In theory, yes. But for an extremely bright, driven 18-year-old, which of these career paths looks like the better choice?
(1) Ph.D. in physics (~9 grueling years), then - if you're sufficiently awesome - ~23 years working your way up in industry to become the CEO at ASML at age 50.
(2) B.S. in Computer Science (4-5 years), then get a FAANG or near-equivalent job and start raking in the money.
And if you're extra-ambitions...you might note that every single one of Forbes current 11-youngest-billionaires either inherited the big bucks, or raked it in by founding software/crypto firms. Zero of 'em went anywhere near "uber-difficult engineering technology" stuff, like semiconductor manufacturing.
>or raked it in by founding software/crypto firms.
That's not exactly something to be proud of in life or someone to look up to. Charles Ponzi, Andrew Tate, and the dozens of other influencers also became quite wealthy by finding legal ways to part desperate people of their money.
>Zero of 'em went anywhere near "uber-difficult engineering technology" stuff, like semiconductor manufacturing.
And yet thank God we have no shortage of people who take the difficult path to working on the cutting edge technology to move humanity and the world forward instead of choosing the easy way of moving buffers around to push ads to people for big money, because we can't have a world where everybody is a webdev(satirized well by South Park).
bell-cot|2 years ago
(1) Ph.D. in physics (~9 grueling years), then - if you're sufficiently awesome - ~23 years working your way up in industry to become the CEO at ASML at age 50.
(2) B.S. in Computer Science (4-5 years), then get a FAANG or near-equivalent job and start raking in the money.
And if you're extra-ambitions...you might note that every single one of Forbes current 11-youngest-billionaires either inherited the big bucks, or raked it in by founding software/crypto firms. Zero of 'em went anywhere near "uber-difficult engineering technology" stuff, like semiconductor manufacturing.
FirmwareBurner|2 years ago
That's not exactly something to be proud of in life or someone to look up to. Charles Ponzi, Andrew Tate, and the dozens of other influencers also became quite wealthy by finding legal ways to part desperate people of their money.
>Zero of 'em went anywhere near "uber-difficult engineering technology" stuff, like semiconductor manufacturing.
And yet thank God we have no shortage of people who take the difficult path to working on the cutting edge technology to move humanity and the world forward instead of choosing the easy way of moving buffers around to push ads to people for big money, because we can't have a world where everybody is a webdev(satirized well by South Park).
Almondsetat|2 years ago
falserum|2 years ago