81–89 of 89 posts
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Are you sure its the only clear answer? There is nothing else that can explain this?
I graduated college despite historical oppression and system racism. My access to capital is due to the color of my skin.
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"FIRE" people do something valuable too, totally up to their choice. I think a good example would be like ashton kutcher creating thorn.
Sure but what's the path that ends with FIRE? If you're lucky you can maybe work on things you like, earn a good amount of money and then have enough to be financially independent. But if you have to slog at boring jobs for a lot of years in order to accumulate that big pile of money allowing you to become FI you'll have to consider if it's worth it. Maybe after being FI you'll keep working but you'll have the privil…
It's not mutually exclusive.
> my approach is having enough to live several years without income, allowing me to reject things I really don't want.
This is what "FI" part means. the financial independence.
No.
Once you have spent time in a third works country you can see crisp divides in reality and expectations. There are some amazingly smart people in the world living without running water, food security, or basic sanitation. Intelligence alone will not transform that poverty into excess wealth.
Once you have worked for a major government or committed yourself to science/academics you will understand that there is amazing genius intelligence that is not earning stupendous wealth. Peter Thiel has commented before about his complete inability to understand that which says more about Peter than anything else.
Honestly, according to numerous data sources most wealth comes from only two places: inheritance and narcissism. There are company founders/athletes/entertainers who are incredibly successful that are not primarily self-serving whether by favorable market conditions or their own ingenuity but they are a minority data sample after accounting for distribution of wealth by headcount quantity.
That said, a better question is: Why are you still wealthy?
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Sure but what's the path that ends with FIRE? If you're lucky you can maybe work on things you like, earn a good amount of money and then have enough to be financially independent. But if you have to slog at boring jobs for a lot of years in order to accumulate that big pile of money allowing you to become FI you'll have to consider if it's worth it. Maybe after being FI you'll keep working but you'll have the privil…
> But if you have to slog at boring jobs for a lot of years in order to accumulate that big pile of money allowing you to become FI you'll have to consider if it's worth it. It's not mutually exclusive. > my approach is having enough to live several years without income, allowing me to reject things I really don't want. This is what "FI" part means. the financial independence.
I understand financial independence as "having enough to retire without needing any more income", so the amount of money is not the same.
> Does anyone else feel this way? No. Once you have spent time in a third works country you can see crisp divides in reality and expectations. There are some amazingly smart people in the world living without running water, food security, or basic sanitation. Intelligence alone will not transform that poverty into excess wealth. Once you have worked for a major government or committed yourself to science/academics yo…
if it means you can "figure stuff out at work" congrats, you can follow instructions in a structured, specialist environment.
to become legitimately "rich", however, in most cases you have to own part of a business.
and in the world of entrepreneurship, you have to be much more of a generalist, as there are 10 different factors (sales, product, timing, pricing) you must all get right.
I can virtually guarantee you the best person at math in the world is not rich, because they have gone full specialist to get to that point, and therefore cannot succeed outside of an extremely structured environment.
"Range, Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World" by David Epstein is a great book on this topic.
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For me, rich is someone who does not need to work. Someone who can retire at any given moment.
When I was in my twenties, I used to think about getting enough money in order to retire young. Then I realized that I actually enjoy working and I don't see myself sitting on my ass doing nothing. What I want is enough money to say no to work I don't really like, enough money for allowing me to choose what to do with more liberty.
What happens when you're diagnosed with a serious, career-ending chronic disease?
Financial independence has nothing to do with having a relaxing retirement at a young age.
I wish I had realized this younger, for multiple reasons.
Sometimes, I do wonder why I'm not rich, even though I'm smart in many ways. But I really know the answer. I haven't actually tried to get rich, because I don't value that very much. I try to maximize my time for things that make me happy. So it's not really a mystery that I'm not "rich" (a relative term).
Depending on your financial situation, you could Buy an old line company and digitize it. In the US, If you can get 500k from friends and family, you can buy a $5m company with a strong balance sheet and strong cash flow. It will give you a live Petri dish to test your ideas on how to do things better.
How would you go about finding that and financing it?