Ask HN: How old are you and how much do you have saved for retirement?

Re:Ask HN: How old are you and how much do you have saved fo... by deanmoriarty on Thursday October 07, 2021 @04:39PM (#28791747)

35. $3.5M liquid and $4M illiquid pre IPO stock from a previous employer. Started from $0 and got it by working in tech/finance as a software engineer and investing in VTSAX.

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Re:Ask HN: How old are you and how much do you have saved fo... by rory_isAdonk on Friday October 08, 2021 @08:23AM (#28798396)

how does anyone get that much pre IPO stock? were you ever working as a director or VP?

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Re:Ask HN: How old are you and how much do you have saved fo... by deanmoriarty on Friday October 08, 2021 @08:45AM (#28798566)

Joined as senior software engineer when the company was under 10 employees and got about 1% (took almost no salary). To be fair I did a massive amount of contributions, so the company got a really good deal in my opinion. I was paid $60k a year for a while, when my market rate could have been easily $300k. I shaped the product and execution in a much more significant way than the founders. These guys are now sitting on mid 9 figures, crazy.

Stayed with that employer for the entire grant and left after about 5 years. The company today is worth a few billion dollars, and that value is based on the latest preferred share price, so obviously it assumes everything goes well and it will sell high enough that the liquidation preferences won’t be exercised and everything will convert to common. It could easily still all go to $0, I don’t count on it much.

The liquid portfolio is instead through boring saving, investing and fairly frugal lifestyle.

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