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Comment by beat | Hacker News Reader

I have a term I call "win at money". You've won at money when you have enough capital to live comfortably for the rest of your life just on the interest from low-risk investment.

Can you win at money in software? Yes, but pretty much only by founding your own company or being among the first handful of employees at a startup that gets huge. On the other hand, you can make a comfortable middle-class living at software very easily.

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Your "win at money" is similar to the philosophy on Mr. Money Mustache[1]. He advocates shifting your lifestyle down a few notches in places where it doesn't affect you much, reducing your cashflow needs and making it easier to "win", or in his parlance be financially independent and retire early.

[1]: http://mrmoneymustache.com

> live comfortably for the rest of your life just on the interest from low-risk investment.

50-100k/yr is a comfortable life in most places. That's 1.2-2.5 million in capital. Definitely don't have to start a company of be in a start-up for that at all.

That is essentially the definition of financial independence, and it's certainly possibly with a job in software. It just involves saving as much as you can afford to and taking advantage of compound interest early on.

I think this is a good point. It's also worth noting that there are pretty much no careers where you can just get a normal job and end up "winning at money". Finance is a possible exception, but it comes with its own tradeoffs and the biggest players generally leave their finance jobs to start their own funds.

Right. The system is designed so you'll finally save enough to "win at money" about the time you're too old to work effectively anymore.

What kills me is seeing friends whose jobs involve hard physical labor. They can't save enough to win at money before their bodies start giving out from the abuse. In better economies with unions and cultural support, they just sort of loaf away their less productive, later years. In America, they get laid off and can't work anymore.

Btw, is commonly referred to as Financial Independence (FI). There are also several online communities devoted to FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early).

FIRE is also an acronym for "Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate"[0] which are business sectors famous for paying loads of money. So working in FIRE makes it easier to achieve FIRE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_economy

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