How to become a millionaire in 3 years? (2022)
More than 10 years ago, @babyboy808 asked this question:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447428
Wonder what would you suggest now to do in 2022 to become a millionaire in the next three years.
What odd answers. Statistically, most millionaire families in America are due to dual earning couples. Which means if you want to be a millionaire, the logical way is to find a partner who makes just as much as you, and then save as much as possible.
It’s likely to be a lot more pleasant than most of the other options here.
I became a multi millionaire this past decade, and I think it's now become even easier to become one. Here are the steps I took:
1. Work remotely
2. Live in a low cost of living area
3. Work multiple remote jobs (I currently work 4 full time SWE roles)
4. Invest that money (Equities, real estate, side hustles)
5. Rinse and repeat
This pattern has lead me to an 8 figure net worth (primarily in real estate rentals and retirement accounts) and a 7 figure income that doesn't even include passive income such as rentals and dividends in the mid 6 figures.
It took me a decade to achieve that but with remote work growing and inflation increasing it should be achievable in 5-6 now. Will 1 million be worth what it was? Probably not, but you'll never be poor.
Depending on your ethics, blockchain/crypto/DeFi (or ReFi, whatever that means, just saw the term today) and "web3" could be an option. It's not sustainable as ultimately it's either solving a problem that doesn't exist or poorly solving a problem that can be solved much more efficiently without crypto/blockchains, but there's a lot of capital and clueless investors/idiots going around that'll be happy to throw money your way if you can drum up some marketing & PR.
In terms of actual, sustainable businesses, looking beyond tech is an option. Outside of tech there's a lot of industries that still operate very inefficiently and a modern software solution combined with IoT could help - here's an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26240581 and I'm sure there are plenty more. I'm watching the YT channel of an HVAC technician and he's still working on a lot of equipment that's 10-15 years old and clients are cheap and want to run it into the ground - no preventative maintenance and as a result a lot of his calls are "reactive maintenance" aka emergency calls when the equipment is already down. Seems like a low-cost box with a few sensors and IO lines can easily be retrofitted and would allow remote monitoring & proactive failure detection (a vibration sensor alone would probably help) and if cheap enough could be interesting to clients (or even the technician himself, if it helps him get more business or better schedule jobs around predicted failures rather than everything being an emergency job).
Assuming you mean starting with no capital and with minimum luck, it's very tricky! If you have capital, developing an empty lot into valuable real-estate (i.e. condo tower) in a big city is surefire, assuming you have the capability. If you have luck, put $30,000 on any specific number at the roulette wheel or sell Wordle to the NYTimes! ;)
If you have deep domain expertise and a reputation, it would be very feasible to make average $333k/yr consulting if you really hustle and invest your profits. That seems like the most straightforward solution. This guy on LinkedIn did it over 4 years, but the strategy seems sound: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/christian-l%C3%BCdemann-07565...
"If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline."
Richard Branson
Earn an average of (1000000-current net worth)/3 for the next 3 years.
Start with 10 million and do a startup.
If you get accepted to YC, you instantly own 93% of a $1.7m worth company, so you’ll be an illiquid millionaire (on paper)
Grind Leetcode and get a job at FAANG. Live minimally and invest all earnings. If you land the first job at FAANG and stay for 1-2 years you can likely 2x your income by getting a job at a different FAANG afterwards. If would be a close call on becoming a millionaire, but you would certainly be close.
At the current inflation rate, every individual will be a millionaire in 2025...And poor.
Steal/scam/extort a million dollars worth of cryptocurrency.
I recommend not doing that however.
Trade options.
Disclaimer: you might be a millionaire in 3 years, but you’ll probably just be broke
working on highly convex position. Trading options, working on startup, creating new startup, buying lotto tickets, or in general if you are already expert in some tech FAANG will give you 500k offer.
I have a corollary question. Is million dollars a lot these days?
Ask daddy/mommy for $1m/3 every year for next 3 years.