★ Andrew Hyde is on to something

ABCNews:

By all rights Mr. Hyde should reside in an expensive Manhattan condo and dine at the most exclusive restaurants.

Instead, Mr. Hyde owns just 15 things and is currently homeless. After leaving his job as community organizer for the New York-based start-up incubator TechStars, Mr. Hyde sold all of his posessions and traveled the world. He now moves through the New York and Silicon Valley technology scenes, mentors young companies, and is currently building a business that creates art from old vinyl records.

Andrew is a great guy and we get along pretty well when I see him at events. One thing about the interview (highly recommended please listen to it) is that the realization that he doesn’t need anything physical in his life…because everything of value to him is digital. Of course, I’m paraphrasing here.

Three times in my life, I’ve sold it all to move somewhere new. I admit, the move to New Hampshire was a strip down of material possessions but my move was being paid for so I brought my pricey television and bed with me. However, if everything today that I own was stolen except for my MacBook and RAID array of hard drives, I would move on and severely downsize how I live.

The only admission that I have is that I LOVE to cook so I’d have to buy some pots & pans. Some people don’t mind eating out every meal (which I’m sure Andrew does most of the time) but I get joy in making my own coffee each day at home. If someone gave me 100,000 dollars and a year to spend it, I would sell everything and travel the world. I’m proud of what he did and I’m with him. This isn’t a gimmick. It’s far less complex than that.

I think most non-tech people simply don’t understand when we don’t need to own things to be happy. It’s not a religious experience that brought us here, it’s that our entire lives, everything tangible about our existence on Earth exists in digital form.

Good job, Andrew.