Honestly that sounds like a pretty good trade-off. The percentage of people who are ridiculously wealthy goes from tiny to tinier, and in exchange everybody else gets a good shot at a comfortable life.

But it's also pretty hard to retire early... I'm grateful that I was born in Poland where retiring early is a real possibility (high tech wages compared to costs of living and low taxes make it possible) instead of a country like Germany, Belgium or Italy where you basically don't have such option.

Funnily enough, one of the reasons I'm looking to move to Germany is to get richer. Salaries in Germany are significantly better than most of western Europe (UK, France, Spain, Italy…) for a similar cost of life.

Not in tech it's not. London engineers earn more than engineers in any part of Europe with the sole exclusion of Switzerland.

I suspect people who grow up in (basically) a socialist country like Germany, France, Scandinavia etc will have far less impetus to 'get rich'.

If you feel secure in being able to maintain an income where you can enjoy both the basic and leisurely aspects of life. That you won't be made bankrupt by illness, or by unfair illegal/legal proceedings. In these circumstances the drive to sit on top of 2.5M to feel relaxed about your financial situation will likely fade away.

None of those countries are socialist. Why are you spreading this misinformation?

When you're settling down you can still come back to Germany enjoying a mostly functioning society and reasonable expenses. You'll just need to figure out a way to evade taxes.

I have no reason to be there. Came there for the "startup scene" but realised after a while how weak, unoriginal and underpaid most of it is

Living off capital gains is the easiest tax dodge in Germany. You pay ~50% on income, but only ~25% on dividends etc. (and that's before your financial adviser gets creative).

Out of curiosity what do you do and where did you move?

I run magicsandbox.com. Right now moving to all remote, still weighing options but might settle back in my home country (Croatia)

Nice, congrats!