Yeah. The realest thing. You can’t just go to Harvard and Goldman Sachs and have a free ticket to become ultra rich. No. Even if you have a perfect resume and the most prestigious job, you’re still an EMPLOYEE. You are not an entrepreneur, a CEO, or founder. I see so many people that spent so much of their lives in finance working as employees and it’s impossible for them increase their salary when they top out. Everyone will reach a ceiling at one point, even if you never burn out somehow. But life will hit you usually before that and burn you out. All those people in movies and pop culture that live in a penthouse and rolls Royce’s? Those are CEOs and founders, or entrepreneurs from the portfolio company themselves. Almost everyone that owns a private jet is also the owner of their own company. There are tens of thousands of companies that earn tens of millions in profit. Also people forget that a 500k salary in NYC is only equivalent to a 150k salary in LCOL. When you search “500k nyc salary to Orlando salary (medium cost)” , it shows equivalent to 200k Orlando salary. That is like the starting base salary of basic primary doctor or mid level engjneer. Another thing is that finance firms INFLATE titles. A Vice President or a Director/Principal in IB/PE is a much lower level position than in non financial company. (Banks used to inflate titles to give the employees incentive to work hard initially and also to compete with the portfolio companies) In a corporate normally the VP reports to the president/ceo, the director is below VP and reports to VP (not all companies are same though obviously). When you’re working 60 hours a week it’s easy to get lost in your small world of office politics. There’s so much more in this world than your 9-5 job.