> and how much do you think MIT professors are paid?

Depends a lot on department and situation. Course 18 (math) doesn't pay that great while course 6 does. If you have a chair you can pay yourself more; if you take a non-academic role (dean, provost, department head etc) you can get more. Even when you have tenure you get reviews and raises just like any other job.

Point of reference: my gf's ex is a tenured prof in a non-engineering field. B/c child support etc I know what he earns. Adjusted for inflation, my summer consulting gigs (before the 1980s AI winter) earned me over 50% of what he makes all annually including his own summer consulting. I'm sure if he were in computer science he'd make more in a month than I would have made all year.

Full professors at MIT on average make about $186k [1]. Assistant professors average around $124k [2], with considerable variation (I'd guess the full professors also have considerable variation).

[1] http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N18/salary.html

[2] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/MIT-Assistant-Professor-Sal...

I think the point is he isn't "set for life" like some may expect NFL players to be.

He certainly could be, if he keeps living on $25k/year. See [0] and run some calculations at [1].

0: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...

1: https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement

People generally don't retire to $25k/year, especially if they eventually get married and have children. The only way to really make something like that work is to move somewhere extremely inexpensive like SEA. That's unrealistic for most people.

This is the one thing that has always struck me as odd abut the FIRE community. FIRE is a good goal but it's highly abnormal for people to retire early with these very low annual salaries for themselves. Sure, it works if you're a single childless 30 year old. But you also generally have to be comfortable staying single and childless if you're going to "retire" to $25k/year.

There are a lot of areas of the U.S. where people actually do retire on $25K/year. Having said that, they probably own their home, have cheap Medicare and have paid all child-related expenses at that point. So you're right, for most 30 year olds it's a different story.

Also, even if people budget a $25K/year retirement there is always the possibility of needing long term nursing home care in the last years of life. (Say, if you're a football player that suffers dementia later in life.) Depending on the quality of care, that can wipe out even a $1M nest egg. It's a big financial concern at that age. It's not covered by insurance the way that, say, a heart attack or stroke is.

Yes, I don't mean to exclude those people. Both pairs of my grandparents had a fixed income of less than that. But as you said, they didn't have many personal expenses beyond bills and food.

Does SEA mean Seattle? My mind is blown that Seattle comes to your mind as the least expensive place in the US...

No, Southeast Asia. E.g. Indonesia or Thailand (just not Singapore)

Ah, got it, thanks.

Southeast Asia.

Agree. See a financial model here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868501

Well, he may not have every option in the world (e.g. he can't simply move to San Francisco and hope to have a nice life without working), but he does effectively have his own personal basic income, and it's a significant amount. Right now, I couldn't imagine the additional freedom I'd have if I had ~$30-40k coming in every single year, regardless of what I did for work (if anything).

That's enough to live on and do those things you would do that only requires you. If you ever want to leverage something into a larger undertaking, that requires serious capital rather than a basic income.

Unless you're a billionaire there are always going to be things you can't afford to do. For many if not most people, having enough passive income to live without having to work would be a dream come true.

If he put $1M in a bond fund, he could probably expect to get around $40k a year on the interest alone. He would only pay 10% capital gains tax on that, which would leave him with $36k. Well above his $25k yearly budget. The bachelor lifestyle is cheap.

Bond interest is taxed at normal income tax rates in the US, not capital gains tax rates.

Hell, he could put it in a municipal/tax-exempt bond fund and at the very least not pay federal taxes. If he lives in a state that has a state-specific bond fund, he could let it grow tax-free. 3-4% on one of those is not unreasonable. (But he'd probably want to diversify a bit...)

Not to mention the NFL pension on top of that. Not sure when he can draw it (at retirement, or does he wait until 55/60/62/65?), but even just modest investment returns + pensions puts him above the median US household income.

He's set for life if he keeps his expenses at $25k/yr. $1.8MM / $25k = 72. Even if he loses half to taxes, that's still 36 years worth of expenses in assets. If I had that much, I'd retire in a heartbeat.

On the cumulative salary of $1.8m over three years he's looking at an effective rate of around 35%. But he definitely won't lose half of his pension to taxes. That's one of the main advantages is that is spread out over a number of years. The NFL, with all its faults in neglecting players health, was wise to set players up with pensions.

Um, what?

Doesn't the average NFL player have a life expectancy of 53-59, and you can only collect the pension after 55? They can move it foward starting at age 35.

Cynical me says it's a political nothing burger.

Does anybody know the history?

I would sort of expect that the NFL Players Association had something to do with establishing it.

I didn't even count the pension in there, just the $1.8m in salary.

In the context, it's obvious he's talking about NFL players. Offensive line annual salaries:

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/rankings/average/offensive-line/

"A lot of money" is also known as "Fuck you money". Enough money that you can say "fuck you" to anyone without worrying about the consequences.

$1M is not even close to that, especially not for a young guy who has to pay for the next 60 years of his and his family's existence.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good starting point, and you can definitely be reasonably secure on it if you invest wisely and continue to work (e.g., buying a reasonably-priced house in a stable neighborhood and staying in it long term; this will take about 1/3 of that $1M, btw), but it's not enough to be truly independent. A single serious lawsuit will easily drain $1M, for example.

Some folks can say "fuck you" on a budget.

I imagine this guy can, given his uncomplicated expectations of life.

I hate that term. There is no such thing. Bill Gates can't tell the President "fuck you" and the President can't tell the Pope "fuck you".

We live in an interconnected world and there isn't enough money in the world to make your actions consequence proof.

It's not about being "consequence proof", because as you note, it's never possible to avoid the consequences of one's actions. It's just about being independent.

An independent person does not need the goodwill or approval of any other person or small group for their well-being or prosperity. If you are ever going to need a paycheck again, this is by definition not you.

Independence ("fuck you money") is about being able to be honest with anyone, even if it means giving a measured, well-deserved "fuck you", without having to worry that your ability to feed and clothe your kids will be jeopardized. It's not about being above the law or anything like that.

i don't know how much attention you pay to politics but it's pretty clear that just about anyone can say "fuck you" to the president

Well he's only a student so somewhere between $30k and $40k, maybe a touch more if he gets a fellowship.

Also, how much professors make varies quite a bit. An engineering professor might make $100k from the university. If they are particularly motivated, you have professors who write books, play key roles at companies, consult, or give expert testimony. They can make quite a bit off those secondary activities but it isn't automatic.