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Comment by ampdepolymerase | Hacker News Reader

If you are a decently talented software engineer and you can't match or exceed a non-specialist MD in earning power then you are doing something wrong. Especially in the current market.

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Sure, but you can NOT retire with a real pension at 38!

Maybe not a pension, but you could retire at 38 with millions of dollars invested and earning a passive income.

the NPV of a Commander in the Navy is 1.3M dollars at 38...no risk

Excellent comment. I’m now 70 and well-to-do. But I was a fool to go into private enterprise with all its interpersonal dishonesty. Government jobs at the national labs had superior NPV’s— the pensions are absurdly expensive taxes on struggling workers when carried out to the 85-year typical lifespans of workers. There were layoffs, true. But I understand the psychology and passivity of persons who managed to get themselves laid off.

> no risk

Apart from the inconsequential risk of death or disability of course.

You also have that risk as a civilian. In some places in the US quite more so than on a warship...

You also have the choice to take action to avoid risk. That choice is not available in the military. You're trading a lot of freedom over those 20 years. (Did I mention how expensive getting divorced is?)

you guys are kind of using NPV ambiguously. You mean that when you retire at 38, the NPV of your retirement plan at that point (for when you are 39, 40, ... etc.) is $1.3M, and if you haven't retired yet then it's really a FV? what discount rate are you using?

or did you mean the NPV when joining at age 18 is... see what I mean?

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