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It's also because the productivity gains that we have is captured by businesses rather than the employees. Being productive doesn't give you more free time. It just means that you get more work.
> is captured by businesses rather than the employees. "Businesses" don't really do much of anything. What you really mean is the billionaire executives at the top of them.
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Ron Conway alone disproves your thesis. Some people are just very good. Some prescriptions are also very good, like Sequoia or Kleiner Perkins. And the success of the good is not purely Matthew Effect, rich gets richer stuff, as Andreesen Horowitz shows. If you’re good enough you can go from not a VC firm to top 5 VC firm in under five years.
In no way do these people disprove the argument or other EMH-like arguments (efficient market hypothesis). In many random distributions, if you sample enough you're going to get outcomes at the tails.
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Sounds edge case-y (and only decreasing as wealth inequality increase)... but as you said, there are other reasons that keep them going. It’s not about “survival” in the most basic sense. That doesn’t make it any less real to those people.
$1M savings should last a life time if aggressively invested. If you have no dependents then 5-10 in a managerial class role should get you there
Regardless, none of this negates that they can still feel valid pressures no matter what their success is. Typically having such success invites even more pressure as one is expected to keep it up, either by others or themselves. Few make it to such largess without overworking themselves.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-40...
Everyone is tired because they are overworked: engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers, police, cooks, janitors. Long shifts, split shifts, long commutes, homework, constant interruptions, questionable management practices, weak labor laws, weak enforcement thereof, asymmetric legal costs, self-training on your own time, expectations of faster and faster turnaround times, less and less support staff...
Is there any other way to live in America ?
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I don’t know but I think a lot of people (no dependents) could live off $1M in invested savings for the rest of their life. 5-10 years in a managerial class role nets many that much.
I see these types of comments here quit a bit, and I'm guessing they're mostly from folks with no kids or ever having kids. Certainly there is an argument to be made for working less and living with less, but for most people $1M invested doesn't check out. If you're relying solely on returns from that investment, then conservatively you can only safely withdraw 3-4%, which works out to 30-40k a year. That's close to…
It’s also less about “never making another dime working” and more that you don’t need a traditional 9-5. You can and should figure out other sources of income.
Everyone is tired because they are overworked: engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers, police, cooks, janitors. Long shifts, split shifts, long commutes, homework, constant interruptions, questionable management practices, weak labor laws, weak enforcement thereof, asymmetric legal costs, self-training on your own time, expectations of faster and faster turnaround times, less and less support staff...
Is there any other way to live in America ?
If you level-set your expectations you can live a very laid back life.
Particularly in the software industry where you can get paid twice as much for working half as hard compared to most other fields.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also because the productivity gains that we have is captured by businesses rather than the employees. Being productive doesn't give you more free time. It just means that you get more work.
> is captured by businesses rather than the employees. "Businesses" don't really do much of anything. What you really mean is the billionaire executives at the top of them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
$1M savings should last a life time if aggressively invested. If you have no dependents then 5-10 in a managerial class role should get you there
I don’t understand your point. 39% of the country would have to borrow to cover a $400 surprise medical expense. Not many have $1MM in savings to “aggressively invest” (what does that even mean? Risky investments? Which means sometimes the luck will run out?). I also don’t know many ordinary managers with $5-10MM in savings. That’s quite some income, and those people must not be married with kids. Regardless, none of…
$1M in a high quality REIT can generate 12% dividends, which is $120K. A single person could easily live off half that.
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Ron Conway alone disproves your thesis. Some people are just very good. Some prescriptions are also very good, like Sequoia or Kleiner Perkins. And the success of the good is not purely Matthew Effect, rich gets richer stuff, as Andreesen Horowitz shows. If you’re good enough you can go from not a VC firm to top 5 VC firm in under five years.
You do not understand probability.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ron Conway alone disproves your thesis. Some people are just very good. Some prescriptions are also very good, like Sequoia or Kleiner Perkins. And the success of the good is not purely Matthew Effect, rich gets richer stuff, as Andreesen Horowitz shows. If you’re good enough you can go from not a VC firm to top 5 VC firm in under five years.
In no way do these people disprove the argument or other EMH-like arguments (efficient market hypothesis). In many random distributions, if you sample enough you're going to get outcomes at the tails.