The Ladders of Wealth Creation

I can't help but feel that this article is overlooking luck as a factor.

Nathan's journey is certainly one of hard work and continuous learning. He earned his success. But he also took a large risk. This is sort of acknowledged in "income comes down between ladders", but is never explicitly stated.

There is a wealth of evidence online that shows a successful career at a high paying software company will, on average, build more wealth than entrepreneurship. That said, the wealth upside to entrepreneurship is not bounded unlike total compensation.

Nathan also started a software company at the beginning of what has arguably been the best decade for software. The most effective way to build wealth is to catch a wealth wave at the perfect time--not too early, but just as exponential growth begins to kick in. '09 was that time for software--especially software as a service. The tools were there but businesses had not yet captured their potential.

It's a decent model but many roads lead to Rome. The smoothest path to wealth is probably a professional career* partnered with a modest lifestyle and heavy savings.

* Really any career, it just needs to involve doing something people want and ideally rewards continuous improvement.