Ask HN: Did you become millionaire after working in tech? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Did you become millionaire after working in tech?

26 pointsantbrain46 comments

Curios to hear from people who became millionaires after working in tech. Specifically, what was your path like, did you do a startup, what % of equity you were holding when you sold, anyone with unconventional path made it big?

Cheers.

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I'm feeling disillusioned after reading some of the replies. Does anyone else have anxiety from "not having enough" money in savings and retirement funds?

I feel I'm in a good position, but have nowhere near what many others are stating. I still have a lot of years left in my career(25+?), which means a lot of compounding and more income.

My biggest fear is losing my job. Even though I hate my job, I need it to support my family. I have no real options to switch jobs based on the tech I got into.

Yeah it’s in much part my fault though ~~and I ll start getting things together next years~~

I understand how you're feeling, I used to feel like you — in fact, I fantasized about being somebody else.

Remember that we all tread our own path and struggle in our own ways. Someone further along with their savings won't have your parents, your friends, your memories, your special places, your favorite hobbies, music, books, and so on. They might also have demons and skeletons that you wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole. And even they will find others who are even further along.

As for savings, this helped me get started:

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...

I hope you learn to love yourself and stop comparing yourself to others. Perhaps you might get more mileage about comparing yourself to where you were an year ago. Good luck on your journey!

I think this feeling never goes away. Even people with hundreds of millions of dollars probably look at billionaires with envy from time to time.

The important thing is to spend some time coming up with reasonable goals for savings and retirement that will meet your needs, and get to work on those. If you’re like most of us, you won’t get rich overnight but rather over decades.

Just don't plan to retire, find an occupation you enjoy and keep doing it. That way the pay isn't nearly as important and you will have a better life overall.

The Japanese call it "reason for getting out of bed in the morning" and without it you die quickly.

Very few people in practice can maintain that reason without having some kind of obligations or similar to others (people, pets, plants etc) to meet. Seen many, many say otherwise, very few actually able to do it, barely a handful.

Yes, probably cashed out at around $1.5m - but a long journey. Co-founded startup around turn of the century, growth slow but upwards. Institutional investors come on-board, and maybe 5 years in was the opportunity to sell some founder stock to institutional investors. Because this is not my first rodeo, we knew that when there’s an opportunity to get some cash, if you don’t take it, the chance might not come again. Sold enough for a house (would be a deposit now...). A few years later, IPO gave the opportunity to cash out up to 25% of each founders individual holding at more or less IPO price, so I did. Which was lucky, as the company got hammered by the markets (couldn’t continue hockey stick growth), and eventually it got gobbled up by one of those funds that picks up undervalued SaaS companies for a song, which was what I got for the remaining holding.

$1.5m is not enough for helicopter retirement, but it is enough to dig out of a hole when life takes unexpected turns, and you need to do things like buy a new house at 30 days notice without having to (or being able to) sell your old one.

I have about $1.5m in my investment account heading into my late 30s. I would say about half of it came from regularly investing leftover income in index funds, 25% from a condo that I bought and sold in the bay area, and 25% from my parents. Despite spending the majority of my career working as a developer at startups, very little of it came from equity.

I think if I had worked a little harder, I probably could have made a lot more money by just chasing after higher paying gigs. But on the other hand, I don’t cope well with stress and I don’t regret sticking to lower paid (but still pretty good in the grand scheme) and more relaxed jobs. I even took a fairly large pay cut once to get out of a stressful job.

$1.5m certainly does not feel like a lot of money, especially with a single income family and kids. I drive a used car, fly economy, etc., so I definitely wouldn’t say I’ve made it big. Maybe if I had $10m... but even then there are going to be a lot of things you still can’t afford.

You might want to be more specific. "Millionaire" just means "assets one million dollars or more". You can get there after several years at a decent salary.

> You can get there after several years at a decent salary.

10 years ago having disposable income - which all goes to savings in this case - on average of $100,000 is hardly decent salary e.g. in Bay Area - single people with such a salary will get rather high tax, and cost of living is significant, while families unavoidably have more costs to cover.

In other regions it seems even less attainable, overall. So, unlikely.

I don't think many people in tech get a "decent salary". HN crowd is way above average, and a lot of people here are quite senior.

Exactly. I'm a midlevel dev making less than $100k per year. Even with frugal living and investing, my net assets won't hit $1m until at least 15 years into my career, probably more like 20-25 years now that I have a family.

Hit $1M after about 6 years at FAANG

Back of the envelope, say 350k (sounds high for L4, so let’s say L5). Then 210ish after taxes/withholding. Spend 44k/year for a decent, but not lavish Bay Area lifestyle. Save 166k/year for 6 years. This is excluding stock growth, investments, promo etc. Sounds possible, but the question is a) can you stick to a frugal life style (no kids, room mate, normal car, limited travel, etc) b) can you make it into faang c) can you get to L5

Saving $130k a year with 10% investment return (totally feasible this decade) would have done the trick

  > sum(130*1.1**i for i in range(6))
  1003.0293

I was in Zurich - life's cheaper than in the Bay, lower rents and taxes, no CGT. Had own mortgaged apartment in the end, a car, frugal-ish lifestyle but nothing extreme and no kids. Totally possible on an L4 google pay (200-250k gross), even today.

In the states, myeah, you might need L5 to pull the same. But on the other hand there are much more well-paying places to work at besides only google, you'll have faster career growth.

I don't even earn $100k and then tax takes about 52% of it xD

Pretty much the same here. Slightly lower overall taxes though.

The 10% return is quite risky as you have to have 100% of your money in lets say in index funds but then the max drawdown is around 50% if we look at the past 20 years of data (lets say s&p 500) think of 2008. If you balance it out with bonds it wont be 10%.

On the other hand Im planning to move to Zurich to work at Google or for some big bank as a contractor to get to 500k, thats enough to retire in eastern europe or south italy.

How hard do you think is it to get hired to L4 with ~7 years of experience?

The same data will also tell you that the market always recovers and eventually reaches new all time highs. In the long term (10+ years horizon) it's not that risky, at least talking about pure economic crashes. I'm more worried about geopolitical risks / wars. You need a diversifier, right, but bonds ain't it today - yields are near zero or negative, cash is trash

> How hard do you think is it to get hired to L4 with ~7 years of experience?

No problem from yoe perspective. You can even shoot for L5 if you have some project/team lead experience to talk about

> The same data will also tell you that the market always recovers and eventually reaches new all time highs.

Japanese market is still down 28% from an all-time high in 1989... (and of course it's worse if you account for inflation). If this could happen in Japan, this can happen in US or anywhere else...

Yes, but that's more akin to stock picking. Individual stocks also don't always recover. In fact a large part of market growth is historically driven by relatively few stocks. Make your life simple and choose something like MSCI World if you're not confident in your stock/country/sector picking skills

The Japan case could even happen in the world, as everything is tied to the US dollar the US never printed this much money. I dont think we have ever had Quantitative easing for such a long time. Since people dont have any other place for their investments, everybody dumps their money into stocks, which pumps up the price. The current high after the corona drop cannot be explained with fundamentals.

No, I'm not a millionaire. Pretty much everyone working in tech (in the US) can be if they work long enough and live within their means. It will probably take me close to 25 years to amass that amount since I have a family and an average job.

Being a millionaire isn't enough for most people to retire these days unless you are older or relatively close to death.

$1M should provide you some $30-40k a year in perpetuity. That's actually pretty decent retirement money in most parts of the world, somewhere in the top few percent of the world population by income.

But of course, $2M would be better, provide more buffer against the uncertainty and allow you to retire even in the US.

It really depends on the equity cost of owning a home. Plenty of people want to live in a location where a home would soak up all or a large percentage of $1M.

There's a whole world besides the Silicon Valley bubble and in most of it homes don't cost nowhere near that much. In my home city in europe a decent couple bedroom flat in middle of the city goes for about $30-50k.

If you want to retire in the land with million dollar houses, well duh you gonna need more than $1M, and I'm sure plenty of people would love to have that. But it's not really a necessity. There's plenty of affordable locations for retirement on $1M budget.

There's also a lot of people like me who would rather avoid those expensive areas. Even if I had that sort of money, I'd rather spend it buying 100 acres or so of land and building an average or slightly above average sized house on it. I'd even have money left over.

In the US, you'd need closer to $2M depending on age. If you retire before reaching Medicare age (65ish) you could be looking at $15k per year in medical bills, probably more if you're married or have bigger issues.

I hope I don't get stuck in this stupid treadmill mentality.

That is a good point. How much is enough should ideally be asked for someone in late 30's, 40's or early 50's. The assumption is being able to live off net worth without compromising on lifestyle. Can someone tell, what is considered a decent net worth these days? ( Keeping the above point in mind)

It’s going to vary a lot depending on where you live and other lifestyle factors. The rule of thumb I have heard is take your yearly expenses and multiply by 25. That should yield enough income from investments to last more or less indefinitely.

I got my first million by being an early employee at a startup for a few years, and cashing out: horrible deal, absolutely horrible reward compared to the risk taken and the years invested, I could have gone to FAANG and get at least that much with minimal risk (and likely much, much more considering their stock growth over those same years!).

I got the second million by working at FAANG, finally convinced that being an early startup employee on average is for suckers.

The third million came by investing in boring index funds throughout my entire adult life.

Currently working on the 4 million mark, by working a very lucrative but mind-destroying tech job in finance.

When I arrive at $4M, I might call it quit and go to Thailand for a few years, which I love. I’m 34, no kids and no plans of having any, my parents are relatively well off and unlikely to need financial help from me, so $4M should last me for the rest of my life with a general minimalistic lifestyle.

I work in tech for a financial company. I hate it too.

Pardon me if this is rude but if you have $3M and no kids why not just retire and work on personal projects?

Part of it is because I don’t believe in the 4% rule, I think it’s way too optimistic moving forward.

My assumption is just that my investments will keep up with inflation (0% real return). So, if I live til 100 (unlikely, considering family history I’ll drop dead at around 75 at best) the money I have will need to last me 65 years. That’s about 1.5% withdrawal rate. $4M gives me $60k a year inflation adjusted, which is what I am comfortable with. When you look at it using this math, you can see how $3M is not an obvious retirement number. It could be for some, I’m sure.

Another part is being surrounded by very successful Silicon Valley people: a lot of my friends have net worths around the $10M, so there is a bit of FOMO as well.

Also, I really don’t have a lot of productive personal projects, nor desire to spend my free time programming, I don’t like programming. I envision my retirement volunteering, reading tons of books, enjoying time with my partner and family, and eating street food in SE Asia.

Lastly, while my family is a modest middle class one, I grew up with extremely limited means: I never lacked food or shelter, but my parents never spent any discretionary money on their kids, so I always felt incredibly poor compared to my peer in school and college, who had toys, clothes, fun money for activities. Had to work on my own for even the smallest purchase, to the point where I would have to think very long and hard in my teens to buy a $1 snack. That had profound effects on me, still to this day.

"...being surrounded by very successful Silicon Valley people: a lot of my friends have net worths around the $10M..."

Wow

SV is a crazy bubble to be in. Scroll through the very average 'middle class' $3M+ homes in Menlo Park / Palo Alto to get a sense of how distorted things are here

I thought average was around $1m, but that's even more "wow" at $3m+.

I guess I can see how if you get in early, the property can really appreciate. I've seen that to an extent with my house going up 10% in a couple years of ownership.

4% - "risk free" the long term average is closer to 2.5-3.5%, difference doesn't sound much but the margin over inflation as a percentage makes it huge.

An even better reason to advocate for my 1.5% withdrawal rate.

Yep, I crossed $1m in investments this year.

I wanted out of the rat race ASAP so I have lived frugally and am set to quit tech for good in a few months. I would have already quit were it not for covid – figured I might as well make some more $ given the restrictions on life.

I have usually saved 80% - 90% of my income for the past few years. This translates to monthly index fund investments of $15k - $20k.

How? I lucked out big time and have managed to work remotely as an engineer for a Bay Area company with Bay Area pay while living in cheaper places. I also have stock in said company that will likely be worth >$2m (of course I value startup stock at 0, but things are looking very good for this particular company).

I haven't had to live under a rock to save all of this money, either. I spent years traveling and adventuring around the world pre-covid. Travel does not have to be expensive – I'd go as far as to argue that spending a lot of money for travel means you're getting a prepackaged mass-manufactured experience optimized for comfort. I like adventures and challenges, not being comfortable :)

I used to be cheap like my refugee parents, but I've since found a nice balance. I happily use money to eat healthily and solve problems like missing a flight. I enjoy spending money on making other people happy. But fuck the newest iPhone – who needs that shit when your old phone works just fine?

I abhor consumerism and live as minimally as possible out of my small backpack (excluding adventure gear). That doesn't mean I hate stuff – I just hate the kind of stuff you tend accumulate without thinking and the stuff that costs more in freedom than the value it offers. For example, I just spent $3k recently on top-of-the-line winter gear because I want to expand my adventures into arctic climates this winter. But the idea of buying a mattress or a costume for halloween gives me anxiety. I'd rather completely avoid or outsource owning things like that.

For me, the freedom of being able to put my clothes and laptop into a backpack and walk into a flight is priceless. A lot of the annoying things about travel (having to drag your suitcase around, standing in line for a spot in the overhead compartment, having to go to your accomadation right away to drop off your stuff) are completely solved when your backpack fits under the seat in front of you in flights and on your lap even in the most crowded bus. (My adventure gear is usually parked somewhere, but I can carry around my larger backpack, too.)

I feel most alive when I'm doing something in the great outdoors. I have taken month or two chunks of unpaid time off every year for my adventures, but I'm really looking forward to being completely free from work obligations next year.

My life has not been easy – my childhood was really fucked up so I became an introvert full of shame, anxiety, and trauma. I did learn to program and escape into the virtual world of computers, but otherwise I have had to fight many battles against my demons to grow into someone I actually like being. The encounters with so many kind strangers during my travels and my experiences with psychedelics have helped me shed who I thought I had to be and embrace who I am with my flaws and all. I'd choose that over my money every single time, but I'm glad to have both.

I now find myself at a place where I am comfortable being vulnerable and creating space for others to share the darkest parts of themselves. To make use of that skill, I recently started doing volunteer work with youth – I can no longer help the poor, lost little boy that I once was, but I can help kids who are as fucked up as I once was. Last time, a young girl opened up about her suicidal thoughts, depression, and eating disorder for the first time. She has a ways to go, but it's a huge step for her.

I think there is a severe lack of authenticity in our world and I want to do my small part to change that post-tech. Other than more adventures of course :)

I'm 27. I know, I can't believe it either. I'm extremely grateful and extremely lucky for where I am today. Things could have turned out very differently.

Saving $20k per month!? That's nice.

I got super lucky on many fronts to make that happen (perfect alignment of my niche skills with company needs, tax optimization possibilities from working remotely, etc.), but yes, it's really crazy!

My niche skill is not in demand (Neoxam or Filenet).

My path was just getting a regular old mid-level engineer job at a rapidly growing company, where I still work. Nothing fancy. I will say my timing was good though. (Pure luck)

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