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Any work in big tech or finance companies that would pay at least 100k per year. This is because on what you've written, you've defined financial success for yourself as "a surefire way to retire by forty". Retirements, however, given a large and stable income, become primarily expense driven, when you run the numbers: reducing the amount you spend and consume when your salary exceeds most of your material needs is a far more reliable route and speedy path to retirement than making more. This is because if you're already pulling 100k or more, are saving at least 30-40% of that (which for most people should be doable, as the median single person income is about $35,000, and the median family income, in total, is $75,062 [1]), and do that for 20 years, the interest on the 600k principal will exceed a 3% withdrawal rate and inflation for 30 years with 90% certainty [2], meaning if you can live on $18,000 (fairly doable in cheaper parts of the country), then you can retire at 40, if you so choose. I would argue the above retirement plan is far more surefire than the startup-based one, because it only requires a single, disinterested employer willing to pay you at least that much for those 20 years, rather than getting repeated possibly-not-going-to-happen payouts from successful IPOs. Additionally, it assumes somewhat meager, defensive positions: The 3% withdrawal rate is aggressively low to account for bad downturns, and this plan assumes you never get a raise, never get awarded stock, never save more, never accrue interest on your deposited principal before you begin retirement, and never develop any income streams besides your job, despite being a programmer for over 20 years. Additionally, Dan Luu argues with several salary increases programmers regularly get, you could pull this off in 8 years with my 30% estimate [3]. If you can, for example, increase your savings rate in my setup to 50%, you can have the above 600k based retirement within 12 years, in your mid 30s. Families make this analysis more complicated, because of housing and the possibility of new income streams and drains, but assuming a two income family, I still would assert the fundamentals of the above situation haven't changed. So for financial success defined as "able to retire", I would advocate for aggressive savings and living below your means - they're the surest route for high earners, and have comparable speeds and timetables as riskier options [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-12/u-s-house... [2] http://time.com/money/4689984/safe-withdrawal-rate-retiremen... [3] https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ |