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Not after taxes!

Most first world governments "fine" you quite a lot of money if you work on risky things. For example, if you earn $100,000 for ten years, vs $1,000,000 on one of those random years, after taxes you would have $720,000 vs $520,000 if you lived in San Francisco.

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I don't think this is right at all? I think it's backwards... If the $1M is a capital gain from an investment you made multiple years ago - which is what windfalls from "work on risky things" actually look like - it will be taxed less than ten years of $100k of income.

I think you're right if you're thinking about lottery winnings or other kinds of non-capital-gain windfalls like a gift from a benefactor, but those aren't the result of valuable "work on risky things".

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