I know two engineers who worked their way to becoming centi-millionaires. One worked for the same company his entire life. Another looked at every job as feeding a 'system' of a) co-workers; b) clients; c) the economy.
Probably the single best take-away from the article is to never stop learning. I also like the tip about keep networking and building relationships.
but I think there is a crowd that rejects too many of the basics at their own detriment. yes, getting work, highly valued work, still helps and helps waaay more reliably for a broader population than other methods, but its just a step. So you still need to do that, You also need to parlay earnings into wealth producing assets, assets that also have their own independent value that is intended to grow.
> There is a popular idea that substantial wealth belongs mainly to entrepreneurs.
This is probably because 24yo college dropouts are achieving billion dollar valuations after 12 months of work. Their secondary sales are worth more than following all the advice in this article will be for your entire life.
(To say nothing of NVDA, SpaceX, or other big tech acquiring them and making their billions liquid, despite no moat or profitability, just because they have so much money and need to spend it on something.)
No matter how much “grit” you have, you’re still at the mercy of such people, as e.g. the engineers at Windsurf were, who worked super hard but their founders sold to Google, walked away with hundreds of millions, and gave the employees nothing.
Of course, it depends on your meaning of “substantial”. Successful engineers have great wealth too, enough that they can be very happy and buy anything they want. But pretending the two levels are comparable is silly.
1. Alimony
2. Child support
Probably the single best take-away from the article is to never stop learning. I also like the tip about keep networking and building relationships.
but I think there is a crowd that rejects too many of the basics at their own detriment. yes, getting work, highly valued work, still helps and helps waaay more reliably for a broader population than other methods, but its just a step. So you still need to do that, You also need to parlay earnings into wealth producing assets, assets that also have their own independent value that is intended to grow.
> There is a popular idea that substantial wealth belongs mainly to entrepreneurs.
This is probably because 24yo college dropouts are achieving billion dollar valuations after 12 months of work. Their secondary sales are worth more than following all the advice in this article will be for your entire life.
(To say nothing of NVDA, SpaceX, or other big tech acquiring them and making their billions liquid, despite no moat or profitability, just because they have so much money and need to spend it on something.)
No matter how much “grit” you have, you’re still at the mercy of such people, as e.g. the engineers at Windsurf were, who worked super hard but their founders sold to Google, walked away with hundreds of millions, and gave the employees nothing.
Of course, it depends on your meaning of “substantial”. Successful engineers have great wealth too, enough that they can be very happy and buy anything they want. But pretending the two levels are comparable is silly.