
Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev? - soulbadguy
I am currently working for a big company doing somewhat very technical work as a developer,and currently trying to formulate a strategy for building a reasonable amount of wealth that would allow me retire early ( and probably return to school yey:) ).<p>It seems that all the success story are related to start-ups;Looking at my situation, i am not sure that this would be my best options. First my area of interrest&#x2F;expertise (compiler and dev tools) doesn&#x27;t seems amendable for a start-up; and beside the somewhat rigid structure,low pay and boring meetings i still enjoy the &quot;big company&quot; setting : working with so many smart people with so much experience really turn every interaction into a teachable moment and has allowed me ( and continue to do so) to grow as dev at an incredible rate.<p>I am sure other dev&#x2F;people are facing the same dilemma, so it would be nice to hear from other people :<p>1 - are start-up the only way to significant wealth for a dev(while still doing dev work)  ?
2 - i read on-line stories about dev making north of 1 million a years; is that really possible ?
3 - what are the other way to wealth for a dev (investing, consulting, part time startup etc...) ?
======
patio11
I'll answer the questions you asked, then give you a better question:

AppAmaGooBookSoft are probably not what you're thinking of when you say
"startups" and 5-10 years in any of them will make you quite wealthy indeed,
by the standards of e.g. the American middle class.

Do some devs make north of $1 million a year? Yes, for a value of "some." (If
you put a gun to my head, I'd say "Maybe 5% of the engineering workforce at
AppAmaGooBookSoft. Possibly modestly higher than that in finance.") The
shortest path to it is "significant contributions to a major revenue driver
for a large company combined with aggressive negotiation."

Depending on where you draw the bar for "wealthy", there are a lot of dev-
related businesses which can get you there. Consultancies with employees throw
off a lot of money on a yearly basis and also build value which can be sold.
Profits for a well-managed e.g. Rails consultancy are on the order of
$2.5k~$10k _per employee_ per month (math here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7155387](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7155387)),
so if you run a 10-person consultancy, you do pretty well for yourself via
distributions while also drawing the market salary you're paying all the
employees.

There exist many product businesses which are primarily or largely software in
character. There exist hundreds of software companies which toil in relative
obscurity whose founders are (generally very quietly) millionaires even when
one doesn't count the value of the company itself. I built a consulting career
off of working for SaaS companies with, in the main, $10 to $50 million a year
in revenue. There exist lots of them. The rough economics are often 10% COGS
10% marketing 10% G&A 50% salaries 20% "whatever the owner feels like."

Many of these paths will not involve you being primarily working on compilers
and dev tools. (Compilers are a tough sell -- dev tools perhaps less so. There
exist plenty of great small dev tools companies.) Even if that is what your
business actually makes money on, you will probably have to a) get into
business and b) spend the majority of your cycles on building the business
rather than building the thing the business makes, unless you take the well-
compensated employee route.

There are your answers. Here is my question: what do you want out of life?
What does "wealthy" mean to you? What motivates your desire to retire early?

I once wanted to retire early, but that was a symptom of the underlying
affliction "I hated what I was doing for a living." If you see wealth as an
opportunity to choose to spend most of your cycles on something other than
what you presently do for a living, you probably can achieve that without
being sold-a-startup-now-I'm-loaded wealthy. Some of the happiest people I
know run quiet little cottage industry software businesses on the Internet in
preference to the day job. Most don't have seven figures in the bank, but
their day-to-day lifestyle might resemble that of a "gentleman of means."

If you want to have sufficient free cycles to study something, consider as an
option "Create some enduring source of value which solves the sustenance-for-
myself-and-family problem with the minimum number of hours required per week;
spend my freed-up-time studying rather than filing TPS reports."

~~~
saiprashanth93
What exactly is AppAmaGooBookSoft?

~~~
JonRB
I believe it means Apple/Amazon/Google/Facebook/Microsoft

I was also unsure and searching for it basically only gave HN things.

~~~
w1ntermute
It's a patio11-ism.

------
fishcakes
Here are a few ideas:

\- Selling enterprise software (you can make 10%-20% of an 8 or 9 figure deal)

\- Selling securities in some form or another (you make ~5% of deals worth
potentially hundreds of millions of dollars)

\- high leverage consulting (solving very hard tech problems for lots of
people. for example: I have a friend who helps a whole bunch of computer
vision companies and makes a ton. Another friend is an SEO expert.)

\- Patenting core technologies and selling those patents (A buddy of mine sold
his patent for $10M)

\- "platform based land grabs". Think of the people who bought tons of domains
early in the Web's history. Or the first guy to make an emoji app on iOS.
These are different than "starting a company" as you really only need a
product and can pull it all off on your own. I suspect there will be more of
these in the future.

All of these require creatively navigating business as well as being an
awesome dev.

~~~
catshirt
forgive my lack of imagination / education, what kind of enterprise software
could a sole developer create that would land 8/9 figure contracts?

~~~
sosuke
I took GP to mean as a technical sales person, sales engineers make a
commission.

~~~
catshirt
thanks, i must not have read that too carefully. :)

------
zamalek
1\. Startups have happiness potential for developer not only because of the
monetary wealth but also because of the _wealth of the challenges faced._
Developers live for tricky puzzles to solve and startups are one place that
you can get them. Startups aren't the only place where you can find challenges
(as you've noted).

The monetary wealth typically comes from _stock options._ Stock options are a
promise that you can buy stocks at a certain price at some point in the future
(when they become available, e.g. during an investment or IPO). Options are
how you become an overnight millionaire. Startups aren't the only place where
you can earn options.

You'll typically find that companies that aren't publicly traded have stock
options (ask about them in your interview). It's not something that's
exclusive to startups - I have options in a 10 year old company and have
cashed in some of those options.

2\. Yes.

3\. Accrue wealth like anyone would. Developers earn relatively high salaries
(whether they work for a startup or not) and hence have an easier time getting
into the situation where money works for them.

However, even one of those developers who earns $1 000 000 can have no wealth
if they waste it all. Someone who earns $75 000 can amass a fortune. It all
comes down to how well you manage your money. If you do something to get rich
quick chances are you are going to end up penniless. It takes time, discipline
and a brain.

There is no quick road to material wealth.

Money does not make you happy, it merely multiplies what is already there.
It's a catalyst. If you're already happy, money makes you happier. If you're
already sad, money will make you miserable.

~~~
timr
_" Developers live for tricky puzzles to solve and startups are one place that
you can get them. Startups aren't the only place where you can find challenges
(as you've noted)."_

Ehhh. I jumped from research to the startup world, so maybe I have a high bar,
but most startups are doing pretty boring, predictable variations on bog-
standard systems work. You see this in the way that these "exciting" companies
keep re-inventing the same wheels in different languages. How many javascript
frameworks are there, again? How many different ways have people found to
"replace" relational databases?

If you're right out of school, _everything_ is challenging. Give it a few
years. Eventually, it becomes downright boring to watch people needlessly re-
solve problems that were solved in the late 1960s because they don't know
history, and/or don't want to learn some boring old technology that their
older brother used last week.

If you want interesting problems, go into research. If you want to do
interesting problems _and_ get paid, go to companies that are large enough to
have the resources to fund things that aren't directly on the critical path to
profit. Startups are a really bad place to go if you want tricky puzzles.

~~~
PopeOfNope
Why did you jump from research to the startup world?

~~~
timr
A desire not to die in abject poverty. (I kid...)

I realized a) that I was unlikely to get a tenure-track position, and b) that
even if I were to get one, I didn't really enjoy the work of a tenure-track
professor, which tends to be more about fundraising and having meetings, and
less about doing research.

(More flippantly, I realized that the life of a modern, tenured academic looks
a lot like the life of a small business owner. So why not just go into
startups, where there's a chance of making real money for the lifetime of
effort?)

------
starmole
It really depends on skill and motivation. If your motivation is only money
you are unlikely to succeed.

Personally I am a big corp dev and making >600k/year on track to retire at 40.

But you do not get there by trying for the salary. Try to be good, no
exceptional, at what you do. Become valuable and you will be paid. But your
motivation should be your craft and not money.

I believe the same applies for startup founders too. As a dev in startup land
you are at a disadvantage though - the fail or rise of the company is much
more about sales and biz than tech.

I think as a dev big corps are the way better bet. Not much to loose, but
possibly high payout. Startups very rarely pay out for devs.

~~~
jerguismi
Is the $600k salary, bonuses, stock options or? Sounds quite incredible to me.
I haven't heard from any dev making this kind of salary, not even in the big
companies.

~~~
zzalpha
That's what I'm trying to figure out. $600k salary+bonuses is C-level
executive territory. The idea of an engineer making that kind of money in
straight compensation sounds ludicrous to me.

If it's in the form of options, you'll forgive me if I treat that as pretend
money until it's transformed into real wealth.

~~~
starmole
600k including bonuses. Vested RSU bonuses. So real cash in hand. And those
usually keep replenishing over time so after an initial delay it's
compensation.

~~~
zzalpha
Ah, so base salary plus vested options, aka handcuffs.

And you're getting, on average, what, 400-500k a year in RSUs vesting?

Am I wrong is that basically bonkers as far as compensation goes? That feels
at least a few standard deviations outside the mean... Which is great for you,
and congratulations!

But "win the lottery" doesn't make for very compelling early retirement
advice. :)

------
sosuke
A general rant, when someone asks about how to make reasonable wealth,
significant wealth, or to get richer than you would be as a salaried worker I
assume they are interested in getting into the 1% or higher bracket of
earners.

Someone making 6 figures asking how to get more wealth probably doesn't care
they are in the top 10%. They are looking up, not down. Saving half their
salary isn't realistic for a single income family, and would even be tough for
a dual income family.

They probably don't care to listen to the "money isn't everything" advice from
the rich. Yes, everyone knows that money isn't everything, and everyone knows
that money isn't everything when you've already got it. I have relatives
making choices between feeding themselves or their pet for the day, money
means a great deal up to a point, and then there is a big gap where it doesn't
make much difference. Then after that gap is breached is starts to make a huge
difference again.

Unfortunately, for the number of times this question is asked, the number of
times I've asked it of myself, there are no silver bullets or proven paths. I
have to stop ranting now it is late, I am tired. (^_^)b

~~~
markyc
_I have relatives making choices between feeding themselves or their pet for
the day_

why would they have a pet if they can't afford to feed it?

~~~
jmngomes
Perhaps they had adopted the pet before a completely unexpected event turned
their lives upside down and out of their control?

~~~
markyc
when it's a question if my family eats vs the pet eats, there are only 2
possible answers:

1\. sell/give the pet away

or

2\. eat the pet

~~~
jamesdelaneyie
Time to chow down on Scruffles kids!

------
tslug
1\. No.

2\. Yes.

3\. Respect the people you want to help you. For instance, let's say you want
a bunch of people to take the time to read and answer difficult, open-ended
questions for free in a way that could lead to vast personal wealth for you.
You could demonstrate your respect for them by showing them the courtesy of
proof-reading your post. As the questions are so broad, you also could show
respect by sharing what you've learned in the research you've done so far to
help educate them and to narrow down what you're looking for. You could
demonstrate even more respect by thanking the authors of particularly good
contributions.

~~~
soulbadguy
This one is interesting.

------
sblom
I worked with a test engineer at Microsoft who started in 1999, which was
after the get-rich-on-stock-options days at the company. He spent 15 years
living below his means, and recently retired from the tech world forever. He
didn't need any tricks or secrets to pull it off, just living frugally and
saving tons of money. I suspect I'm way behind him despite earning more and
even having a wife who used to earn a software salary as well. Makes me wish I
would have saved more aggressively to date.

~~~
justinlilly
You may be interested in earlyretirementextreme.com which details how to do
exactly what your friend did.

------
danieltillett
I am surprised no one has suggested the traditional and still very popular way
which is marry someone wealthy.

~~~
ishanr
lol

------
madaxe_again
As someone who has spent their 20's accruing "significant wealth" through a
startup (I am by no means loaded, but have not worried about money at all in
~3 years), I'll tell you now - it's overrated.

Money _can_ buy you happiness, but it's an inefficient exchange mechanism -
unless you roll two sixes, the amount of work and bullshit that goes hand in
hand with growing your "worth" usually exceeds the reward - and that reward
for most is tantalisingly close but always "a year or two" away.

Monetary wealth is a means - it is "gas in the tank" \- but it isn't the end.
The end is your own happiness and wellbeing, and there are much easier ways to
secure this than through wealth.

If I'd known what I know now, I would have moved to a hut up a mountain a
decade ago rather than going into business. Now I am responsible for the
livelihood of dozens directly, thousands indirectly, and while I may have made
myself a very comfortable gilded cage, it is a cage, and the cost of my wealth
has been my freedom.

~~~
zzalpha
Having grown up in a poor household with a single parent who worked multiple
jobs to get ends to meet, you'll forgive me if I don't feel a whole heck of a
lot of sympathy for you and your "gilded cage".

Money itself does not buy happiness.

A lack of money, though, makes it a heck of a lot harder to find it.

The goal should be to reach a point where you don't have to actively worry
about money, and that includes some buffer to allow for luxury expenses...
travel, eating out, entertainment, that sort of thing.

Beyond that, additional money will, at best, provide an increment in terms of
overall life satisfaction.

Less than that, and money has a _major_ impact on happiness, and anyone who
says otherwise has clearly never experienced the stress of living paycheck-to-
paycheck. _That_ is a cage, and trust me, it ain't gilded.

~~~
namecast
Seconded. "Money can't buy happiness, but it can sure chase away the blues".
(And the debt collectors and irate landlords, I would add).

------
jcoffland
Contracting! Many people, most of them non-contractors or people who have
limited contracting experience will tell you contracting is risky. If you are
good it's actually much more secure than getting a "real" job, once you get
going. You can't really get fired and as long as you are able to juggle a few
clients at a time you will always have plenty of work. If you can consistently
deliver results faster than the average deskjocky you can earn a lot of money
too.

~~~
tajen
I second contracting. You are responsible for your own skills, but you can
start very young, and you usually get better skills than permanently employed
people. Then only drawback is the lack of social ties with your employer, but
nowadays employers don't really care for employees, and having more money than
a permanent employee will give you more latitude.

~~~
bentcorner
I'm completely unfamiliar with this - does this mean working with a staffing
agency, or working on your own (freelancing?)?

~~~
jerguismi
Contracting is essentially freelancing. Only minor differences, contractors
maybe make bigger contracts and work maybe longer periods of time per one
client. It is up to you if you want to call yourself contractor or freelancer
:)

~~~
pikachu_is_cool
How exactly do you start contracting?

For instance I've made a couple of decently popular jailbreak iOS apps, which
is nice passive income, and a good niche, but I don't really know where to
find clients... through friends, on a website, or what?

~~~
tajen
I'm located in France where the market is a bit special because permanent jobs
are overprotected and companies are begging to contact instead of hiring.

Basically as soon as you go over the edge of creating your company, you can
start searching. The same "meat traders" who want to recruit you for a
permanent job on a service company, they will be willing to hire you as a
contractor. Rates go in Lyon from 270€ per day to 550€ for the same mission as
a perm job, and upnorth of 600€ in Paris, for very basic Java skills, like the
guy who doesn't know Maven.

The same recruiters. They just try not to tell you about contacting when they
think they can hire you as a perm for half the price. It's ok to take a
commitment on a few months for the first mission, so you get some credentials.
Then you can follow patio11's advice ;)

------
sosuke
Keep making products until one sticks, then keep making products until one
shows potential, then keep making products until you've gotten a product that
can support you, then keep making that product until it plateaus or you
consider yourself successful. If that last product isn't enough, repeat the
cycle.

Product could be SaaS, software, consulting, contracting.

------
m-i-l
1\. No, startups aren't the only way to "significant wealth". In fact, in my
experience, startups are something of a lottery, i.e. you only a very small
chance of making a lot of money. For every success story you read there will
be many more failures. But having said that, it can still be worth founding or
working for a startup because you can often learn a much broader set of skills
than you can at a big company.

2\. Yes, I have heard about a small number of exceptionally highly paid
developers too. However, I suspect this is incredibly rare, perhaps with a
similar or even lower probability than making your fortune at a startup.
Unless you have some extraordinarily talent and are aware of this and in a
position to able to exploit this (but I doubt you would be asking the question
if this was the case).

3\. I would have thought your best chance of making enough money to reach
financial independence is the usual unexciting advice: (i) work hard to get an
above average salary, (ii) live frugally and save as much as you can, (iii)
invest what you save carefully, (iv) continue this process for many years. If
there was a sure-fire quick and easy way of getting rich, I'm sure more people
would be doing it, or you wouldn't be reading about it here.

------
eignerchris_
It really depends on your definition of wealth. Most engineers I know clear
100K+ pretty easily after a few years of experience. If you're in a hot market
or sector, you can easily earn $180k+ after 5-8 years. If you produce
consistent value for a business, $225k is definitely achievable.

Understand that by making $100k+ you're basically in the top 10-15% of earners
in the U.S. [1]. Make $180k/yr and you're in the top 4%.

And realize that plenty of people who make >$150k spend like crazy trying to
keep up with the Jones. Plenty of people who make $80k/yr spend wisely end up
having more "wealth" in the end.

[1] - [http://www.financialsamurai.com/how-much-money-do-the-top-
in...](http://www.financialsamurai.com/how-much-money-do-the-top-income-
earners-make-percent/)

------
alttab
Save half of what you make, diversify your investments, and pay down your
debt. Do this for 15 years and you will be rich with your skills.

~~~
davidw
That's the strategy suggested by this guy, who has made a name for himself
dispensing that advice:
[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/)

Mostly it seems pretty sensible.

------
crimsonalucard
There's something we all can do if we work together to get each of us paid
north of 200k a year.

Form a software developer union.

~~~
beagle3
The only unions that I am aware of that have achievements close to this are
lawyer's guilds (through state bars) and doctor's guilds (the AMA, by limiting
medical school admissions).

Lawyers, as of the last 15 years or so, are not doing so well - the median
figure I found for 2013 is $114K. Doctors are doing better, at median $190K.

That's a far cry from "each of us" \- even with these two professions, 50-80%
of the people earn less than $200k.

And, they both manage it through strict licensing, which effectively requires
6-8 year studies in an accredited institute - which carry hundreds of
thousands of dollars in debt in most cases.

Which union and setting exactly did you have in mind when you wrote this?

~~~
crimsonalucard
You're not talking about unions. Those are cartels that restrict supply.
Lawyers and Doctors are business owners operating as an oligopoly. I'm not
talking about business owners. I'm talking about employees. I'm talking about
people joining together to put themselves on equal negotiation grounds with
their employers.

Just because no union has successfully produced wages of 200k plus doesn't
mean it can't happen. Software Engineering is a highly skilled occupation that
generates a great deal of wealth. If all software developers demanded 200k
then companies would pay that price because our work generates well north of
that. The reason we don't get a fair share of the pie, like all other
laborers, is a lack of organized negotiation. In short, 200k+ union salary has
never happened, but is well within the means of the industry to support such
an endeavor. It CAN happen and it will make wages MORE fair.

Don't argue against unions. It's the stupidest thing to do, because even if
you can't negotiate your salary up to 200k you got nothing to lose by
making/joining one or even raising your salary by 10k. That is unless, you're
an executive/major shareholder... then we'd be opponents from a negotiation
standpoint.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'm not sure I want anyone else negotiating my salary, or deciding what work
I'm allowed to do, or creating some hoops of qualification or exams for me to
jump through so I can get a "Programmer III" classification and get another
10K. No thanks. Too blue-collar for me.

Its not all about the money after all. We're not talking about poor sweatshop
guys trying to feed a family or go on public assistance. We're talking about
folks paid quite a bit for sitting on their butts and typing.

Sure we have value. Learn to negotiate, become a contractor or consultant if
you like, switch jobs as needed to get what you think you're worth. But don't
imagine you'll sign me up for a club where you decide what I'm worth, and make
me pay for the privilege.

~~~
crimsonalucard
The "club" doesn't negotiate FOR you. It negotiates WITH you. You can still
negotiate for higher if you think you can get it. All the union says is, no
programmer gets paid less the 200k. You want to negotiate to 300k because you
think you're that good? Be my guest.

A corporation is a group of organized individuals negotiating against you. A
union puts you on equal ground. That's it. If a union doesn't work this way,
then it needs to be changed.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Lets not pretend unions don't totally change the hiring landscape. Easy to say
"be my guest" but we both know the corporation will not deal at all, after
they've dealt with the union.

~~~
crimsonalucard
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=659718](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=659718)

short answer: It depends on the union. It does happen in this country.

------
heyalexej
"Significant wealth" can mean many different things. I've seen Derek Sivers
speaking at multiple conferences. He has a very interesting question that I
since ask myself and others: "What do you optimize your life for?". When you
find the answer to that question, it gets easier to go from there.

Robert Kiyosaki and other wealthy people state that wealth is measured in
time. Can you not work for x weeks, months, years and still make money or at
least maintain status quo? If you can, you're probably already wealthy and
doing better than the vast majority of people out there.

We all love to read success stories of startup founders where it escalated
quickly and they got out with a huge amount of money. These people however are
not a good representation of what's out there. Most wealthy people I've met
over the course of my life do things that not a lot of people think about and
take for granted. They're sometimes rather boring, not glamorous, not
innovative things like selling sausages, web hosting, web development
services, selling plain white shirts, toilet paper, pipe fittings, cleaning
businesses, restaurants and so on. These people then invest their proceeds in
other "boring" assets like real estate, other businesses, fonds etc. with a
long term view.

A lot of these people moved from being a specialist (consultants, chefs,
programmers, contractors) to business owners. Not working in but on the
business. Hiring other specialists, people who do the grunt work, the sales,
the programming and so on. They then invest their proceeds into assets that
will continue to generate money at different percentages even after they
completely stop working.

In your particular case that could mean that you could start with very
specialized consulting work. Then slowly transition into providing tooling for
a monthly fee. Then slowly removing yourself from the business as much as you
can. The beauty of it is that monthly recurring revenue is compounding. Also
have a look into SWaS (Software With a Service)
[http://www.tropicalmba.com/swas/](http://www.tropicalmba.com/swas/).

Investing/saving $5K a month for 15 years with an expected rate of return of
7% and an expected inflation rate of 3% will bring you to a place where you
end up with a balance of ~$1.5MM (or $1MM after inflation) to your name. Would
that make you wealthy in your books?

~~~
ryandrake
> Investing/saving $5K a month for 15 years with an expected rate of return of
> 7% and an expected inflation rate of 3% will bring you to a place where you
> end up with a balance of ~$1.5MM (or $1MM after inflation) to your name.
> Would that make you wealthy in your books?

So, 15 years and you'll have almost enough to buy a _starter home_ in Palo
Alto...

~~~
heyalexej
While true, Palo Alto might not be the center of the universe for... like
99.99999999999999999999% of human beings on this planet. The world is a huge
playground. I am slow traveling since many many years and have a pretty
awesome life in my books. In the end, that's all that matters. But this is
what I optimize my life for and doesn't need to apply to anyone else. I don't
dream of a luxurious home in Palo Alto. In exchange I can do or not do
whatever I please, whenever I please. Stay or walk away from things, jobs,
places, people. Means: I found my answer to what I optimize my life for. I am
wealthy in my books. Wealthy with a capital "W". Not rich.

~~~
Schwolop
I think you took a few too many 9s there. That implies its the centre of the
universe for 0.0000000000006 of a person.

/snark

------
PaulRobinson
The myth that growing the value of equity is the only way to make significant
money is a lie, perpetuated to keep you working for somebody else until you
have "the big idea".

What if you started a company as an LLP with some smart colleagues and you
shared in the growth of each other's talents? What if you created a co-
operative?

Come to think of it, what's your goal? To be rich, or to be able to go back to
school without worrying about money? The two are not the same. I doubt that
most of the open source developers you've heard of can rock around in a
Ferrari but they are doing what they love and are happy: haven't they
effectively got to the point you wanted to, but without the need to slog out
to the point of having piles of money?

I'd also as an addendum suggest diving into the
[/r/financialindependence]([http://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence](http://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence))
community - lots of ideas there.

------
hamburglar
I think the best approach is to stop believing the hype that you went into a
vocation that'll net you obscene wealth and instead thank your lucky stars at
having entered a field that you (hopefully) enjoy and which also happens to
pay a damn good salary. From that point: hard work and perseverance will let
you save a pretty respectable retirement fund. And the work isn't even that
hard.

I'm sorry to be the grumpy old man in this thread, but asking how to turn your
developer job into $1MM/year is like a high school kid planning to play pro
basketball.

~~~
soulbadguy
What's wrong with an high schooler wanted to play pro basketball ?

~~~
hamburglar
You mean besides it being the canonical example of an unrealistic plan for
becoming rich? Nothing.

------
dleskov
I am with a small company focused on compilers and managed runtimes (JVM), and
I can tell you that _good_ compiler consultants are in high demand. For
instance, I had a discussion with a CEO of such specialized consultancy
looking for GCC specialists last year, and he said that LLVM engineers are
even harder to come by.

I also see processor startups popping up all the time that need compiler/tools
engineers badly.

Overall, I'd repeat what others have said: "save a lot and invest your savings
wisely."

~~~
nudpiedo
Can you specify what do you mean with "_good_ compiler consultants"? It
doesn't look like the guy who tunes the configuration of the runtimes right?
Perhaps someone that writes and modifies the source of a compiler for a
special set-up?

~~~
dleskov
I mean someone who can build support for your shiny new language and/or
instruction set into GCC or LLVM and get their pull request accepted by the
maintainers.

------
ryandrake
Since a lot of people are commenting that the original poster is not being
specific in what he or she means by "significant wealth", let me propose a
more concrete question:

"Besides a startup, what are some other reliable (close to risk-free) ways to
retire at any age with $20 million net worth and $1 million a year in passive
income--that a motivated and skilled software developer can achieve starting
in his twenties?"

Practical step-by-step advice only, no general platitudes like "just love what
you do!" and "don't be in it for the money!" My guess is it's impossible
without rolling the dice on business ownership, but I'd love to be proven
wrong.

------
hkmurakami
How much do you need in your nest egg to fully retire?

Now, how much would you need in your nest egg to feel comfortable about being
picky about where you work and what you work on, trading in some of your
income for mission/learning/location/people etc.?

Once you have these numbers (which depends on your life stage and costs of
living), then you can start backtracking and figure out what kind of money
you'd need to make and whether it makes sense for you. That will leave you
with the universe of options available, which may be wider than what you're
considering right now.

------
joetech
There are ways to make a lot of money with affiliate marketing, but that can
involve a lot of trial and error and can (usually does) involve bootstrapping
with a lot of your own cash or a credit card. Although I know of at least one
person who turned millionaire after bootstrapping by maxing out his credit
cards, I would never suggest doing that. It's a deep hole to climb out of if
you fail and for every success story, there's probably 100 failures not talked
about. In short, the successes I've seen involve buying advertising to get
people to a landing page that generates leads with commissions that
(hopefully) pay you back more than you spend getting the traffic. It's a
delicate operation that pays well only if you get the landing page and
affiliate choices right.

I've also seen wealth generated with mailing lists. This is another affiliate
marketing play that can be done without feeling too spammy and can still add
value to the user.

Similar to a mailing list, a forum can be easy to set up and maintain. Also
like a mailing list, if you create a large enough user base, advertising can
pay off.

One of the better earners is a subscription model for just about anything.
Software provided for free with a "premium" set of features for $x per month
is a good way to generate a user base more easily.

A couple things to keep in mind: 1\. You will almost always have more success
when you're passionate about the subject matter. 2\. It will take time. Most
overnight successes are preceded by years of ramp-up.

------
wsc981
Like others have suggested in this thread: contracting.

Ideally find clients who are willing to work with remote contractors. Emigrate
to a "poorer" country and save money. For example, people in Thailand earn on
average around 500 EUR a month (from what I've read). If you can manage to
work for western clients who perhaps pay you 10.000 EUR a month (40 hour work
weeks), you will be able to retire extremely quickly.

~~~
anonnomad
My suggestion for newcomers is a budget of 2000-4000 EUR month for comfortable
living in Bangkok (depending on your level of comfortableness). The daily live
of a 500 EUR worker is not the same as that of an expat (e.g. membership at a
co-work space alone will set you back ~200$/month). Gyms are as expensive as
in the west.

~~~
purplelobster
Really? I live very comfortably in Stockholm (a very expensive place) with
1500 EUR. How on earth would you need 4000 EUR in Bangkok?

~~~
anonnomad
4000 EUR is very comfortable living.

\- ~800 EUR for a nice 1-br condo in a central location \- ~100 EUR
el./internet/tv/3g \- ~100 EUR for transport (these motorbike taxis and bts
rides are adding up). \- ~150 EUR for co-work membership.

= 1150 EUR fix per month.

Now with the rest you can go eat and drink. 100 EUR = big nightout, 50 EUR
dinner and drinks, 20 EUR low-key dinner with drinks, 4-10 EUR just dinner
outside.

Add another few 100 EUR for a visa run every once in a while.

Also don't forget that you're likely still paying for some stuff back home,
insurances, etc.

------
Jack000
There's always the "get rich slowly" approach: put a large portion of your
income in low-risk investments. This is slow but once you hit a critical mass
in capital more interesting opportunities become available. Eg. you could
eventually bootstrap your way to buying an apartment complex, parking lot etc.

I think a better question is how do non-computer people create wealth? Devs as
a group are already predisposed to having higher income. For my family it has
been to work really, really hard, live frugally and invest all disposable
income. I'd venture to guess that most wealth creation happens this way - call
it the long tail of wealth.

------
chrisbennet
I'm not trying to be flippant, but have you considered finding something you
like enough that you don't look forward to retiring?

I get paid (well) to do stuff I love so it is possible and possibly easier
than becoming wealthy. I think loving your "work" will put a lot more
happiness "under the curve" than waiting until you retire to be happy - even
if you retire early.

------
soulbadguy
A lot of good answers, and lot of good advices. But it seems there is a lot of
assumptions on my motivations and personal view on moneys.While i think that
those aren't strictly necessary to answer the question, i guess i am asking a
personal question so it's only fair if people some assumptions. So in no
particular order , i am sharing my perspective on some the recurring themes :

1 - Why do i want money (or why do i want a lot if it :)) : I am not
interested in a luxurious or grandiose life style. For me money is to buy
freedom and safety booth for me and the peole i care about. I want myself and
them to be able to afford the best of the health care systems, to be able to
focus on exactly what we do, etc...etc...

2 - How much is "significant wealth" 10M+

3 - Money shouldn't be the focus, the craft is: I think they both should be. I
don't think getting wealthy should be though as a direct consequences of great
work. Great work might be correlated or even necessary to building wealth but
i don't the former always implies the latter. To get wealth i believe i will
have to learn how, much in the same wayi had to learn to be a software dev.

4 - There is no quick fix. stop looking for it.

I am not looking for a quick fix. I am willing to put the hours (hell i am
looking forward to it). But i also want to capture and leverage some of the
value i will be creating (in a way that's is both legal and ecological)

So again a lot of great idea i didn't though of and i am already reading on
all those venues. The idea i am particular interested is consulting : Is there
a demand out there for consulting to startup say 30/week for 6 month for some
equity in the company ?

Any body in the fanancial market want to share his experience ?

Again thanks for all the great answers

------
dublidu
Devs rarely make $1 million a year, startup or big company. Now if you are 10x
better than the average Google/Facebook engineer and can prove it, I think you
could negotiate that kind of compensation package as a principal engineer.

~~~
damian2000
This is a special case, but its possible for developers who specialise in High
Frequency Trading (HFT) algorithms to make that, in the case of getting into a
bidding war between rival HFT investment banks.

[https://adtmag.com/articles/2011/07/29/why-hft-
programmers-e...](https://adtmag.com/articles/2011/07/29/why-hft-programmers-
earn-top-salaries.aspx)

------
bandrami
Savings and prudent investment.

------
simplexion
Wealth != money. I feel like I am very wealthy and I make bugger all money.

------
prewett
Save money and invest it wisely in stocks and/or bonds. It's not fast, it's
not techy, but it is a tried and true way.

The trick is, you need to figure out what "wisely" is. IMO, if your strategy
involves holding on to your stocks, it is probably speculation (=gambling)
rather than investing wisely.

~~~
gdubs
>> if your strategy involves holding on to your stocks, it is probably
speculation (=gambling) rather than investing wisely.

Holding onto your stocks is the opposite of speculation, isn't it? Most
sensible investment advice, e.g. Bogle, recommends index funds that are held
basically forever.

------
Sukotto
If returning to school is something you really want to do then there is a
third option: go get a job at the school you want to attend.

Just make sure to negotiate your benefits to include the ability to take
classes (both the time during your days to attend, and reducing the costs --
preferably to zero -- of attending)

------
pjc50
The same way as everyone else: leveraged property speculation.

If you're really good at maths you could become a "quant". Most of the really
high paying developer jobs are unsurprisingly in the financial services
industry.

------
involute1344
3 - Marry well.

------
Zecc
Apparently you can make millions being an art forger.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9642526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9642526)

------
aj0strow
Spend less. Save more. Change companies every 3 years. You'll do fine.

Alternatively make friends with rich people and make them richer. You get a
cut.

------
bsder
Get out of dev, put on a suit and tie, and go suck up doing finance on Wall
Street.

Your probability of success is _way_ higher.

------
anovikov
Get married to a rich girl. Girls like smart guys.

------
RantyDave
Solve problems for rich clients.

Or steal bitcoin.

~~~
mirceal
steal bitcoin for rich clients

------
mauricemir
what do you define as significant? 1M 10M or 100M plus

~~~
soulbadguy
10M

------
MurWade
email me mustafahossaini@gmail.com

------
FlaceBook
"I want to be rich, how do I do this?"

Is this yahoo answers?

------
jitix
Make a viral app. Something like Flappy Bird.

