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http://chase-seibert.github.io/blog/2014/01/01/saving-for-retirement-as-a-software-engineer.html
How much have you saved for retirement, and at what age?
I would expect to have about 20 times whatever I wanted to live on per year, and that yearly amount would high enough above what I know is enough to be comfortable. The state pension should kick in something too.
However, I don't expect to completely retire at any point though legally I currently could in only 5 years' time (then another 10 years or so to state pension age). So if I'm not doing a reasonable amount of work and keeping my brain active at 70 I would be disappointed.
The biggest chunk of my income is eaten up by taxes and rent. Once you've retired and your only income is from long term capital gains, taxes are much less of an issue and hopefully you've purchased a home so you don't need to rent. It also ignores social security, which based on the quick calculator at ssa.gov seems to be not an insubstantial amount, though I get that people don't want to count on that.
On the flip side, it completely ignores inflation which may mean that while your savings may be very large compared to how much you need to live today, they may not be adequate 30-40 years from now.
Without a good estimate for what your expenses will actually be, the number you "need" turns out to be complete nonsense IMO.
Most people would consider it a LOT to save $20k a year, which would be well under a million by retirement.
It makes more sense to take big risks with money and then use any big payoffs to help geoengineering efforts or prepare for living in a bunker. That may sound silly but some rich people are already doing that: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-f...
Less than 2% of the US will ever see anything near $4 million in their bank account. Most people would consider it a LOT to save $20k a year, which would be well under a million by retirement.