[throwaway22032]

Ignore the money and go to the better place.

You're here. You're going to make millions over your career.

If I could give any advice to 20-year-old me, it'd be to stop being such a miser and just work hard instead.

Consider the counterfactual: let's say you can't make back that $180K. Say you're 40 years old and $180K is still unfathomable. What happened?

[codingdave]

> What happened?

They might get into college and hate it. Might get into the industry and hate it. Might get hit on the head while doing intramurals and suffer a brain injury and never get to their full potential. Life is full of good and bad events, and banking on everything going well, including that their inklings at 18 are actually what they end up enjoying in life is a non-trivial gamble.

I give my own kids the advice to make choices that do not limit future options. MIT is a good school, but the expenses are not something to be dismissed.

[throwaway22032]

Well, sure, I pretty much hate programming now.

It took less than five years of it to essentially retire though, we print money. As far as I can tell salaries are now generally higher than they were for me plus there are more jobs about.

Compare against the opportunity cost. I don't really know anyone in a career that hasn't had to put in the same effort (e.g. dollar for law/medical school) that isn't just completely screwed with 0 money and no hope of ever owning anything.

I've taken for granted the fact that OP wants to like, have a decent life at some point rather than being a wage slave forever.

[codingdave]

That experience, of retiring in 5 years, is not the norm. At all. It does happen, and it makes good stories to tell, and people in SV get it often enough that it can seem common. But it is not the typical story of a coder in the rest of the USA.

I have no idea where OP lives, or where they intend to live, but banking on hitting that story is exactly what I am arguing against. Because there is zero guarantee for any specific person to live that path.

[throwaway22032]

Sure, and someone who's going to MIT is not a "typical coder in the rest of the USA".

It's like life expectancy. A 20 year old in a developed country has a far higher life expectancy than a child at birth in Somalia. You can completely discount the vast majority of the group.