[neogodless]

Bad hypothetical situations are bad. But have you looked at the data?

Historically, you're much more likely to have your money grow over time, such that it's much higher before a big crash, and you have ample capital to wait out a bear market.

Again, the only scenarios that resulted in running out of capital in a 4% withdrawal rate happened in the very first few years, retiring right before a very bad series of years.

If early retirement is your goal, and especially if you're a competent software developer, if the market is that bad early on (which is very rare) then you just have to change course and go back to work.