I'm so close to doing this though. I imagine its really hard to do this for most people, but I personally fell into a expensive niche and I knew how to program.
The corporate ladder will pay me $200k for 1M/yr(compounding) of value. I imagine I can capture more of this, and potentially have employees.
I never thought I'd do this, I thought I'd be a desk drone forever, but with every project, I stare at the numbers and realize its possible. (The last time I did this, my wife started a 6 figure company, where her non-mathy friends thought it was going to be impossible)
Wish me luck on marketing, hopefully the thought of a compounding 1M/yr for a company sells itself.