No, You can't retire rich at 30 if you sell your startup

Microsoft held a launch event for the original Xbox back in Fall of 2001 for retailers. It showed what it was all about, let people play almost-complete versions of Halo and several other launch titles, etc...

One of the speakers started talking about demographics, such as who they expected to buy the console. One point of their market research jumped out: The average male Xbox consumer in the (approx) 18-25 year old range expected to be a millionaire by age 30.

Hmmm, that's me! (I was 21 at the time) But this would be an impossible goal for 99.9% of us. At the time a lot of paper-millionaires were recently minted in the dot-com boom, likely throwing off my perception and that of others.

It turns out I felt "entitled" to be a millionaire by 30. But in reality, entitlement usually disappoints since it discourages hard work, dreams get shattered, and expectations are eventually lowered. It's a chronic disease best avoided.

Fortunately this triggered a wake-up-call and encouraged me to work harder. Being a millionaire by age 30 isn't as important anymore. Instead, being intelligent enough and positioned properly by age 30 to do great things, and maybe eventually become a millionaire, is far more important. The goal of money is still desired as it brings elevated freedom, and the sooner you get it the better, of course. But it can be blinding if that's all you care about.

Please tell me which point I'm wrong on. Do most people not live in larger houses, enjoy greater automation of housework, enjoy larger and better entertainment technologies, and benefit from medical procedures which did not exist in 1967?

That's not even imaginative enough. We'll be living in space and the rich will own whole solar systems with strong AI civilizations dedicated to working for them and worshipping them. The poor will barely be able to afford immortality and a space ship for going to work. Your great-granddaughter will complain, "Dad, why can't our Spaceballs One even move a diddly little gas giant while those people have whole solar systems to play with?" "Oww... blame our great-grandfather, he spent all his startup money on a measly 4000 sq ft house 200 years ago. Douchebag thinks he'd only live for 90 years."

When I lived in the Valley I bought a 1986 Toyota MR2 for about $6k. It had hilarious 80s-era retro styling with angles reminiscent of Tron, and it admittedly has been through an engine and transmission rebuild in the last 24 years, but it still runs great (for the friend I sold it to) and doesn't cost much more to maintain than any car of that age would cost.

It is marginally less fuel efficient than many cars, despite its tiny size, and one does go through tires when one is tearing off the starting line at the entrance ramp to 101. Fast cars are more expensive than regular cars. But not necessarily much so.

Of course, if your definition of a fast car includes the word "Chevy" or, god help you, "Porsche" I take back everything I said. ;)

It's not bad :)

The grass is always greener on the other side, but I'll try to be less biased:

- It's reasonably safe and orderly by South American standards (1)

- Some things are much cheaper, like anything labor-related (like housemaids) (2), or meat (we're the biggest per capita meat consumers in the world, as there are 5 cows per inhabitant)

- Healthcare is in a socialist style (actually Mutualism) (3), and while it's always "on the brink of collapse", it works,

- People are reasonably educated, you'll find enough English-speakers if you come here :) , quite an important "hacker"/IT population (small in numbers, but big relative to the overall 3.000.000 inhabitants).

- OTOH, there's a big marginalized community (similar to the "favelas" in Brazil) that make about 10% of the population, but are the fastest-growing segment. So far, the most striking for an American will be seeing horse-drawn carriages full of litter, with poor children darting to collect the garbage bags of the middle class (needless to say, avoid them or they will relieve them of your wallet or cell phone as well), and beggars at quite a few street lights, or begging on the buses.

- There's a mix of almost-cutting edge (countrywide 3G cell phone and internet access) with old-tech (all the paper-based bureaucracy for example)

- Climate is quite moderate, although it's humid - some people, especially from middle Europe or Canada, think they won't experience the cold or heat. They're wrong. Humid cold and heat are way worse than their dry equivalents. Also, housing is not built to minimize the weather (no double or triple pane windows, bad insulation, bad or no heating in most houses)

There are nice vacation spots if you like beaches, though the water is colder and less clear than in Brazil and way less so than in the Caribbean :) (sand is among the best in the world, though)

- Several first world niceties like modern cars or electronics are out of reach for the masses, because the government likes to tax them out of reach. For smaller electronics, it's cheaper to fly to the US and smuggle them back than to buy them in a store. For larger stuff (say, a LCD TV) you're out of luck. Also, several easy credit options available in the US are not available here.

- Housing in the nicer parts of Montevideo is expensive (on par with some of the not-as-nice parts of American or Canadian cities), as the housing bubble hasn't exploded yet, and credit is not as easily available.

(1) it reminds me of a National Geographic story about the Baltic countries. If you arrived at them from Russia, they seem 1st world and orderly. But if you came to them from Europe, they seem disorderly and third-worldish :P

(2) there are several legal pitfalls, as there are quite cumbersome legal regulations. Most people live in a "grey" economy, complying with most regulations but underreporting or not complying with others (it's quite usual to underreport salaries to the tax collectors)

(3) The best explanation I could come up with after some Googling is: http://www.hmg.gov.uk/media/60217/mutuals.pdf "Mutual organisations do not have external shareholders - they are controlled by their members. Members may be users of the mutual, employees, other stakeholders or a combination of these Mutual organisations are either owned by and run in the interests of existing members, as is the case in building societies, cooperatives and friendly societies, or, as in many public services, owned on behalf of the wider community and run in the interests of the wider community"