All the folks in my peer group who followed their left-leaning parents mantra of doing something interesting, something that you love, got absolutely screwed. As much as I hate big tech, I cannot blame anyone for pursuing it.
Instead you need to understand power dynamics, social arrangements, how to negotiate, things like that.
For instance, your success as an artist in say the 1960s could come much easier if you spent your time becoming close friends with Peggy Guggenheim instead of working on your brush stroke.
Next time you see a stupid startup get funded, go research who the founders are and invariably you'll find like, their parents are hedge fund managers.
Now you could call me a cynic, complain it's unfair, or you could go out and meet some hedge fund managers with your time (this option works the best!)
This why some devs become SREs - your shift is over, you are done.
(This is why two income families are a sign of high wages more than poverty. And that both of you have relatively equal earning power of course.)
In my corner of the world it's the economically conservative crowd that advocates this - assuming money will follow because that's what happened to some of them in the 90s, when we were fresh out of communism.
I don’t have much wealth, I can’t buy a house for the foreseeable future, I will be done paying off literally all my debt including student loan next year, I have a wife and no kids. So yeah… I just want to do what I like and screw making another person or company richer, they’ll be fine.
And in China being a communist is actually a kind of capitalist. Thanks Deng.