Hacker News Reader

Comment by dymk | Hacker News Reader

What’s the purpose of an article like this if the author starts with a list of decisions which lead to his success, but then immediately follows with “my journey was 99% luck and 1% planets alignment”?

The article is clearly supposed to be a “how-to” of sorts, but then goes and muddies it’s messaging with that second part. The list of things to do isn’t really useful then, is it?

View on HN

The feeling I get from reading the article is that the author felt the need to apologize because of the current social climate, and not for some real reason.

He wasn't born into a rich family and inherited wealth, he simply studied, worked, spent less than he made and invested the difference.

The apology basically boils down to being born in a relatively okay country and being smart.

> I was born in a developed country in the 80s (Italy), with access to fresh water, very good carbohydrates and a decent education system.

This seem like a pretty hard to follow "how-to"

Given that 80% of the world doesn't have that, yeah. But for that 20%, the author's path isn't entirely unreasonable (if a bit quick). Make $$$, spend $, invest $$. it requires living somewhere other than CA and probably not having kids, but if you can make those sacrifices and can play the software engineer game, it's more a matter of math working out than it is an unreasonable path.

JFYI, an old Italian proverb/saying:

Fare i conti spesso, moderar le voglie, spender men di quel che si raccoglie.

That roughly translates to:

Do the (financial) math often, limit your cravings, spend less than you can gather.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com