[onemoreact]

If you actually look at the people that went from the middle class to 10+ million a tiny fraction of them got there though start ups. If your goal is to actually have a good shot at 10million by mid 40's there are plenty of professions that can give you better than 10% chance of getting there and even if you fail your still making 3-5 or more times what the average Programmer at Google makes.

[iqster]

What professions do you speak of? I know many (recent graduate) lawyers, doctors and dentists who are all bogged down by loans. For lawyers, making partner seems to be the main road to riches. But that's a lottery. A dentist I know has taken on even more loans to start his own practice. Piling more debt on top of a sizable one seems sheer insanity to me. But perhaps that's just the risk one has to take these days.

[foobarqux]

The only professions that I can think of that have that possibility are: doctor, trader (finance) and investment banker (finance) and possibly lawyer. Anything I missed?

[sachingulaya]

Doctor? No, no way. Maybe in the 90s. The profession has been commoditized.

[onemoreact]

Cardiologist salaries have nearly doubled in the last decade to a hefty $442,000. That's not to say most doctors make anywhere near that, just if your in it for the money there are choices you can make to get there. However, 400+k is not exactly what it used to be which is why so many people are still focused on the financial sector.

[bilbo0s]

That about covers it.

But his point is still valid...tech people could easily have gone to med school. If they had...they would have had a more solid chance at accumulating that USD10Million than working startup after startup.

[rayiner]

> tech people could easily have gone to med school.

Some, but mostly not. The non-tech professions that offer high pay (medicine, law, banking) all have very different barriers to entry than tech. There are a lot of folks who made a ton of money in tech who didn't have the 4.0 + ridiculous extracurriculars to get into med school, or the Ivy-league background to get into a bank. I think those barriers make those professions less meritocratic than tech, don't get me wrong, but they are what they are.

[defen]

Let's not forget personality / human factors though - I'm fairly certain I could have been a doctor or lawyer (even considered being a lawyer at one time and got a 178 on the LSAT) but I'm just not cut out for those fields. I'm too squeamish to be a doctor and I don't have the interpersonal / political skills to be a really successful lawyer. So tech it is...

[rudiger]

Consultant (technology or management). Quant (not sure if you include this under trader, but they're not the same). Also dentist.