Decentralizing FI for strategic reasons?

[Dave]

Right on AH, got it.

Well, if not already clear from my comments above I really like what you fleshed out there! What you proposed seems to me to be the most robust way to approach semiERE as it seems to be the best of both worlds, with just a timing emphasis of skills before financial capital. I could see this approach being superior for a ton of people who enjoy some type of work or a project(s) that doesn't pay a super high rate, but still want to eventually end up in a position with a broad WoG life system that has a meaningful stock of financial capital.

Appreciate your thoughts @J+G, I always like hearing your perspective on this topic given your very unique life approach.

Perhaps I see a wider range of outcomes regarding medical issues, non-medical personal issues, or projects that come up that could require larger $ spending needs. Like I said above, it’s not inevitable. Many people won’t have such needs. And perhaps I’m overestimating such costs – I err conservative when planning, for sure. I just don’t know the future and have known a few people with fairly adverse outcomes in life that limited their ability to do things.

Remember my comments were specifically around people who had relatively (to spending) low savings levels and no intention to accumulate capital, not those slowly accumulating. This is a key point that may not have been clear above, based on how I was using the semiERE phrase. And the 50x was NOT some target I was advocating pursuing, just an example of two extremes.

But I’m not sure I agree with the idea that 10x of an already-very small level of annual spend, say $75-100K, really makes one’s lifestyle similarly robust as someone that has $750K-1M. In a lot of outcomes, that’s fine. However, if you find yourself simultaneously with large ongoing healthcare costs AND you are unable to work many jobs, you might find yourself quite restricted. Not begging in the streets, but perhaps more than desired and avoidable given a bit more effort to accumulate $.

I don’t know though – I don’t have a strong opinion on what the right number is. $75K seems too small to me. Maybe the diminishing returns has mostly set in by $250K, and that’s fine. I’m not arguing a particular number (and certainly nowhere remotely close to $1M), just that 10x off a very small level of spend seems a bit low for MY comfort level given how much variation there is in future outcomes like healthcare costs and more. And your point of the life tradeoff is duly noted, finding the balance here is critical and there are definitely people that vastly over-save and lose years of their life in a crappy job environment in an effort to alleviate anxiety about the future.

My guess is we’re all mostly on the same page of not falling to any of these extremes. I left full-time work below half of standard FI level to pursue my muse, and didn’t look back. (It sounds like?) you still expects to accumulate some financial capital. And so on. It’s a spectrum. Your comments about 17x and 33x not being as different is kind of my point here - I'd agree that the gap between 33 and 17 is hugely different than 50 and 10. Neither of us is advocating either.

IMO the most robust strategy is to address both of the extreme issues @jacob noted to each side – the stash side shouldn’t bet the farm that st0nks are going to go up and right forever, and the skillz side shouldn’t assume they will always and forever be able to string something together until the day they die. Both = more robust. Multi-pillared approach.

Looping back to the original post, I'm curious if anyone has any push-back on AH's original strategy. Assuming equal emphasis on skills long-term, it seems like a good balance between the boundary cases of 1) structuring a lifestyle that yields just enough to support needs but having little financial stocks built and 2) the extreme save to 33x+ while giving up years of life in a suboptimal job, not building skills along the way, and developing severe burnout approach.

As noted above, one downside of the OP's posited approach is less time for financial compounding to work. Another is the risk that none of your current projects end up yielding anything material such that you have to end up grinding more at suboptimal jobs/gigs down the road. Assuming one is course correcting in real time, I don't know how likely that really is, but it comes to mind. A final is that assuming one is a moderate income earner or higher with very low costs (80%+ savings rate), in a lot of cases it just won't take all that long (~3 years) to grind from 10x to 25x and you can just be done with the whole FI thing, which frees up more time to focus on skills and following your interests. For a lot of people, 3 years of effort is going to be worth the jump in security and increased options brought about, but as discussed throughout this thread there are tradeoffs and individuals will vary in their analysis here.

[Western Red Cedar]

Okay. Criticism? What's naive about this? Are there non-obvious ways this fails?

A couple thoughts:

1. You've got a pretty wide band for SemiERE - up to 20x expenses. If someone is at 20x expenses, it may only require a short amount of additional full-time employment to actually get to 25x. This was a common argument I heard on the MMM boards when people were thinking about quitting at a 5-6% SWR. And, honestly, I can understand that perspective. The second half of the accumulation phase goes much more quickly than the first half.

I think your question is more interesting if you narrow those bands. The coasting to FI thread provides some perspectives on where that outer band might lie: 10x, 12x, 15x?

viewtopic.php?t=6452&start=40

2. Most people tend to waste a lot of time. Myself included. With a well-designed system one can quickly skill up without leaving full-time employment. Maybe full-time work doesn't need to equal w*#k? Maybe we don't need more time, we just need to make better use of the time we have? Or maybe we just need to switch to a less toxic work environment?

3. Committed relationships complicate more extreme lifestyle approaches. I'm thinking primarily of long-term partners and kids, but it could also include aging parents, siblings, or other relatives that are relying on you. There are plenty of examples on this forum and elsewhere of households who embrace ERE values and operate at WL 6+, but FI and leaving full-time employment at 25x might actually represent a pretty significant compromise for a spouse at a lower WL. A WL 4-5 lifestyle isn't that hard of a sell. WL6+ might be more challenging.

------

I really like the concept of decentralized FI and SemiERE, but the fiscally conservative nature of FIRE and ERE is what actually sold me on this lifestyle. It represented a responsible approach to unconventional living when I decided to jump down the rabbit hole.

[Humanofearth]

I think the initial strategy mentioned here is useful but not financially optimal as going all in on the highest revenue sources of income and highest return investments. It’ll take longer to reach some number but the number isn’t actually meaningful to quality of life but it will impact the attitude one (at least me) takes towards money.

I went from 10x to 100x to 20x in the past 6 years or so. 100x was a different attitude completely towards money. I was so tight with money before that and actually spend more now than I did at 100x. I’m happier now but I felt the stress of that essentially meaningless loss for a time. I’m happy working again, and harder than before. It’s more engaging now that I don’t actually need the money. I have several sources of income but most aren’t necessarily passive. Trading, online work, and capital gains all cover expenses. As could staking but I digress.

Responsibilities change, expenses change, relationships, people passing, health is more important than money by a long shot and if pursuing multiple sources of revenue allows one to escape a soul crushing job, it sounds like a better strategy than white knuckles to reach some number that will change as a goal post once you’re within reach.

[jacob]

Okay. Criticism? What's naive about this? Are there non-obvious ways this fails?

Overall, it's Charles Long's "Living without a salary" + FU money. In ERE terms, it's the frugal/WL7 workingman quadrant + some money.

I don't think it fails, but it does restrict options to spend time on "moonshots" and activities that don't pay at all. One has to arrange one's life around being a "handyman" pursuing or accepting activities according to them paying off within 1-2 years (before the 5-10 year reserve is used up). The unskilled ($10-15 per hour) version of that is having 2-3 part time jobs flipping burgers and the likes.

Whether this is a feature or a bug depends on temperament and interests(*).

A moonshot is anything with an uncertain payoff. For example, writing a book, programming an app, switching career. These things become somewhat more tenuous with semiERE. Recall that 90% of "new businesses" fail because the entrepreneur ran out of money from paying themselves cost of living. With full FI that won't be a problem. All you potentially waste is time.

Since quitting my career some 13 years ago, I've done enough different things to realize that payoff is basically Pareto.

Activities that made >"1 jacob": book#1, quant, copy-editing.
Activities that made some money but less than "1 jacob": bike repair, woodworking, blogging
Activities that made no money: sailing, swordsmanship, book#2, gardening, ERE forum, postcasting

There's a correlation between my stash size and my desire to pursue remuneration. I don't know if there's causation too. However, I currently make about $2000/month in dividends. With that it is hard to get excited by the wage for a given piece of work. As such all the other aspects of the job on offer has to make up for it. Conversely, when my investment income was lower, making $20/hour doing something was strangely exciting.

(*) I think this is the main point of contention between Ego and me. Whether being forced to do commercial transactions/relate to the market is a good idea or not. semiERE provides that "pressure" ... it is a form of external structure but one that is softer than a j-o-b.

[jacob]

(*) I think this is the main point of contention between Ego and me. Whether being forced to do commercial transactions/relate to the market is a good idea or not. semiERE provides that "pressure" ... it is a form of external structure but one that is softer than a j-o-b.

IOW, the interdependent vs independent debate.

[Jin+Guice]

Thanks for the responses everyone, I find this conversation is really interesting.

For people pursing this goal, this is a big choice. The choice comes down to tradeoffs. The outcome of those tradeoffs is unknowable. So we will never find a right answer.

For me, the main tradeoff is the security more money provides vs. freedom from a job + freedom to do what you please.

There are several factors that influence this tradeoff many of which are being discussed here.


One thing I want to add about semiERE and resiliency/ strategy. semiERE uses job income to boost resiliency. When I talk about it, I assume you are employing a nonstatic investment strategy, one where you are capable of responding to environmental change. So if your job sucks you quit and if you see a high money opportunity that doesn't suck you take it. Part of the SWAN package for this is doing whatever it takes to feel like you can find non shitty work for the amount of time it takes to cover the expenses plus savings that fit in your WoG.


@Dave: Very much enjoying our discussion.

But I’m not sure I agree with the idea that 10x of an already-very small level of annual spend, say $75-100K, really makes one’s lifestyle similarly robust as someone that has $750K-1M.

You sneaky SoB, going from 10x v 50x to 10x v 100x. The difference between 10x and 100x IS big, imo... but mostly due to being able to fund projects at 100x. I also agree that there is a much higher chance that 100x saves your ass when 10x would not. I agree there is a qualitative difference between $75k and $1M in the bank. This includes a large qualitative difference in what it takes to get there.

@jacob has pointed out that absolute values matter in semiERE and I agree. For someone who is interested in ERE, wants to be financially conservative, wants to get benefits from savings and has a VLCOL, I agree that stopping saving at $75k is not commensurate with your goals. People with VLCOL lose the advantage of potentially lowering their COL easily and also may not have enough in absolute dollar amounts. This is again a boundary case though and I think that someone who possesses the skills to get there possesses the knowledge to see why stopping at $75k is not advantageous.

Otherwise I think we are basically saying the same thing, until the last paragraph.

This is a conservative place and people like to argue conservative strategies. Personally I feel that continuing to work while saving money is in some ways a more conservative approach (my assumption here is that well-paid work is available part-time, if you want it).

You are guaranteed to lose 100% of your time today at work as you save for an x% chance of some future catastrophe. Oddly, I feel the freedom we all seek is undervalued. I think this is bc running out of money is something we're all used to fearing while sacrificing our lives to jobs is something we are not used to fearing and are taught to expect.


One important factor for making this decision is investment skill. I have low skill. IMO, low skill biases you towards semiERE as it is easier to make your money flow from current job income than it is from investments. It was pointed out to me in recent investment threads that saving 33x CoL doesn't even make sense for me, as that is not the actual investment strategy I am pursuing and I have stated many times that I have no idea how to get the kind of returns you need for a 3% SWR AND SWAN. I have many years CoL saved, but all I really have is a giant emergency fund. An emergency fund that is 10x CoL is also qualitatively different than one that is 0.5xCoL.

The opposite of this is low-skill in w*rk. This is not the same thing as low-skill. It's the j*b you have that pays really well with no knowledge of other options. I will note that getting back into j*bs and finding other j*bs is often easier than one thinks (except in the boundary YOLO case that happens in all movies). It's possible to increase investment skill and it's possible to increase w*rk skill, though both take a non-trivial amount of time and effort.


I agree with @WesternRedCedar that there are ways to hack a job.

Another important factor is the combo of how much you like your job, how close you are to FI and what kind of freedom-to you are looking for. If you like your job and don't have a strong freedom-to urge yet (which I think is more likely if your job fulfills a lot of needs for you), then something more like full FI is your best choice. If you really like your job, don't even retire at all, but still FI, I believe.

This doesn't mean you experience no friction at work. A personal anecdote: If I hadn't quit my music industry job before I found MMM I would've stayed. I would've just worked for like 15 years (bc the pay sucks) in a job that definitely required a ton of youthful vigor. I liked that job, I just didn't see anyone who was 45 who liked it anymore and since I thought that was what a career was when I was 24, I quit. I would've lost a lot of interesting times and self-knowledge staying at that job. I don't regret leaving. But if my current knowledge got imported back into me at 24, I would stay.

The sales pitch for WL6 + is that it is sexier. Also more friends and more time for relationships/ community oriented stuff, if the person values that.

@jacob: I suspect differences in personality come into play a lot with what you said. I spend most of my time pursuing moonshoots. I am not the most focused or organized person and I also like to leave time for some flexibility in my schedule. Adding 6-16 hours of renumerative work a week helps focus my moonshoot projects. Sometimes I get more done slacking at work then I do trying to focus at home.

I am in the @Ego camp that I find SOME forced interaction with the monetary and employment world invigorating and orienting. For me a balance is best. I think this is true for a lot of people, but certainly not all people.

I'm also not sure semiERE works if you stop at WL5. Do you even get there if you are at WL5? I think it's hard to argue WL5s that semiERE is viable and adding in some non-monetary gains COULD lead to monetary gains in the future (though that is not even the goal bc WL6+).

[theanimal]

I don't see how following the semiERE pursuit prevents you from following moonshots. If you have say 15x expense, what is to prevent you from taking one or two years off of working and drawing off capital? Or rather, if you could structure your life where you are only working 5-10 hours per week, why would you not be able to do the same thing for something like a book?

[jacob]

I don't see how following the semiERE pursuit prevents you from following moonshots. If you have say 15x expense, what is to prevent you from taking one or two years off of working and drawing off capital? Or rather, if you could structure your life where you are only working 5-10 hours per week, why would you not be able to do the same thing?

Moonshots, not upper atmosphere jumps

For example, my book#2, which went nowhere(*), took 5 years. A few of those and a mini-stash is gone. IOW, if "infinity/runaway/independence" hasn't been achieved, one only gets a limited number of bullets.

Add: Think of it this way. In the ERE book (4.3 gauging mastery), there's a scale of mastery. This one:

• 0 hours - novice ... blabla
• ...
• ...
• ...
• 10,000 hours - .. expert, capable of original work
• 30,000 hours - legendary proficiency, internationally known...

There are roughly 2,000 hours of potential effort in a year. So 15 years of savings basically is one single shot to the top of the world ... or 3 separate shots at mastering some craft. If the goal is to "survive" or make money, one only needs 300-1000 hours invested into a craft for a junior position. As such semiERE is robust because there's a lot of rounds in that gun. OTOH, if the goal is reaching for the moon, there are but few tickets to that lottery with a 15 year runway.

(*) And even if it had gone somewhere, there would have been no guarantee that it would have been a commercial success at the JAFI+ level.

It doesn't even have to be a moonshot. There are many activities that don't connect well with the financial economy. One example might be staying at home as a parent until the child is ready to be committed to the school system. There goes 5-6 years already. If you think about it in terms of WOGs, semiERE needs to remain connected to activities, where the side-effect MUST be "making money". Whether that's good, bad, or ugly remains up for debate. However, it does limit the opportunity space/possible type of WOGs.

[7Wannabe5]

@7W, conservative advice doesn't suit you.

Good insight. Thanks!

From the book:

This frame of mind is pervasive. Retirement is seen as spending hoarded savings, and survivalists tend to focus on stocking up on tools and supplies. Rather than forming an environment which can sustain them, they accumulate assets to survive in an environment that isn't conducive to their living. Conversely, a hunter-gatherer lives in an environment conducive to living. The traditional hunter-gatherer works 15 hours a week to gather resources from his environment. With our level of technology and understanding, we can gather resources from our environment more effectively and only work a few hours a week, or part of the year, or develop enough assets to no longer work at all, letting others do the work.

I don't think that it is just semantics to note that most or all of the variations that are referred to as Semi-ERE on this forum are really more like Semi-FI . IOW, achieving and maintaining VLCOL is primarily what differentiates ERE from FIRE. The elephant in the room is that jacob's initial and continuing primary motivation for achieving VLCOL was proof of concept experiment in environmental resource conservation. The other two threads of FI and Renaissance Lifestyle (Quality of Life) were secondary. Therefore, the minority population of this forum who found it through path starting from either Alternative Lifestyle Design or Resource Conservation Consciousness, rather than MMM/FIRE community, are much less likely to want to alter path to something like "Get job that pays $120,000/year. Spend like median consumer. Retire in 5 to 10 years." In fact, the fact that my recent medical emergencies have caused me to move more in the direction of this option is probably a sign (in me, MMV considerably!) of functional depression. As in, I feel sorry for myself, I give up, I guess I'll just try to build a more standard model of "success."

Normal is always out there waiting for you. It doesn't care that much how old you are. It's like the Baptist Church bus stopping to pick up anybody willing to be lured towards salvation with some Bible Camp cookies.

[AxelHeyst]

It doesn't even have to be a moonshot. There are many activities that don't connect well with the financial economy. If you think about it in terms of WOGs, semiERE needs to remain connected to activities, where the side-effect MUST be "making money". Whether that's good, bad, or ugly remains up for debate. However, it does limit the opportunity space/possible type of WOGs.

To me, this argument is *the* prime reason to not pursue semiERE, or at least to not pursue semiERE for a very long time. As my current life-situation stands, this is *the* prime reason why my semiERE strategy involves a high likelihood of crossing the FI line in 5-10 years, ideally 5. AKA this argument is why my thinking is biasing towards 'aggressive' semiERE.

Why not just FTE for two more years and be done with it?

Man... I just really don't want to. Aggressive semiERE sounds funner even though it'll take a little longer.

That said, I might change my mind. I can see doing semiERE for another year or year and a half and going... right, let's get this over with, bring on the FTE salary or freelance gig for two years and be done with it.

..

I will add that going semiERE even for a phase is a tremendous way to achieve VLCOL quickly, all other things being equal, if your initial condition for ERE is a high COL. Mine was (2019COL=65k$). Losing the job was both motivation to, and freedom to be able to, pursue VLCOL and achieve it quickly. That has now set my baseCoL. If I hadn't done that, I'm not sure what I'd think my CoL 'should' be. It'd probably be higher. Regardless of where I go from here, my two-year semiERE phase was a tremendous booster period for my ERE path.

[Jin+Guice]

It doesn't even have to be a moonshot. There are many activities that don't connect well with the financial economy. If you think about it in terms of WOGs, semiERE needs to remain connected to activities, where the side-effect MUST be "making money". Whether that's good, bad, or ugly remains up for debate. However, it does limit the opportunity space/possible type of WOGs.

I thought about this on my way into work today and I had wanted to add this to my post. I think how and how much your work integrates into your WoG is decisive here. There seems to be a split between people who feel that they require complete freedom from paid employment to really pursue outside projects and then there are people who don't require it and people who feel that freedom from paid work hinders their projects.

There is also the cross-over that @WesternRedCedar talks about in his earlier post, that it's possible to get paid and pursue outside projects at the same time by organizing yourself at work better (certainly a danger and a limit to this approach too). VLCOL with a huge FU stash and a few years of effort allow someone to look for careers that fit their WoGs rather than saving their way out of this problem.

I also want to point out that jacob, MMM and MadFIentist had FTE that integrated into their web of goals at the time of their employment. It's certainly possible to do this too.

Contrast this to someone like LivingAFI, who's career was a nightmare hellscape the entire time.

I think for the WL6+ crowd, how well FTE or part-time employment fits into your style, system and WoG is what provides the answer to which path to pursue.

I will add that going semiERE even for a phase is a tremendous way to achieve VLCOL quickly, all other things being equal, if your initial condition for ERE is a high COL. Mine was (2019COL=65k$). Losing the job was both motivation to, and freedom to be able to, pursue VLCOL and achieve it quickly. That has now set my baseCoL. If I hadn't done that, I'm not sure what I'd think my CoL 'should' be. It'd probably be higher. Regardless of where I go from here, my two-year semiERE phase was a tremendous booster period for my ERE path.

Yes speaking of moonshots, I think one thing you miss out on with FI is the opportunity to purse low probability chances at high-stoke high-renumeration work. Motivation is decreased. As is, IMO, time to do it. But, IMO, it is easy to do this while working <10 hours/ week towards "very slow*" FI, but again personal style will dictate this.

*And again, only in this crowd is retiring in 10-20 years instead of 3-5 considered very risky and slow!


ETA: I conceptualized and wrote this post entirely during my 2 hr work day, while loudly joking about how I was doing a great job and all staff should call my boss to demand that he immediately give me a raise.

[jacob]

Also note that all this labeling of what is more of a continuous spectrum is likely what annoys the "you can't label me"-crowd.

In fact, the difference may be a matter of degree rather than kind. (Caveat: The difference in kind probably depends more on attitude than numbers.)

Lets do another XY-diagram.

X-axis: Effective savings rate. Lets do a moving average over a few years. In that case, intermittent work simply translates into a lower savings rate. Lets say 20-50% (still enormously much higher than the average consumer) instead of 50-80%. 20-50% leads to FI on a timescale of 17-30ish years.

Y-axis: Desired buffer. Somewhere between 14 days (median consumer) and 140 years (beyond wealthy). This is a question of attitude towards money. Is connecting via money good, bad, or ugly? Energizing? Valuable? Trite? Tedious?

This basically gives us 4 quadrants to discuss. Or maybe 6 or 8 or whatever.

0-50% savings rate, 0-15 years of expenses: Typical consumer
50-80% savings rate, 0-15 years of expenses: semi-ERE
0-50% savings rate, lifetime years of expenses: FIRE, bogleheads
50-80% savings rate, lifetime years of expensive: traditional (jacob-style) ERE

[jacob]

I think for the WL6+ crowd, how well FTE or part-time employment fits into your style, system and WoG is what provides the answer to which path to pursue.

I think this is true.

For my part, I was already FI before I started seriously questioning careerism/FTE. FI basically gave me options beyond "working for money".

Where we stand depends on where we sit.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

So, Artistic Bohemian or Live Moneyless in a Tree types fall under the category of Typical Consumer? Do these represent the Green (hippie weirdo ) or, perhaps, Red (Warrior culture. Jean?) Failure mode(s) of ERE, whereas conventional FIRE with median spending would represent the Orange( typical modern lifestyle) failure mode of ERE?

I hope my usage of spiral terminology will be forgiven in this instance. I am not trying to label or negate or disrespect anybody else. I'm just trying to better understand the nature of my own special sauce ERE failure

[jacob]

@7wb5 - I haven't thought a lot about it. However, I bet that if one were to plot opinions along these dimensions in this graph, people with similar opinions would find themselves grouped along similar coordinates.

[Ego]

I believe there is a generational component as well.

Xers & older Millennials took years of being screwed by Boomers before finding FI and realizing it presented a way to beat the Boomers at their game.

Z's & younger Millennials saw the screwing coming and decide to play along as little as possible.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

Gotcha. That make sense.

[7Wannabe5]

Xers & older Millennials took years of being screwed by Boomers before finding FI and realizing it presented a way to beat the Boomers at their game.

Z's & younger Millennials saw the screwing coming and decide to play along as little as possible.

So, it takes some amount of Warrior Energy to engage in the game/achieve FI? Maybe it correlates well with Good at Sports?

[theanimal]

I suppose it comes down to temperament, personal interest in outside engagement and desired notoriety (none/famous for 15 miles/ world renowned) I still have a hard time seeing how semiERE is limiting to things like moonshots. Perhaps it's lack of imagination on my end but all the things listed could be done with an additional 5 hrs/week of employment if necessary.

I think it's worth noting that people start businesses , write books, and do big things all the time while working full time 40 hr jobs AND having near 0 savings. A select few are even able to achieve world class status under this arrangement.
A couple examples: Walter Issacson- runs a policy organization by day and writes biographies of Steve Jobs, Leonardo Da Vinci etc at night.
Cameron Hanes- Until recently worked at a public utility company full time but is widely regarded as the best bow hunter in the world. Also is a highly accomplished endurance athlete.

Now of course very few are able to achieve that amount of output with such a limited schedule. But what is being talked about isn't full time but 5-10 hours a week or 130-260 hrs a year of work. The rest to do with as you please.

For me, a further boon is the constraint. Most humans operate best when there is some type of constraint and when there isn't one come up with something artificial to replace it. See exercise. semiERE operates from a position of constraint monetarily which forces one to remain engaged with the community and avoid complacency.

[Western Red Cedar]

I still have a hard time seeing how semiERE is limiting to things like moonshots. Perhaps it's lack of imagination on my end but all the things listed could be done with an additional 5 hrs/week of employment if necessary.

I think it's worth noting that people start businesses , write books, and do big things all the time while working full time 40 hr jobs AND having near 0 savings. A select few are even able to achieve world class status under this arrangement.
A couple examples: Walter Issacson- runs a policy organization by day and writes biographies of Steve Jobs, Leonardo Da Vinci etc at night.
Cameron Hanes- Until recently worked at a public utility company full time but is widely regarded as the best bow hunter in the world. Also is a highly accomplished endurance athlete.

Now of course very few are able to achieve that amount of output with such a limited schedule. But what is being talked about isn't full time but 5-10 hours a week or 130-260 hrs a year of work. The rest to do with as you please.

For me, a further boon is the constraint. Most humans operate best when there is some type of constraint and when there isn't one come up with something artificial to replace it.

Thanks for bringing this up. I totally agree about the notion of constraint.

The example of writing a book is particularly perplexing in terms of a moonshot as almost all notable writers started out with some kind of day job - often full time. It obviously makes it easer for someone like Isaacson who honed his craft with a background in journalism, but there are loads of other examples like Anthony Trollope who wrote every morning before going to his job at the post office. I don't know much about app development, but I would guess it is similar.

Cal Newport talks about this in his books and is another great example of achieving success as a writer while holding down a full-time work as a computer science professor at a prestigious university. He's obviously at the extreme end, but one of his points that I mentioned upthread is that most humans are actually wasting a ton of time. Removing all work may actually make things worse for many people.

When shooting for the moon, it probably makes more sense to pivot from a traditional career and leverage skills you've already spent a long time developing. You don't need to save up 25-33x expenses to experiment and do interesting things. Andrew Huberman started filming the Huberman Lab in his closet during the pandemic with a couple of his old skateboarding/punk rock friends. He leveraged most of the skills he had as a professor of neurobiology, but opened lots of new doors with a low-risk experiment.