First off, you're talking about income, not wealth. Secondly, what the kids are calling "TeeCee" is an optimistic projection. A lot of people get randomly PIP-

First off, you're talking about income, not wealth. Secondly, what the kids are calling "TeeCee" is an optimistic projection. A lot of people get randomly PIP-raped in the first year and aren't going to see that bonus or the equity. All it takes is for some scumbag in your management chain to knife you, and you're gonna miss out on a serious chunk of that TC. Thirdly, private-sector SWE is a 10-year career at most. The insane time tracking, atrocious management, and abysmal code quality tend to drive people out, and even if they don't, the ageism is severe. You'll either pushed into political malevolency (that is, management, the job of enforcing the will of a bourgeoisie that should have been forcibly overthrown a generation or two ago) or unceremoniously kicked out. Fourth, the numbers you're talking about aren't even that high. You can't even buy a house in the Bay Area on that kind of salary. Most of the truly high-paying jobs go to political manipulators and backstabbing social climbers, just as been the case for centuries before. The future never came--human society is the same shitpile it has always been, due to the world being run by a class of uncultured thugs. All that said, you shouldn't feel guilty if you're in the position to get one of the few middle-class jobs that still exists. Make sure though that it's a real tech job (an R&D job where you're trusted to pick and choose projects, and can publish papers if that's what you're into) and not some Jira jockey nonsense that will cause your career to stagnate.