That's an ironic claim on this platform. If you make $200k/year (normal high tech comp, probably not far from the average person here), save $100k/year and average 6.5% returns over 10 years, you have $1.4M.
You can then on average draw down $63k/year assuming 2% inflation to retain your purchasing power until the end of time. That's very comfortable if you're just willing to not live in the bay area or NYC.
I'm drawing a line between "software developer" and "high tech"
By high tech I ideally mean a company building novel and innovative software using new ideas and techniques, but implicitly I pretty much mean FAANG/well resourced startup in a tech hub.
And of course it reflects the "HN bubble", that's literally what I was referencing.
HN ranks in the top 1000 most popular sites in the US. How many of those visitors do you think are building “new and innovative” software?
How many of those who are building software at all do you think are not just building yet another software as a service CRUD app where the founder thinks they need “rockstar ninja” employees who can do leetCode in their sleep?
You can then on average draw down $63k/year assuming 2% inflation to retain your purchasing power until the end of time. That's very comfortable if you're just willing to not live in the bay area or NYC.