[mufumbo]

I'm an engineer, so I'm giving out the only thing I learned by observation.

As an engineer, my observation and pattern matching skills are pretty good, so I am only describing what I observed by analysing "successful" entrepreneurs. I'm probably different, because I arrived to the Bay Area only five years ago. It may not be clear to you if you always lived and worked here.

In any case, depends how you define success? The author of the thread is also an engineer that codes, so I am guessing his definition of "come to fruition" would be an exit where he can cash-in more than $10mm.

What's the aggregate number of engineers who made a satisfactory exit? Is it "statistically significant" to you?

I did that formula for the past year and was very lucky that it worked before 5 years. Although, I was planning to "exit" in 10 years.

[RogerL]

"Every successful engineer I've observed wears socks. Thus, wearing socks is the cause of their success; if you wear socks you will be successful".

I hope the logical fallacies are clear when expressed like that. 1) sample size is too small to draw conclusions from. 2) correlation is not causation. 3) even if something is a factor in success it does not follow that it will determine success (necessary but not sufficient).

Besides, where did the OP express an interest in cashing out? S/he wants a job that is interesting to them.