To me, the "best" endgame is to obtain enough saved capital to found your own (small?) business to which you can generate and capture value directly.

I did that and found that I hated it. There's a lot of bullshit that you have to deal with in a small business: incorporation papers, taxes, staying away from the zillions of people who try to scam or extort small business owners, sales, finances, etc. If you're wealthy enough that you don't really need revenue and can pay people for that, you'll likely find that being wealthy just exposes how money won't make you happy anyway.

I feel like the people who say money won't make you happy need to have their eyes checked. Sure, piles of money don't do anything, but money among many things gives you opportunity to have experiences with other people, and a buffer from stressful situations, and imo that is the crux of happiness.

Now you can take that flight to see your family members regularly. You can now have a house large enough where if you have guests over they no longer have to sleep on the floor. You no longer are held hostage with the fear that you will be bankrupted by your aging parent's health issues. You can afford to bury your loved ones. You no longer have to make compromises with your children's lives that you wish you didn't have to make. Your basic needs will always be met. You are de facto exempt from physical labor since you can afford to pay others to maintain your life like a prince.

Sure, money in itself doesn't buy happiness. But it buys you a lot of opportunities to be very very happy, and serves as personal insurance towards things that might put the average person into a tent on the sidewalk.

I think when people say that they are assuming you have reached a level where you can meet your basic needs. We are talking about programming jobs here, not cashiers in the local supermarket.

A better endgame might be finding the job that you actually enjoy doing, moment to moment, so that while you're working it doesn't feel like you're working. Never have to work a day in your life and all that...

I don’t know how true this is. The moment you take money to do something is when some or all of the fun gets sucked out of it.

I actually enjoy working with all that bureaucracy because at least I know I'm not serving ads to people.

Why are ads suddenly so evil? Ads are paided messages.

They’re designed to trick you into acting against your best interests. To push you to spend money you don’t have on shit you don’t need to impress people you don’t like, to quote a witty whoever wrote this.

At one end they exist to inform and offer you a service. I've clicked on ads and purchased and have been better off for it. No tricks involved but it did save me 1/2 off the original price I normally purchase from another store.

Who I am impressing with my canned milk buy?

Ads that show a lifestyle that tricks you into believing you can become something you are not is a small segment perhaps larger on social media. I don't see any of that or if I did it doesn't register. But I do see can of milk for sale.

I go through fliers and get coupons. I get email ads on products I purchased for discounts.

Even those store displays with toilet paper are a form of advertising. I don't mind them and often buy a pack if on sale.

I'd say that sounds like George Carlin but just a guess.

Which part?

Imo it's not that all advertisement is evil, just the ones that stoop to manipulation by taking pages from psychological research, turning our primal instincts against our own self interests to spend more of our limited money on dumb things or vote for a dumb thing to make someone else money.

Unfortunately for the majors in advertisement these days, that's their bread and butter.

I think the best endgame is financial independence... having enough invested capital so you can live off the proceeds. FIRE.

I just "won" my endgame :-)

I recently retired after working 29 years in software development. I was always very well paid but a notch below the FAANG-level. I always focused relentlessly on achieving financial independence by saving and investing as much as I could using Boglehead techniques. I can now do whatever I want.

Did you start at 21 ? If yes, do you regret not enjoying your 20s and keeping it for your 50s when you're older.

I got a PhD so I started a bit late but I do not regret spending my 20s as a grad student. At least when I started working, a PhD came in useful. I should note that this was a long time ago so my advice may be less relevant today. In general, my advice is to save as much as you can early in your career. Thanks to the power of compounding, $1000 saved in your twenties is worth a lot more than $1000 in your forties.