The tricky part is that a lot of this advice is situation-dependent. Should you switch to a riskier company that offers a higher compensation? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Should you work late to accomplish goals hoping to get a promotion? It depends.

So how are we supposed to know what to do?

The answer, in my opinion, is people. You have to trust people who are trustworthy and avoid people who are not. As an employee, your success depends on the people who hired you--they are the ones who can promote you or cheat you. The best leaders are the ones who realize that helping you advance is going to help them advance. Help your boss accomplish their corporate goals and they will promote you--not as a reward, but as a bet that you will help them on the next goal.

Bad leaders are either too selfish (fail to promote you) or too incompetent (unable to rise, even with your help). You need to learn to avoid them.

Therefore, my advice is this: Look at the leaders in your company--people who could plausibly hire you. Which ones are the best bets? Which ones have both the talent and the integrity to succeed? If you're lucky there's more than one and you can work to get on their team. If you're unlucky, there are none and you need to find a different company.

But don't feel bad if you have not been able to do any of them, e.g. Most People with kids can often do very little than job and take care of kids and that's it. What is more important is to not beat yourself up about it, give yourself grace and do one or two things that make you and your near and dear people/pets happy.

But then through the course of tedious and somewhat pompous paragraphs (I only read 5 before I started skimming so let me know if I missed something) the point seems to bend towards "work hard to get a foothold so you can own stuff and then you'll make real money" . (What's all this stuff about grades??? Does somebody think grades matter??? Maybe I'm out of touch because I got my PhD before really starting the career grind.)

It did nothing to change my opinion of our system where labor earns a pittance and all real wealth comes from the lottery of birthright, corruption, picking the right stock, or getting lucky in entrepreneurship.

1. Alimony

2. Child support

Kissing ass at work might help you but not nearly as much as this two ideas.

Much enablement, unblocking, capability-based, or risk reduction work is very difficult to interpret for the business decision-makers.

And when you get a windfall (stock grants, acquisitions, etc) unless it’s truly life changing money where you never have to work again, find a good investor (CFP) to manage so you’re not even thinking about it. Or invest it in some future liability like college expenses, home down payment, retirement, etc.

* Get a job at a successful listed tech company (not a startup) that issues RSUs.

* Get promoted to senior level but no higher (too much responsibility, poor work life balance, exposure to office politics)

* Move to a low tax jurisdiction like Dubai, Hong Kong or Singapore, at least long enough to build a serious nest egg (several million).

* Live significantly below your means: I aimed to save & invest half my income. You'll still live a good life because these countries have vast income inequality and services are cheap.

* Find a partner who shares your values.

Not saying this is easy or even possible for many, but it worked for me.

Specifically pieces about how to be valuable in a pragmatic and honest way.

The employer doesn't do it.

Doing the day job is priority #2. Many do not fully understand this late into their career.

By then it is too late and late stage health problems start due to stress.

Probably the single best take-away from the article is to never stop learning. I also like the tip about keep networking and building relationships.

but I think there is a crowd that rejects too many of the basics at their own detriment. yes, getting work, highly valued work, still helps and helps waaay more reliably for a broader population than other methods, but its just a step. So you still need to do that, You also need to parlay earnings into wealth producing assets, assets that also have their own independent value that is intended to grow.

> There is a popular idea that substantial wealth belongs mainly to entrepreneurs.

This is probably because 24yo college dropouts are achieving billion dollar valuations after 12 months of work. Their secondary sales are worth more than following all the advice in this article will be for your entire life.

(To say nothing of NVDA, SpaceX, or other big tech acquiring them and making their billions liquid, despite no moat or profitability, just because they have so much money and need to spend it on something.)

No matter how much “grit” you have, you’re still at the mercy of such people, as e.g. the engineers at Windsurf were, who worked super hard but their founders sold to Google, walked away with hundreds of millions, and gave the employees nothing.

Of course, it depends on your meaning of “substantial”. Successful engineers have great wealth too, enough that they can be very happy and buy anything they want. But pretending the two levels are comparable is silly.

They are incorrect in that there is no strict separation of the two.

Anyone in tech can easily enter the ownership class. American assets are exceptionally cheap for what they are. It's very easy to purchase asset producing goods, whether that be businesses or real estate.

The ownership class matter because a worker exchanges time for money. Time is finite. Ownership is not.

A career is a quick and low volatility way towards ownership. You owe no loyalty to any company or any manager. Only owe loyalty to your friends, family, and the financial assets you own. These things reflect on you. Your job is just a distraction.

..and this doesn't include hustlers in Dubai or some other tax haven earning six figures a month doing various schemes.

Why am I wasting my life?