Earlier quoted context omitted.
70k invested per year, I think I could be done in a decade. I had a really good year where I just neglected to set my 401k up. So much money wasted on taxes. I'm not really trying to retire in the US, I don't intend on having a family. I think a million or so, might be enough. 5% yield on 700k is 35k per year which is enough to live well in much of the world.
Reliable 5% yield while keeping the base the same value (rising with inflation)? Possible, but not without risk. And if you want to protect against that risk, i.e. accept that some investments will fail [0], you need a bigger amount, imho. Or accept that you will get less, not 35k per year. [0] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/INTC/
Assuming I retire at 40, and need to make 700k last 30 years, that's 23k per year with no yield. Even a modest 3% yield slows the burn rate so my money would still outlast me.
Or I'll be 73 writing Python which might not be so bad...