[cellis]

I think there's only one way to earn passive income reliably at this point. And it's not going to be easy ( otherwise, everyone on HN would already be doing it! ). Here it is:

  1) Learn how to interview for top tier companies in your free time. 
  2) Interview at those companies. 
  3) Work at those companies really hard, make $300k/yr. 
  4) Work for 10 years, save 200k/yr. 
  5) Invest in ? 
  6) You've now achieved purely passive income on a $2million principle. 

I haven't done it, but I know people who have.

[cellis]

And please, for the love of all that is pure, DO NOT try to build a game hoping to make money. ~ former game dev

[robertothais]

Taking into account average market returns[1] in a 60/40 stock/bond portfolio, one would only need a bit more than 7 years to reach $2 million saving $200k/yr.

In practice though, the expected return on such a short timeframe would be quite uncertain given stock market volatility.

[1] https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/saving-investing/m...

[lhorie]

If you work at a big bay area tech company, between a third to half of those 300k/yr are actually in equity (stocks), so step 5 is sort of already done for you. There's also ESPP that lets one buy even more stock at a discount, which is basically free money.

However, taxes and cost of living are also incredibly high, so realistically you're probably not going to be saving 200k/yr (though you could probably still save a cool 100k/yr without much trouble).

[seansmccullough]

You should sell your RSUs on rest and diversify. If you don't diversify and something happens to your employer, your could lose your job, the value of your home could go down, and your investment could lose a substantial amount of value, all at the same time.

[lhorie]

Yeah, diversifying is generally considered a good idea. You can talk to financial planners for help there. General rule of thumb, though, is get rid of all your debt first and foremost if you have any, and do low/no commission investments (e.g. ETFs). Of course, nothing really stops you from going all in on FAANG if you're ok with high risk.