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Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

> £100k/year

Well first off £100 != $100 != €100

Sorry but you're completely delusional if you think literally "anyone on a programmer's salary" can make 1 million in 10 years. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm not saying you didn't do it, I'm just saying it's not "accessible", nor the norm, nor representative of the vast majority of devs.

https://www.levels.fyi/heatmap/europe/

The median software engineer salary in Europe is under 60k euros, which is £50k. Show me how you make 1m on a 60k euros salary in 10 years, even if you paid 0 income tax and invested every single cent with an average 8% annual return you'd still be under 1m.

> Anyway, stay poor, I literally don't care.

Looks like you can't buy your way out of arrogance

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Salaries in Europe are much worse than in the US. (I'm told for the best India pays better than Europe - though India is skewed by a lot of bad coders not making much). In US just maxing out your 401k for 15-20 years will do it (depending on your company match), and you still have far more than the average income left over. So if you live like the average person and save that difference as well 10 years seems doable.

That said I'm not sure I'd recommend it. It can pay off for some, but the future is unknown. I've been to funerals for several people who didn't live to 65. Your body starts declining as you get older so a lot of active things really need to be done young if you do them at all. Maxing a 401k seems like a good plan and then spend the rest today - you should still have a nice retirement if you live that long, but you can enjoy life now.

If you don't like the above, religion offers an afterlife if you choose the right one. However they agree choosing the wrong one won't... Good luck choosing.

8% is an awful return in today’s markets. 30% is eminently achievable with foresight and an appetite for risk. I started investing a decade ago with about £100k, as that was all I could afford to risk, and have a return of between 20% and 200% year to year. Shit, you’ll get 15-20% cash-on-cash just running an Airbnb, which is what provides our day-to-day living income.

Cool, do you know about statistics and survivor bias ? If it was that easy why isn't everyone a millionaire ? Why doesn't everyone make 20-200% per year ?

If you can guarantee 20-200% of return per year consistently over 10-20 years go to wall street they'll pay you millionS per year to work for them

There is a big gap between "I'm in the top 1% earners and lucked out in the market" and "Literally every software engineer can make 1m in 10 years".

People on huge salaries live paycheck to paycheck, spend money on ridiculous cars, and live in huge houses full of junk that they bought stuff on credit. What we're saying is, instead of that, save a large proportion of your salary so you can retire early, and even if you don't choose to do that, be in control of your future.

Yes, I understand statistics and survivorship bias - I’m a mathematical physicist by training. I’m also a pretty average schlub.

Most people aren’t wealthy because they don’t even try, and instead run on a treadmill until they drop dead.

I have no interest in going to work on Wall Street or anything similar.

My entire investing philosophy is basically based on this site. There is constant signal here on what will be big in 5-10 years, and all that’s required is that you get in before the press start talking about it, too.

A $10k investment in NVDA 10 years ago is worth $2.6M now - and if you were paying attention 10 years ago, when CUDA was fairly new and shiny and rapidly gaining mindshare, you would have noticed that they were inevitably going to own the ML/AI space, and that this shit was going to be huge.

This is also why I said $1M, not $100k - because I have managed exceptional returns - but with 10x the starting capital even moderately good returns can grow rapidly. I’ve also bet on some absolute lemons where I’ve lost every last red cent.

Either way, it seems that many would sooner be bitter than do something to improve their situation, which is sadly very common, and again, why not everybody is a millionaire.

What lemons did you bet on?

Stuff I didn’t understand, in short - biotech, mostly. I can’t even remember their names, which kinda underscores why they were bad bets. Fortunately small stakes, and at least they’re a tax write-off against some of the gains.

Ok, I'll bite. What's going to be big 5-10 years from now?

For one, humanoids. Buy the shovel vendors, not the miners.

Also, edited nitrogen fixers. Haber-Bosch is going to be hard to sustain with environmental targets.

Oh, and DRI, same kind of reason, as coking coal is likewise going to fall foul.

I could be totally wrong, but that’s seemingly the drift of things, and where I have lately been placing my chips.

Went long on nuclear power as soon as AI started to take off, and there’s still ample headroom there too.

ZIRP/QE has ended.

please advise how do I get started

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44030496

As ever, only invest that which you can afford to lose.

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