“Barista fire” anyone ever heard/thought about this?

Been curious about this, whether the “optimal” path might simply be to save up enough of a capital base and then coast for a while - get some low stress job to pay the bills 

we’ve all been indoctrinated to a large extent into thinking we must sink all our time and energy into a single pursuit

What if it is really much better to grind it out for a few years, walk away with ~500k saved and work, at worst, some chill 9-5 or some other part time gig - on the side experiment, trade stocks, other side gigs, whatever… 

or put another way, does grinding it out through IB/PE/corporate still pay off the same way it used to? Given stagnating pay, risk of layoffs, ai risk etc - is the opportunity cost still so high? Is it so important to appear ‘respectable’


I just can’t help but think with the world changing so fast we sell ourselves short by sticking heads in the sand continuing to do things the same way we always have - or even with the payoff of corporate life declining whether we concede too much of our lives away for too little

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