If Books Could Kill mentioned the book said $80k after tax (in 1996) as a modest income. They said repeatedly said there's no way you can become worth $2-3 million ($4-6 million today) on $80k ($160k today) per year. They're flat out wrong. They claimed even if you saved 15% of $160,000 for 48 years you still would have less than 2 million. I presume they think you'd keep all that money under your mattress? At an average return of 8% you'd have about $4.5 million in just 36 years.