Sure but for people who have the opportunity, it's perfectly rational to invest a significant part of your 20s to accumulate enough wealth by doing the "silly dance" and then spend the remainder of your life financially free.

I'm not saying your path is wrong or you shouldn't pursue it, but it is risky for a lot of people to take a massive pay cut and only work a few days a week in their youth and expect that doing so is sustainable or that it can be done for the bulk of their life.

The less risky approach for many who have the opportunity to do so is to actually invest the time to understand the fundamentals of computer science. Really get to know data structures and algorithms like the back of their hand, spend an hour after dinner every night for a couple of months practicing how to apply that knowledge to solve leetcode problems, and then do the interview circuit to negotiate a high salary so that by the time you're in your mid 30s you're a millionaire and can effectively spend the rest of your life working on your own terms.

For someone who doesn't want to spend their lives doing stupid shit like cocaine fueled parties and megayachts, at 100k USD (currently) buys you one life-changing event - basic lifelong security, you probably won't have to worry in the long run. At about 300k (currently) you can buy into a level of security that is probably resistant to major worldwide economic or political catastrophe.

If you want to change the world, say by doing an ethical capitalistic startup or meaningful nonprofit, you probably want to start with $5M all-in assets, it's unlikely to be easy to get there quickly on a 300k salary at a FAANG. You will want to roll the dice at startups paying you back in the 100k-150k range.

I haven't any other avenue for such high levels of comp at basically no risk (but some opportunity cost).

I was just pointing out it's realistic in that there is a well-trodden path to it.