[stupac2]

[quote author=stupac2 link=topic=14712.msg158324#msg158324 date=1457651966]
Dude, that's just ridiculous. I currently am doing this. I have plenty of friends doing this (on less, even). You don't need to make over 200k to make it in the bay area, and insisting otherwise is just ignorant.

Dude, nowhere did I say you need to make X to live in Y.  I was careful not to say that, actually.  I would never be that ignorant.  You chastise me for my stupidly extravagant lifestyle because I choose to live in a nice area, live in a comfortable (but not especially large) house and pay for private school because the local public schools are not good and I want to give my children the best chance for success (all of which I can support on my wages, but not necessarily someone else's).  No lambo in my one-car garage.

Sounds like you enjoy your lifestyle and biking to work.  I'm comfortable too, and biking to work isn't an option for me unless I ride on the freeway.  Stop being so judgmental and thinking that you've calculated the cost of a happy life and everyone else is an a$$hole.
[/quote]

You wrote something incredibly condescending and flat-out wrong about how much money it takes to live in an area like this (here's a hint, if you ever find yourself writing "oh ho ho you'll see when you get older!" then you're being eye-rollingly condescending). If you arrange your life in such a way that it takes that much money, then fine, it's your choice, but you don't need to and acting like you do is foolish.

I would propose that this whole thread misses the point for reasons other than what is a "reasonable" amount of money to live on somewhere.

Retiring at 28 is a pretty big blow to most people's sense of purpose. That's perhaps 60 years of doing ... nothing? The first few weeks would be pretty great, but that's a lot of weeks.

Of course there are all sorts of purposes other than work - and whether they qualify as "retirement" depends upon the details. On top of that, of course the reality is that many jobs do more to put food on the table than bring meaning to life. But one thing we are supposed to get from a Stanford education is the skill to make those things meld.

Though to be sure, neither I nor apparently anybody else here has any idea what Gerhart might wish for himself for the next several decades.

Did you read the article I linked? The point isn't to do nothing it's to do whatever you want. Maybe you want to write a book. Maybe you want to learn how to make furniture. Maybe you want to start your own artisanal pickle business. But virtually no one wants to work 9-5 in an office, and someone with $6M in the bank doesn't need to. They can lie on the beach or play golf forever on without worrying about money.

And maybe it worked out for you, but let me tell you there is fuckall out there right now for physics majors, I've been looking. People on here sometimes act like a Stanford degree is this magical unicorn that solves all problems, but it really isn't. I know plenty of people who had a really hard time fresh out of Stanford, and some are still underemployed. Unless you got a degree in CS there are no guarantees. Gerhart's most valuable asset is almost certainly that he's a professional football player, not that he has a piece of paper from Stanford, which honestly probably means close to nothing by the time you're 5+ years out of school. (I suppose you might be referring to some special qualities that Stanford imbues, but everyone here who hasn't thoroughly drank the koolaid knows that a Stanford education is marginally better at best than one from UCLA or Cal, and the main difference is relationships, which are pretty meaningless for millennials given our horrible prospects outside of tech.)

[stupac2]

[quote author=stupac2 link=topic=14712.msg158324#msg158324 date=1457651966]
Dude, that's just ridiculous. I currently am doing this. I have plenty of friends doing this (on less, even). You don't need to make over 200k to make it in the bay area, and insisting otherwise is just ignorant.

Dude, nowhere did I say you need to make X to live in Y.  I was careful not to say that, actually.  I would never be that ignorant.  You chastise me for my stupidly extravagant lifestyle because I choose to live in a nice area, live in a comfortable (but not especially large) house and pay for private school because the local public schools are not good and I want to give my children the best chance for success (all of which I can support on my wages, but not necessarily someone else's).  No lambo in my one-car garage.

Sounds like you enjoy your lifestyle and biking to work.  I'm comfortable too, and biking to work isn't an option for me unless I ride on the freeway.  Stop being so judgmental and thinking that you've calculated the cost of a happy life and everyone else is an a$$hole.
[/quote]

You wrote something incredibly condescending and flat-out wrong about how much money it takes to live in an area like this (here's a hint, if you ever find yourself writing "oh ho ho you'll see when you get older!" then you're being eye-rollingly condescending). If you arrange your life in such a way that it takes that much money, then fine, it's your choice, but you don't need to and acting like you do is foolish.

I would propose that this whole thread misses the point for reasons other than what is a "reasonable" amount of money to live on somewhere.

Retiring at 28 is a pretty big blow to most people's sense of purpose. That's perhaps 60 years of doing ... nothing? The first few weeks would be pretty great, but that's a lot of weeks.

Of course there are all sorts of purposes other than work - and whether they qualify as "retirement" depends upon the details. On top of that, of course the reality is that many jobs do more to put food on the table than bring meaning to life. But one thing we are supposed to get from a Stanford education is the skill to make those things meld.

Though to be sure, neither I nor apparently anybody else here has any idea what Gerhart might wish for himself for the next several decades.

Did you read the article I linked? The point isn't to do nothing it's to do whatever you want. Maybe you want to write a book. Maybe you want to learn how to make furniture. Maybe you want to start your own artisanal pickle business. But virtually no one wants to work 9-5 in an office, and someone with $6M in the bank doesn't need to. They can lie on the beach or play golf forever on without worrying about money.

And maybe it worked out for you, but let me tell you there is fuckall out there right now for physics majors, I've been looking. People on here sometimes act like a Stanford degree is this magical unicorn that solves all problems, but it really isn't. I know plenty of people who had a really hard time fresh out of Stanford, and some are still underemployed. Unless you got a degree in CS there are no guarantees. Gerhart's most valuable asset is almost certainly that he's a professional football player, not that he has a piece of paper from Stanford, which honestly probably means close to nothing by the time you're 5+ years out of school. (I suppose you might be referring to some special qualities that Stanford imbues, but everyone here who hasn't thoroughly drank the koolaid knows that a Stanford education is marginally better at best than one from UCLA or Cal, and the main difference is relationships, which are pretty meaningless for millennials given our horrible prospects outside of tech.)