I find these articles interesting - insightful in the "lifehack" kind of way.
I want to be able to retire some time early, but almost certainly won't actually retire - I love this occupation too much and would do it for free (well, I actually do that too). But being able to retire is a nice situation to be in, in terms of self-confidence, work-life balance and general psychological well-being.
These memes are cyclic. It's the retire early one right now (gambled and won), last 6 months was minimalistic lifestyle (startup failures who gambled and lost and late startups going ramen), 6 months before that was startup goldrush VC/angel money.
Which is next? Probably share/investment goldrush. Then gold and other hard commodities when that goes belly up, then we're back to real-estate. and on and on...
Well, universally I'd label that the OMGspeculativemarketisabouttocollapse meme.
Also missed out the travel for a year and see the world while running a blog meme. My personal favorite seeing reality hit and post schedule start to slip Scheudenfreud is awesome :)
There's more to life than writing code 9-to-5 for someone else. Some people want the freedom to code when they want on projects they choose. They may also want the freedom to do other things like travel the world and spend time with people in places that would otherwise not be possible.
It doesn't sound like his jobs weren't nice. You know, you can actually enjoy corporate work if you are not stuck with it for the rest of your life, and got a nice team.
And that goes for any profession. I was far more inspired to hear a recent NPR story about a welder at a local factory who's 90 and just celebrated his 65th year with the company. He likes going to work every day and keeps doing so.
Far more desirable to me than finding some golden goose is to find a path that keeps me enjoying work for years and years.
Who is downvoting this? The point is that people can find a lot of fulfillment in work.
When I read about a programmer who stopped programming at 30 to go into construction, I think that shows programming wasn't really the right career choice for him. If it's not the right career choice for you, then by all means follow the recent spate of HN "retirement" posts and change careers.
But if you love programming, you can actually find jobs you like in programming! You don't need to retire! Talking to 30-somethings planning their retirement is...depressing.
For me, the path to enjoyment involves my own freedom. Freedom to work on what I want and to have, build and implement my own vision. I think this community has a higher than average amount of people like this and that is why these articles show up.
I don't believe much in this. I think a large percentage age discrimination in engineering is well-deserved. There's so many people at any large engineering firm who at some point just start doing the same thing over and over again for 20+ years, protecting their little knowledge island, resisting new ideas and approaches. If these people lose their job and enter the job market, yes they are discriminated against. I call this "lack of skills and interest discrimination". I believe that in most working economies, this is allowed.
Of course, as with anything, there's exceptions, but I'm convinced that if you keep investing in your own knowledge, keep exploring and learning, and keep figuring out what it is that you'd like to do most, you can avoid age discrimination pretty well. The few 60+ year old co-workers I have confirm this. The large amount of aged Software Superheros out there confirms this.
> i don't understand this sudden focus on retirement.
You sound like someone that's never taken a serious amount of time off work.
Two years ago I quit my perfectly good programming job to spend 2 years driving from Alaska to Argentina. Someone asked me what I did the whole time - my answer "Exactly what I wanted to do. Every single day."
I encourage you to take a seriously long amount of time off work to discover what you actually want to do with your life if you don't have to go to work.
I want to be able to retire some time early, but almost certainly won't actually retire - I love this occupation too much and would do it for free (well, I actually do that too). But being able to retire is a nice situation to be in, in terms of self-confidence, work-life balance and general psychological well-being.