I'm actually slightly surprised Kent Beck is not financially independent at 60. I would have assumed he had gotten some equity somewhere along the way that would have had a big upside.
You can't really tell from this post that he doesn't have enough to be what most people consider financially independent. Michael Mechanic, who wrote this book called Jackpot interviewed a lot of 100m+ rich wealthy people.
He says that if you ask any of them how much money they need, they will consistently tell you they need about 1/3rd more than they have. It's a phenomena of psychology not material well being.
We are on the Hacker News forum. We probably all do well in a relative sense, but will probably all go to our grave with goals ahead.
For sure, Jeff Bezos who is the world richest man has said many times that he wants his legacy to be:
"World oldest man"
It never stops, for sure in the back of his mind he has the goal of delaying death as much as he possibly can (for obvious reasons) and on top of that it means more time to achieve goals that he has in mind (which will inevitably be measured monetarily)
Sure, people with $100M+ want more. If they didn't, there's plenty of off ramps before $100M for the people who are willing to be satisfied.
There's really not that much added utility going from say $10M to $100M. And if you didn't see that and stop accumulating, you're more worried about having more than others than having enough. Or you really want to win the America's cup or own a private jet rather than slumming it on charters.
At 60, in a country and industry that has experienced unrivaled growth over his lifetime. It is surprising given that a very basic balanced stock portfolio over that time frame should have returned phenomenal results.
He just mentions he doesn't have 50M vested. That doesn't preclude him having 10M or any other still very high number that would be considered financially independent
True, but with the amount of opportunities that come along with Being Kent Beck I would have thought he would have gotten lucky at least once over his career.
Or even just negotiated the level of salary that invested in a safe index fund would mean money wouldn't be a problem once hitting no penalty IRA withdrawal age.
Edit: since your account has already been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly, I've banned it. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
