What? How is it impossible? Many people work 40 hour weeks and still have outside friends and interests, at least before they have kids. If you can afford to,

What? How is it impossible? Many people work 40 hour weeks and still have outside friends and interests, at least before they have kids. If you can afford to, why not join your rich friends once every few years to art week, and meet more people there? If you can't or don't want to, find a local art event and invite a few of your poorer friends to go. Generally speaking and to super-stereotype it, I find time spent with my working class friends generally to be more engaging, fun, and casual than with my friends higher up the capitalist ladder. Working class folks don't want to spend any more time thinking about work than necessary, so when they want to relax, they do. The more ambitious types end up higher on the ladder, sure, but sometimes it overtakes their life and becomes the only thing they can chase or think about anymore, and that makes them pretty dull to anybody else. Just don't be that person and actively foster your other friendships and the rest just kinda happens. That might require some tradeoffs in how you time manage, or work-life balance, etc., but nothing worth doing is free, right? Edit: You have to earn enough to support your lifestyle. But your desired lifestyle can be modified. On one hand being poor sucks, no matter how many friends you have. On the other hand being rich and lonely sucks too. I've known people on every part of that spectrum. IMHO somewhere in the middle is the most sustainable and happy, if you can swing it, but it will almost always require compromises. Maybe that means your career will be capped at some level you choose when you can't put in 80-hour weeks for your beloved startup. Maybe that means you can't afford to live in the Bay Area. But I mean, that's all of life... we pick and choose what's important to us, and if you're not happy with those choices, it's OK to reevaluate them and make changes every so often.