[orware]

I would love to just focus on dozens of problems / interesting areas to myself, but those of us without healthy bank accounts don't really have that luxury.

I really wish there was a sponsorship model of some sort where folks that just love programming for the sake of it could be sponsored by those wealthy enough not to worry about money anymore.

While there are still a lot of interesting problem areas within a typical workplace, sometimes the interests one has within programming don't necessarily align with the workplace's needs, making it so that to work on the interesting stuff in your own time, which gets harder as "life" happens and bills become plentiful.

I too though read about those famous folks in science and noticed how they had either financial sponsors, or were themselves already wealthy, and that allowed them to pursue their own learning paths in earnest, where I would say that isn't an option for the vast majority of us today (it also circles back to general opportunity...there are so many smart and intelligent people out there that may never get the chance to reach their full potential due to the lack of opportunity and instead have to focus on more basic needs, etc.).