The Lifestyle Business and Tropical MBA podcasts give some insight into this world. Basic idea is to set up "lifestyle business(es)" that provide you enough financial freedom to travel, etc. Downside is that the lifestyle is your passion, not the work you do, and it has a definite non-hacker approach.
I could see taking a hacker approach to it if you do periodic technical work that does automate things. I don't necessarily think you need to work constantly on the technical thing to be a technical person doing interesting things. But I do agree that most of the examples I find aren't along those lines. The guy in this story is a self-help/lifestyle blogger afaict. But maybe that's because the lifestyle bloggers are more likely to blog about their lifestyle, whereas the people doing it via technical work are more under the radar? No idea.
I don't like this idea that "lifestyle business" != passion.
A lifestyle business is one that you build to improve peoples' lifestyles (including your own) rather than to make billions. You can give one a 70-hour-per-week effort, or you can automate yourself out of necessity and get passive income.
You don't have to burn lots of hours and take degenerate risks to be passionate about something. I see Valve and Github as lifestyle businesses (proving the culture, not making the global rich list, is part of the goal) but I'm sure the leadership is quite passionate.
The short version: "I Love Lucy" was a lifestyle business dreamed up so that Lucille Ball and her husband could have children. It was easier to revolutionize an industry than have a two career couple and family, so they did. In terms of technical innovation, the show was the "Star Wars" of its day, which is part of why reruns of it still get played to death to this day.
I tend to agree, but I was latching on to the commonly accepted definition, as Wikipedia defines it:
"A lifestyle business is a business that is set up and run by its founders primarily with the aim of sustaining a particular level of income and no more; or to provide a foundation from which to enjoy a particular lifestyle."
> A lifestyle business is one that you build to improve peoples' lifestyles (including your own) rather than to make billions.
Nope, you're mostly just concerned with your own lifestyle. That's fine, of course. But there's no need to try and make it sound any more noble than it actually is.
