And that success feels…strange? I don’t know how to put words to it. Like the monetary values associated are untethered to delivering value?
The worst career and life killers are "woulda, coulda, shoulda."
I so wanted an academic career, say, in astrophysics or such. Then a "here's your uniform" war, and later various jobs in aerospace, university (staff), investment banking (unix servers), sales engineer for said servers, a startup or two.
I could have blamed that war for trashing a Nobel career, but I supported their computing. Not spectacular like the zucks of the time, but honest work, and I never harmed or took advantage of anyone, not in the service (USCG) nor in aerospace nor others.
A guy at Sun said that he bought a TV for a quarter millon. He sold Sun stock to buy it, and it went to the sky with the dot com boom.
If you want a coulda, I owned an Apple-1 and traded it at a swap meet for who knows what. I could never get a cassette tape working. They sell for over $600K now. So it goes.
Real value is often delivered by teams rather than an individual. I was the Woz kind of guy whose Jobs never showed up. I'm not griping. That's life.
Try to win in other ways. That cabbie probably blew the money gambling, and there's the story of a new IPO millionaire who drove his Ferrari off the road in Los Gatos.
Money? There's always someone with more, to make you jealous, except for one person, who is extremely unhappy and fearful of losing his money and his race being obliterated (It isn't). He only gripes and bitches about whatever.
Drugs? Sure.
Am I jealous? Hell no. The only thing I kinda envy is that my kid never smeared a booger on the president's desk. My own pranks were smaller, and my kid always was and is, very considerate.
Happiness from within.
The success stories you see are of people who had the perfect combination of place, time, and access. Best you can do is log off and focus on how to add value to the world, not to shareholders.
I’d be retired now.
I’d be living in a functional country with much lower crime and better food.
My biggest career regret is not leetcoding more.