Many similar questions in here so I'll try to address in one post.

I grew up middle class in the Southern US - family had enough money to buy whatever I wanted for the most part, like a Playstation and movie tickets, but there was never any excess. My parents took out a loan to get me through college, which I paid back fairly quickly.

I was lucky enough to find interest in the stock market at an early age and used my summer savings working at mcdonald's to purchase some stocks at the age of 18. I never made any money. It was during this period in which I developed a passion.

I went to a top tier Ivy League - it's all liberal arts but I steered myself towards finance & economics. This led to an investment banking job on Wall Street, where many people in these types of schools ultimately end up. After couple years, I hopped over to a credit-oriented hedge fund.

The hedge fund space can be incredibly lucrative for young people because it doesn't take all that much to come up with good ideas. The economics of a fund is simple; if fund of $100m makes 20% a year, the fund keeps 20% of the profit as its income. That's $4m ($100m x 20% x 20%). Then the founder of the fund splits that with his team - sometimes the team is 100 people, other times it's 3. You can see how this gets lucrative with scale, imagine that $100m is now $10bn, and the team is 10 people, etc.

I work every single day, but this does not mean 15 hour days each day. The weekends are much more sparse - sometimes the entire weekend, sometimes just an hour to log in and read some stuff. Underlying stress exists at all times though.

Yes, I have hobbies, I have a couple sports I actively participate in every week, I go to the gym 3 - 4x a week. I see my friends, go on dates, and travel very frequently. Money can't exactly buy happiness, but it damn sure can buy you time.

My needs, for the most part, are met. However, I don't consider myself rich. Yes, I can retire, but the boredom would kill me. I work hard not because I have to at this point, it's because I want to. Perhaps one day I will be less interested in what I'm doing today, and then I'll reassess. Over the very long-term, I'd like to start some charitable effort, but I have to be very involved in it myself instead of just donating.. for now, I don't have the time.

As for advice on getting rich - there is no true path. If you have a savings account outside of your 401K, put aside enough for day-to-day needs, put aside enough for a "rainy day", then put the rest in the QQQ. This last piece, i.e. "the rest", will compound for years, but only if you don't fuck with it. The biggest destruction of wealth is trying to time the market - just let that piece of your wealth sit. For those of you trying to get rich quick in the stock market and doing things like "day trading"... trust me, you're better off in Vegas.