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Comment by tpatke | Hacker News Reader

There is another aspect to this which the OP fails to mention - moving the needle. If you think about how much money you need to retire (f u money if you are under 30) then figure out how much money you need to save in order to achieve that...well, chances are you are not going to retire anytime soon. Now, say you were given a 20% raise. How would that affect our retirement prospects? Well, chances are you are not going to retire anytime soon. Even a large raise on an “employees” salary will not make a big difference on a, say, $2m retirement target.

If you are working a 9-5 you are fighting for a 5% raise that just will not have any effect on your life. The "lottery jobs" offer a way out. Of course, it is not a perfect system so if you have any better ideas...

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You make it sound like the purpose of life is retiring. I find that a little sad.

You're both right, I think. The OP describes what I view as the reality for most people. But then I read your comment, and agree: that is pretty sad.

Funny thing is, that seems to be an artifact of my parent's generation, the halcyon days of years past when America was a manufacturing powerhouse that we seem to want to get back to. Work sucks, so put in your time, then get out and start enjoying life. At 60 (if you're lucky) or 65 years old. But who wants to be touring around the world when you're old?

Find something you love to do, and you'll be able to do it successfully until you drop dead. It's not all about wealth.

Since computers have been around generally for more than 20 years now, I wonder if anyone who started in a programming job when they were 40 are still doing it. More bluntly: Is it possible / fun to be a programmer when you're 60? I imagine I'll be an entreprenuer building webapp / other businesses when I'm 60, but I'm curious if anyone is currently doing that.

I don't know about programming specifically, but I have met plenty of people aged >50-60 in CS and most of them still seem really enthusiastic about their work.

Yep, I had a smart coworker who would regale us with tale of starting out as a punch card clerk after someone would complain about an iOS misfeature. Sadly he recently passed. He was working on a startup at the time, and had not only written most of the iPad app, but had picked up rails Ina couple weeks to start the server side. He was past the retirement age, but still bangin on code.

Eh, "retiring" to me generally means "making sure I have enough money that I don't have to die on the street". Saving for retirement is more of a precautionary act than a journey to a destination.

HN is a freaky place sometimes. Accumulating a pile of money is actually the purpose of life for many commentators here. It has often been stated here that there are easier ways to accumulate money than doing startups. This article also seems to enforce this point.

The fact of the matter is that, for technologists, there isn't an easier way to become rich than doing a startup. Living a comfortable life (e.g. making $100 - $250k) by working for someone is not the same thing as having $5, $10 or $100mm in the bank. It's not even close. If you're making $250k, chances are the work you do is extremely hard, you're always on point, and if you cease performing at that level, you'll be fired, whereupon you won't be able to maintain your lifestyle. So I question the premise that there are actually easier ways to get rich than doing a startup.

If you actually look at the people that went from the middle class to 10+ million a tiny fraction of them got there though start ups. If your goal is to actually have a good shot at 10million by mid 40's there are plenty of professions that can give you better than 10% chance of getting there and even if you fail your still making 3-5 or more times what the average Programmer at Google makes.

The only professions that I can think of that have that possibility are: doctor, trader (finance) and investment banker (finance) and possibly lawyer. Anything I missed?

That about covers it.

But his point is still valid...tech people could easily have gone to med school. If they had...they would have had a more solid chance at accumulating that USD10Million than working startup after startup.

Let's not forget personality / human factors though - I'm fairly certain I could have been a doctor or lawyer (even considered being a lawyer at one time and got a 178 on the LSAT) but I'm just not cut out for those fields. I'm too squeamish to be a doctor and I don't have the interpersonal / political skills to be a really successful lawyer. So tech it is...

> tech people could easily have gone to med school.

Some, but mostly not. The non-tech professions that offer high pay (medicine, law, banking) all have very different barriers to entry than tech. There are a lot of folks who made a ton of money in tech who didn't have the 4.0 + ridiculous extracurriculars to get into med school, or the Ivy-league background to get into a bank. I think those barriers make those professions less meritocratic than tech, don't get me wrong, but they are what they are.

Consultant (technology or management). Quant (not sure if you include this under trader, but they're not the same). Also dentist.

Doctor? No, no way. Maybe in the 90s. The profession has been commoditized.

Cardiologist salaries have nearly doubled in the last decade to a hefty $442,000. That's not to say most doctors make anywhere near that, just if your in it for the money there are choices you can make to get there. However, 400+k is not exactly what it used to be which is why so many people are still focused on the financial sector.

What professions do you speak of? I know many (recent graduate) lawyers, doctors and dentists who are all bogged down by loans. For lawyers, making partner seems to be the main road to riches. But that's a lottery. A dentist I know has taken on even more loans to start his own practice. Piling more debt on top of a sizable one seems sheer insanity to me. But perhaps that's just the risk one has to take these days.

If you made $250k and lived off $50k/year, after taxes and about 6 or 7 years you'd have $1 million in the bank. After 10 years you'd definitely have enough to generate a perpetual income from your invested wealth.

But that's, again, different from STRIKING IT RICH(TM).

Here in the U.S., the purpose of life is building up as big a margin as possible for how screwed you will be when you get old/if you get sick.

I'm a computer guy who loves his work a lot! That said, I do have to eat and I do need to retire some day. That is certainly not the purpose of my life but it is kinda necessary. I've also done the numbers on how much I need to retire and it doesn't look good.

Though once I got a 300% raise instead of a 5% one, would I really want to retire at the living standard I had before or after the 5% raise? So, chances are you are STILL not going to retire anytime soon...

I've had something similar happen to me (maybe not 300%) and I'm aware of the higher money but mentally I keep myself on my lower rate and standard of living, because I don't want to do this job forever. The sooner I can get to passive income funding an 'acceptable' life the better. Not everything that's worth doing takes money, just time, which you just don't have in a 9-5

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