If I had to guess, I'd say that for every hacker news user that ships and markets an mvp, probably somewhere around 1-10% hit 150k/year from it. It's hard to find good data on this though.
One that made money was spreading malware and the author who seem to be making a decent return said.
It was really hard to write - took me 1.5 years, tons of research and re-writing. This isn't something I slapped together over a weekend. Far from passive income.
One side project doesn’t have to earn 200k/yr. you can have 5 of them, each making 50k. Running them as single software company is way less management work than managing your team in big company environment.
Let's say you need 1-2 hours a day for every of your product (all activities combined)
Being a manager means 5-8 hours a day managing people, not working on products.
So the time is similar, but your work on product, not manage people. Way different.
What are the chances that a “side business” is going to make $150K to 200K a year?
On a side note, why are you so relentlessly negative? Most of the comments you've made in this thread are needlessly hostile, sarcastic and bitter. Did a side project touch you inappropriately as a child?
The whole point of the article is about people who don’t want to be in management. It’s makes no sense to start a business if you don’t have any desire to be in management.
Also, one thing that I’ve learned over the years, is the easiest way to make money during a goal rush is to sell shovels. There are plenty of opportunities out there to make good money working for a consulting company that matters to well funded startups and corporations who want to outsource development/infrastructure. Guess what my two areas are?