds and private-equity firms. Though highly paid, his team was "under-compensated."

Mark McGoldrick illustrates the importance of relative status to human happiness. It wasn’t enough that he made more money than he could ever spend or that he could already guarantee the financial security of his family if he never worked another day in his life. He was falling behind the people against whom he measured himself.

But it’s hard to fault his feelings, for who amongst us doesn’t know someone who’s more successful and admired than we are—sometimes by a lot—yet isn’t as deserving :)? If we are wise, we will accept the ineluctable fact that there will always be those whom we can never catch up to. And if we ourselves are to be truly happy, we must reach the state where we can (genuinely) rejoice in their successes and wish them well.

Mark McGoldrick resigned from Goldman Sachs and is thinking of starting his own fund. I hope he finds what he’s looking for. © 2007 Stephen Yuen