I think that we also need to give this dude some credit for living frugally. Most people, once they make that kind of money spend a lot more than this guy. Living like you make 50K when you actually make 500K might sound simple in theory, but in real life, there are all sorts of temptations that make most people generally not do that.
I’m sure he worked hard, but the tone of “everyone can do it” is obnoxious.
Even the first sentence.
I grew up in Kerala, India, where my parents made less than $20,000 a year.
I know that’s supposed to show that he’s coming from humble beginnings, but unless I’m doing math wrong and/or looking at bad numbers, that’s 6x the average salary in Kerala.
I’m not familiar enough with India to know what kind of life that gets you, but I can pretty much guarantee it’s far better than making $20k in the US.
As for the rest of it, congrats on being great at something that is very in demand from companies with a lot of money. Not everyone can do that.
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Ha yea, making 20k USD a year in Kerala you’re living in a nice house, probably with one or more servants
Right we need to commend this guy on his frugality. His bootstrapping mentality, lol.
I don’t get the criticism. Of course the vast majority of people can’t do the things needed to self fund retirement at 29. Of course you need a very high income to bank a lifetime of expenses in less than 10 years of working. Doesn’t invalidate the article or the subject’s success.
Regardless if he grew up upper middle class in Kerala he’s certainly moved into the western upper middle class which is a step up from his parents’ position. To do that by 29 is impressive. Good for him.
Nothing is impressive
My thing is who cares, why we publishing something about this guy at all? The tips are basically:
Grow up in a country with cheap/free secondary education or have rich parents.
Be born with top 0.1% intelligence/drive to work extremely hard.
Invest in stonks at the perfect time during a massive boom.
Meet and fall in love with another person equal to the 2nd point.
It isn’t relevant to 99.9% of people and you need a near perfect alignment of circumstances to make it happen. It’s just part of the stupid american dream narrative that we need to push out to keep people grinding.
The issue I have with the whole genre is I don’t really give a fuck what’s possible for smart motivated people who catch some breaks.
I care about normal people having a tolerable life. The choice to skip covering the absolute fact that an average millennial is absolutely being fucked in the ass on repeat while running these horseshit “work harder you lazy poor” pieces is intentional and enraging.
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Gen Z’ers just need to get off of TikTok and get a PhD from Caltech
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Not being financially independent by age 29 is what the French call “les incompetents”
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Of course there is no easy template anyone can follow to retire at 29. To me this is not the American Dream at all, I’ve never heard about early retirement being part of the American Dream.
While his results are not possible for almost everyone there are people who might learn things from this article like
- early retirement is possible if you avoid lifestyle creep
- you can save a bunch of money on education if you can skip Masters and go straight to a PHD program. I am not sure many people even among those who have the brains to do it consider that path, I had never heard of doing it that way…
I believe the answer to why are they publishing this is the same as for anything else the publisher thinks it will attract eyeballs which can be sold to advertisers.
The better question is why do we care? Why is it posted on this board in this thread for people to comment amount about? Are we jealous of this guy? I’m not. It would be nice to have the security but I would rather have my career and a more expensive lifestyle, and I wonder how secure he will be in terms of unexpected medical issues or other things life throws his way.
Just to emphasize this point, if you were to join our PhD program, not only would it be tuition-free, but you would also get an annual stipend of almost $40k.
I had no idea when I applied to grad school roughly 4,000 years ago - I was stunned to find out that they would pay me to go there.
LOL. So we’ve convinced ourselves that some dude whose family made less than 20K/yr in a third world country is living the good life.
So, you wanna trade your life for that? Does anyone here want to?
I agree with this. That’s why I don’t get the hate for the subject at the article.
You can laugh at the author and publication for as long as you like. I’m good with that.
I’m still confused. Why exactly are you laughing at him. What the fuck did he do?
THAT’S SOCIALISM!
I certainly dont hate the subject. Good for him and whatever, but yeah BI can fuck right off with the narrative they are presenting
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The article is just a semi transcribed conversation, he basically wrote it. He probably reached out through some PR person or something to get his name and new AI company out in the public.
Well, I’ll give him some of the blame if that is how it played out. Still blame the publication and author more that they agreed to this. Or that they couldn’t think of anything else to write about. How about writing about the product that he is trying to develop? That would actually be interesting and more useful to him. Also far more topical for a publication called “Business Insider”.
Going from B.S. to a Ph. D program that paid money was common knowledge among my science peers in undergrad. Many people did, including me. But I subsisted on ~$25k for 7 years, and, even with a good job now, I doubt I’ll equal the lifetime earnings of a CS or engineering major who just got a job out of undergrad and invested appropriately (I tried saving and investing a little of what I could from my stipend into mutual funds, but I didn’t learn what expense ratios were at first, and I couldn’t save that much). I’m much more of a scientist than an engineer, though, and I’m happy choosing against that, even if I’ve had a ton of luck along the way to get me where I am, too. Seeing econ phds flirting with 40k now tho has me thinking.
Of course few would make that choice, but that’s primarily because the most valuable thing anyone has is their social network, which they couldn’t maintain moving to somewhere across the globe. From a pure financial perspective, it’s a closer decision than you might think, especially given the ability to work remotely.
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