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Aaron Patzer lives in a 600-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto with an old couch and TV. His favorite shoes are hand-me-down brown leather wingtips that, at 39, are older than he is. He gets $12 haircuts.
He drove a 1996 Ford Contour until he ran it into the ground at 150,000 miles. His new ride is a Subaru Outback that he bought for $29,000.
You'd never know the 30-year-old entrepreneur sold his Internet startup for $170 million in 2009 or that he is now a top executive at Intuit (INTU), the financial software company.
At 27, Dustin Moskovitz is the world's youngest billionaire, according to Forbes. He was born eight days after his Harvard College roommate Mark Zuckerberg, with whom he founded Facebook.
Moskovitz could afford any home he wanted, but he chose an $800,000 condo in San Francisco. He bikes to work at his tiny startup, Asana, which is making social networking tools for businesses. He leaves his Volkswagen R32 hatchback in the garage.
He says he flies coach, and he's socking away money to fund his philanthropic foundation. Like Zuckerberg, he has pledged to give away his wealth during his lifetime.
"Things can't bring you happiness," Moskovitz said. "I have pictured myself owning expensive things and easily came to the conclusion that I would not have a materially more meaningful life because of them."
Zuckerberg is another billionaire living below his means. For years, he crashed in a tiny apartment with a mattress on the floor and dial-up Internet access. He recently bought his first house in Palo Alto for $7 million, a fraction of what he could afford.
Mark Zuckerberg, who has listed "minimalism" and "eliminating desire" as interests on his Facebook profile, drives an Acura. His one major outlay: Last year he donated $100 million to help improve public schools in Newark, N.J., among the country's worst-performing school systems.
Skeptics may wonder whether all this conspicuous self-denial is scripted. Tech titans know they score public relations points by showing a common touch -- particularly in austere times.
Kevin Hartz, 41, founder and CEO of the online ticketing company Eventbrite, says this time around, entrepreneurs are taking a more sensible approach to managing their businesses and their lives.
"It would be a contradiction for me to watch every penny at my company and then turn around and buy a $5,000 bottle of wine," Hartz said.
One reason many tech prodigies avoid living large is that it takes time to adjust to a sudden increase in wealth, said Edward Wolff, an economics professor at New York University who studies income and wealth. The newly rich don't know how long their good fortune will last, so they're cautious he said.
More typical, Silicon Valley insiders say, is Joe Greenstein, who last month sold his San Francisco company Flixster to Time Warner for about $80 million. Greenstein says the windfall hasn't made "a single material difference" in his lifestyle. The 33-year-old entrepreneur pays $1,000 a month for the same no-frills San Francisco studio apartment he has rented for the past 10 years.
He says he feels fortunate not to have to live paycheck to paycheck or worry about losing his job. And he gets to do what he loves every day.
"I don't feel like I live a life of sacrifice," he said. "I probably feel guilty that I don't sacrifice enough."
Dhruv
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