Maybe upbringing / background plays a significant factor here? I watched both of my parents very unceremoniously lose their job-for-life jobs and nearly everything along with it.
My primary motivation, then, to stay abreast of the industry, to pursue new skills/technologies/challenges, things that I would put under the label of "opportunities for professional growth," has (not entirely, but for the most part) little to do with the amount that I'm paid (considering that I perceive myself to be paid well) and everything to do with maintaining a recurring paycheck until I'm retirement age.
FWIW, and I say this acutely aware that I'm of the "don't give them what you don't owe them" tribe, additional responsibilities for the same pay are how I got the broad skillset that got me to the point where I'm a principal developer with a hand in every part of our project--which is, in addition to no-complaints compensated, genuinely a lot of fun. I took on those responsibilities as an investment in myself; admittedly the key was finding high-value, high-leverage responsibilities, but it was for me more than for my current employer.
Few enough people are going to pay you to learn something on their dime if you don't already show a ton of promise. Broadening your skillset is, IMO, how you get to the next job.
The part of spending you can't control and which happens to be the largest expense is medical care, which is not a problem right now due to Medicare, but it's already stressing the system and we have quite a ways to go before the aging population maxes out. Retirement ages are already going up and up, and I can definitely foresee rationing of medical care as we push the system to its limits.
Unless you had like, a lot of money.
Even with those gaps, I'm having zero problem finding well-paying jobs. I think it's because, despite those gaps, I represent good value to the employer - I know the latest tech, have done good work in the past, can present coherent and mature opinions during the interview etc. Also, I only do long-term contracts where they explicitly don't care that I'm a job-hopping mercenary that is not ever going to believe the "company mission", because the assumption is that the whole arrangement is temporary anyway. In practice, they always want to retain me and I end up quitting out of boredom after a year of two.
To summarize, the gaps are probably important only when you're in close competition with lots of folks similar to you. But, if you're a bit of an expert in a specific niche (mine is Big Data - Hadoop and related crap, applied in enterprise IT context) and there aren't that many competent candidates around, the gaps suddenly don't matter.
You aren’t jobless; you are successful. Even as a bluff, with a now-empty bank account.
The thing that's interesting though, is on the consulting side, as my rates and overall project cost have increased, the time investment to close a sale has also gone up. Meanwhile, if you go for a more expensive & specialized skillset, there's also a time investment on the marketing & outreach front.
Basically, in my experience, there's a small handful of people who've managed to carve out a niche where they can work low hours and make a high hourly rate, but they're few and far between, and investing in passive income streams is really the way to go.
That said, I _really hate_ managing rental properties instead of slinging code, but in terms of dollar per hour there's no comparison.
They seem to be the loud minority on here though. I guess if you get a sweet gig like that, you will find lots of time to post on HN. I know I'd brag about it too if I was in that situation.
So this forced me to settle for a number at which I'm happy with my income and I can have a clear goal for that year - once that is achieved other things come in to play.
This seems basic and maybe it's just me but I never really had an idea of what I wanted to make, what is "enough" - I would just say yes to any opportunity that came my way which paid more and kept plowing forward - but there is a limit to how much you can do and it's hard to guess it before you reach it so I ended up pulling all nighters and working through weekends more than once. Now that I have my limit it's actually pretty easy to reach with ~210 regular work days according to my current rates for a really easygoing client - this leaves me with plenty of time for other stuff - if I find a better paying client I just work less for that year - I like this model.
Maybe I should describe it better - it is a special tax model - you pay a flat fee if you make less than X and that flat fee turns out to be ~5%. When you cross this threshold you no longer qualify for this model at all - you have to convert to standard taxation - I would need to increase my revenue by 20% just to break even and the extra hassle of doing that would mean that I need to increase it by 30% (at least) to be wroth it.
So in my situation it just turned out to be a good limit where if I negotiate 10% more I just convert that money = free time for other stuff. I don't plan to stay below this limit forever (in fact next year I plan to go over) but the concept of having a target income goal and then letting the rest of your time go to personal life is really good for work life balance IMO.
A company that grows 20% like google offers high cash low stock. But a company that grows 100% every year can make you a millionaire in a couple of years.
Its true startups lotteries are not great for employees in general, but who would have bet that UBER wouldn't IPO in 2014? or some other companies like Airbnb, etc.
You can also get a much higher position at a well paid job if one of the bets pays off, or if you find growth opportunities. While getting a promotion at google might take you 4 years, in a high growth startup you might jump 2 steps in 6 months.
If you compare someone who joined Uber in 2014 with someone who joined Facebook or Google in 2014, I'm honestly not sure who would have come out ahead. Probably Uber, but not by a whole lot.
And Uber is the best case scenario, practically speaking.
But you can invest 2+ years and get nothing.
If you can repeat the process several times, each time picking better bets, then you stand a good chance to win big. Maybe 50/50 chance of hitting a million dollar win over 12 years and 5 contracts. Assuming you leave some sinking ships and some consecutive years really pulling hard at promising companies.
But you should probably also be investing in property and a 401K.
None of it is guaranteed, but if you’re patient and reactive and work hard and treat people like you want to build lifelong relationships, it sorta IS guaranteed you’ll be in a good place after 20 years.
The only guaranteed way to be a millionaire is to work for big companies, relentlessly push up the ladder, invest 15-25% religiously and never touch it. That WILL make you a millionaire in 20 years, but you won’t be able to think about much other than your next promotion and your budget.