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Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

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Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#11

Post by JohnFen »

PreInternet01 wrote: post #6

Not quite in my 60s just yet, but close. Anyway: Work: find your niche. Accept that you're not going to be a hotshot coder/consultant/whatever forever. However, outside of 'fashionable tech' there is an entire world where you can make a comfortable living and nobody cares about your age. That doesn't mean you can stop learning: remaining up-to-date on relevant skills is important, but 'relevant' does a lot of heavy l…

Everything you wrote is wonderful, but I wanted to expand on this:

> Accept that you're not going to be a hotshot coder/consultant/whatever forever.

I would add that it's likely that you won't even want to be a hotshot whatever forever. Getting older is like every other change in the stages of life. Some doors close, some doors open, but mostly -- what you enjoy and want out of life changes. Embrace that, and don't keep chasing the things you wanted in youth purely out of habit.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#12

Post by WalterBright »

p-e-w wrote: post #10
WalterBright wrote: post #7

Max out contributions to your 401k, IRA, Roth IRA, and HSA accounts.

Assuming that there will be any actual money in those accounts by the time you get to retire is incredibly optimistic. With the way things are developing, everything being wiped out by some event in the next 20 years seems far more likely. The list of potential causes is long: Bank and government failures, demographic collapse, AI, climate change, war, inflation. Or, some future government might simply decide that th…

All my investments are in stocks. People tell me "what if the stock market goes to zero?" Well, then I'd lose everything. But consider this - if the stock market goes to zero, so does the bond market, so does the real estate market, so do hog futures, your NFTs, your collector car, etc.

The only thing that goes up is ammunition.

So sure, it could happen, but I'm not going to diversify, because that won't work, either.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#13

Post by ksaj »

p-e-w wrote: post #10
WalterBright wrote: post #7

Max out contributions to your 401k, IRA, Roth IRA, and HSA accounts.

Assuming that there will be any actual money in those accounts by the time you get to retire is incredibly optimistic. With the way things are developing, everything being wiped out by some event in the next 20 years seems far more likely. The list of potential causes is long: Bank and government failures, demographic collapse, AI, climate change, war, inflation. Or, some future government might simply decide that th…

They've been saying that since I was a kid. Every generation seems to think there's is the one that runs out of money and the world runs amok.

It doesn't mean this one won't be the one. But I think one can build up their wealth without the paranoia baggage from generations prior.

A more positive spin on this, is to remember not to keep all your eggs in one basket. Things do fail, so therefor your wealth should not be in one thing either.

One thing you should never do is get into the mindset that "Ah, everything's gonna fail anyway" and then completely fail to prepare for a comfortable retirement, and all the (often expensive) things that will happen between today and your last day.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#14

Post by gwbrooks »

p-e-w wrote: post #10
WalterBright wrote: post #7

Max out contributions to your 401k, IRA, Roth IRA, and HSA accounts.

Assuming that there will be any actual money in those accounts by the time you get to retire is incredibly optimistic. With the way things are developing, everything being wiped out by some event in the next 20 years seems far more likely. The list of potential causes is long: Bank and government failures, demographic collapse, AI, climate change, war, inflation. Or, some future government might simply decide that th…

No climate model predicts broad, capitalism-ending economic shock within the next 20 years.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#16

Post by epicureanideal »

gigatexal wrote: post #8
PreInternet01 wrote: post #6

Not quite in my 60s just yet, but close. Anyway: Work: find your niche. Accept that you're not going to be a hotshot coder/consultant/whatever forever. However, outside of 'fashionable tech' there is an entire world where you can make a comfortable living and nobody cares about your age. That doesn't mean you can stop learning: remaining up-to-date on relevant skills is important, but 'relevant' does a lot of heavy l…

This should probably be enshrined on tablets somewhere. I too am worried about either moving into management or starting my own company or something else because there’s no way I’m going to be a worthwhile IC into my 50s. I need to do something more.

I sure hope I have a big exit sometime before 60 (20 years from now), because the cost of living in the Bay Area is crazy. It would be awful to work as a "well paid" (but most of it goes to living expenses and raising kids) software engineer for many years, and then need to retire in some rural area on social security, with bare minimum quality of life...

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#19

Post by emodendroket »

gigatexal wrote: post #8
PreInternet01 wrote: post #6

Not quite in my 60s just yet, but close. Anyway: Work: find your niche. Accept that you're not going to be a hotshot coder/consultant/whatever forever. However, outside of 'fashionable tech' there is an entire world where you can make a comfortable living and nobody cares about your age. That doesn't mean you can stop learning: remaining up-to-date on relevant skills is important, but 'relevant' does a lot of heavy l…

This should probably be enshrined on tablets somewhere. I too am worried about either moving into management or starting my own company or something else because there’s no way I’m going to be a worthwhile IC into my 50s. I need to do something more.

> I too am worried about either moving into management or starting my own company or something else because there’s no way I’m going to be a worthwhile IC into my 50s

I'm curious why you say this.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#20

Post by ksaj »

WalterBright wrote: post #12
p-e-w wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that there will be any actual money in those accounts by the time you get to retire is incredibly optimistic. With the way things are developing, everything being wiped out by some event in the next 20 years seems far more likely. The list of potential causes is long: Bank and government failures, demographic collapse, AI, climate change, war, inflation. Or, some future government might simply decide that th…

All my investments are in stocks. People tell me "what if the stock market goes to zero?" Well, then I'd lose everything. But consider this - if the stock market goes to zero, so does the bond market, so does the real estate market, so do hog futures, your NFTs, your collector car, etc. The only thing that goes up is ammunition. So sure, it could happen, but I'm not going to diversify, because that won't work, either…

This is a good way to frame it. The stock market going to zero means everybody has stopped valuing companies, and presumably the companies themselves are not creating value anyone can buy into.

That puts us back to pre-industrial planet. Is that going to happen in this generation? I wouldn't worry too much about the stock market disappearing and taking all your money with it then.

Diversifying mainly means not putting all your wealth into one industry. It doesn't mean "Don't rely on stocks" or whatever.

If you only have one ship and it goes down, you go down with the ship. If you have a fleet, you can stay afloat. If you manage your fleet like a battalion, you just might win the battle. Ships won't suddenly cease to exist.

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