文/今綸
Why does a young rich man with a net worth of hundreds of billions rent a house? Why doesn’t Musk own real estate? Why is Zuckerberg still living in a small apartment 7 years after he became famous?
Are they short of money or short of heart? None.
A rich list was released recently. DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng was on the list, ranking 7th with 280 billion yuan. He is only 41 years old. Of course, all this money is paper wealth and equity. It may be cut in half or doubled tomorrow.
It may be difficult for ordinary people to understand. He has a net worth of 280 billion and always has millions or even tens of millions on hand. Buying a house is not a problem, so why not buy it?
This is because you don’t understand these “geeks”: Geeks are technology fanatics and hard-core gamers who pursue perfection and have strong hands-on skills.
For geeks, attention is a scarce resource: they devote all their cognitive bandwidth to technology and have no time to study clothing, decoration, and social etiquette. For them, a house is a tool, a “place to sleep and write code”, not a status symbol.
So, why buy it? Just rent, preferably close to work. After understanding the above logic, you will understand Liang Wenfeng.
He has been renting a house in Beijing for a long time. The room is simply furnished and not decorated. He travels between Beijing and Hangzhou, and occasionally goes to Shenzhen. When he goes to Hangzhou and Shenzhen, he stays in hotels.
DeepSeek’s main R&D center in Beijing is Raycom Information Center at No. 2, Science Academy South Road, Haidian District. Liang Wenfeng most likely rents a house nearby, which is convenient for work.
Moreover, it is close to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingbei University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and other universities, making it more convenient to recruit interns and PhDs.
For geeks like Liang Wenfeng, they don’t pay much attention to assets or consumption. Their daily routine is to read papers, write code, and hold group meetings. They don’t hang out in circles or hold press conferences. They have no interest in “luxury status symbols” and prioritize investing in computing power, GPUs, embodied intelligence, and cutting-edge teams.
He seems to be very rich, but he seems to have no money. Most people can’t understand it.
Look at Musk, can’t he afford a house? He has sold all his houses. If he returns to Texas, he will live in a prefabricated house next to the SpaceX base, about 37 square meters, rented from his own company, worth about US$50,000. His mother had to sleep in the garage when she was visiting, and the refrigerator was empty.
Zuckerberg has a net worth of hundreds of billions. After becoming famous, he rented a small apartment with one bedroom and one living room for seven years. The furniture only included a mattress, two chairs, a table, a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and he biked to work. He only bought a house in California in 2011.
These people’s attention is on work and career, rather than on enjoyment. For them, work is happy and exciting, and work itself is fun.
Many of them are anti-consumerism, despise “paying for the logo”, and feel that “spending 5,000 to buy a graphics card is more valuable than spending 5,000 to buy a package.”
One of my buddies is a wealthy man. He used to be an executive of a listed company and has become financially free. He is a geek, a technology worker, and wears a plaid shirt all day long. When he had a high income, he did not buy a house in mainland China. Now he is a billionaire and rents a house in Singapore. Why? It’s not that I can’t afford it, but I feel it’s unnecessary. He has worked in four first-tier cities in China. Wherever he goes, he always pushes a few boxes and leaves. This is also the case when he has a child. But the quality of life is not low, at least above average, and money is king.
These geeks all have a functionalist aesthetic. A black Uniqlo top, a pair of sneakers, and a backpack can handle 90% of scenarios and save decision-making costs.
So, you see Huang Renxun wearing black leather clothes wherever he goes. He has 30-40 pieces of this kind of clothing. After meeting his wife at the age of 17, Huang Renxun has never bought any clothes by himself.
Zuckerberg has about 20 gray round-neck T-shirts. When it’s cold, he wears a dark gray hoodie of the same color over it, and only changes into a suit for formal occasions.
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