This honestly seems entirely reasonable compared to the "here's how I founded a billion dollar" company articles. There are only so many billion dollar companie

This honestly seems entirely reasonable compared to the "here's how I founded a billion dollar" company articles. There are only so many billion dollar companies, and no matter how many people try and do the exact same thing Paul Graham did, it isn't going to create more. On the other hand, a small consulting company that allows you to vacation frequently and live on the beach is entirely achievable for a lot of people. The economy can sustain an awful lot of sub-seven figure one-man companies. I don't really see that this guy exploited any kind of market inefficiency as the current top comment seems to suggest. He just identified a career that pays more in return for less security. As the author said, you gotta purchase your own healthcare, but catastrophe only coverage is cheap for a guy under 40. The only real issue is you can't possible know if that's gonna be you. I suffered through years of spinal degeneration in my mid-30s. Definitely not typical, but part of the reason it didn't destroy me is I was at a boring enormous company that offered super cheap long-term disability insurance and could perfectly well afford to let people miss six months of work. If you've only ever experienced startups with a $5 million budget that are skirting by on margins of hours before going under, it may be hard to appreciate that all of the corporate world is not like that. You actually can get a reasonable level of security. But you never know if you'll need it or not. It's not like the gods come down out of the sky and ask if you're okay with it before throwing you catastrophic health problems.