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It's literally true, even without dreams or stock option bets, that many tech workers are temporarily embarrassed millionaires. The source tweets are by an Amazon VP; an Amazon SWE salary with even moderately responsible spending is enough to retire as a multimillionaire.

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I mean, the steinbeck quote is from 1960.. You will need probably ~$30 million dollars at retirement if you are 30yo today to retire as a 1960s millionaire.

The Steinbeck quote from the 1960s said "temporarily embarassed capitalist". Someone who has "entrepreneurial dreams" or is "at start-ups for the stock options", hoping to get wealthy through appreciation of their equity ownership, is unambiguously a capitalist.

"Millionaire" was added in a 2004 misquote by Robert Wright, and $1 million in 2004 dollars is about $1.7 million in 2025 dollars.

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