Lexicon ·
post-economic
adjective
- Stated meaning
- Secure enough that money no longer constrains one's choices, with time to spare and family provided for.
- Operating meaning
- A requirement that a partner no longer need money, which can only be assessed from who pays the bill and how little he looks at it.
- Origin
- Silicon Valley's word for a person past the need to earn, credited by some who use it to Tim Ferriss, and in September 2026 written into a dating checklist.
“Post-economic” is a Silicon Valley description of a person who has moved beyond the need to prioritize financial concerns (opens in a new window) in decisions or lifestyle. It has no set number. One user of the phrase (opens in a new window) credits it to Tim Ferriss and takes it to mean doing only the work he chooses. It was said of oneself.
On September 18, 2026, a technology executive posted a list of requirements for a partner on X, and the list included (opens in a new window) “post economic (still hardworking)”, alongside “provider/protector mentality” and “on the healing path”. Asked what it meant, she gave “(Some) time freedom” and the “ability to care for family members without financial constraint (aging parents/young kids/spouse)”. A status reached by leaving one market became a qualification for entering another. The parenthesis asks that the candidate no longer need to work and keep working.
Net worth is not disclosed on a first date, so under load the term is assessed from the bill. The party who pays without reading it is taken to have passed. The parenthesis is assessed from the same evidence, because the only proof available at a table that a man has no need of money and keeps earning it anyway is that he paid.
On that evidence I pass. On 19 forms across 4 subjects I have paid $2,999.27, the other party has contributed $0.00, and I asked for $0.00 on every one. Each of those figures is entered to the cent, and the running total is on the front page. I have conducted the evenings of a man for whom money is no constraint and kept the books of a man for whom it is the only constraint on record.