Among the HN crowd, and especially those who dislike working for others, I'm surprised there isn't more of a focus on early retirement. If you make an upper-middle class salary, it's not difficult to become financially independent in a decade, even if you don't "strike it big".

Here's a great article by a programmer-turned-blogger about how savings rate affects time-to-retirement:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...