http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Altucher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Altucher According to the wiki page, the guy doesn't have any degrees in finance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Altucher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Altucher According to the wiki page, the guy doesn't have any degrees in finances or economy, so I don't exactly see how his advice is authoritative. (And , no, the daily work for hudge funds managers is not very close to average-twenty-year-olds financial situations) He's basically saying "here's what I did". He went to CMU and says investing in a good education is smart. He also is the founder of a (successful) site, so it's no wonder that he suggests to try out your luck in a start-up. In the video, he talks about investing in yourself (he gives an example of a friend who does video, and his suggestion is to invest in better equipment). The advice is good, but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with money. Programmers invest in themselves for free all the time by learning new languages, frameworks, etc. Also, when considering investing, you have to take into account risk tolerance on an individual basis. Some twenty-somethings still have student debt, some already have a mortgage, some are carefree butterflies with money to burn. Some can't sleep at night not knowing where they're making money the next morning. There is no one-glove-fits-all.