Why I Retired at 32 | Carl Seidman | TEDxIIT 

Would you recommend the architect career today?

just wanted to check if your working lifestyle has changed after 2 years?

@@Alan-Aus hi, I changed. I am still freelancing but I mostly do construction detailing and construction technical translation. also I live in a camper van that saves a lot of money.

True story i see it all the time.....people that have spent decades at a company.

that is true. That is why I hate corporate job. Now I do a lot of different freelance job test prep tutoring, web development, comic art, uber drive and have a lot of free time to spend time with friends.

I just hit 25 years with my company. I didn't get a phone or email thanking me for my 25 years of service

3 years at my current company. This is my life. My boss's 15 year milestone was fast food lunch with his Boss and an off brand Thermos.

Point 5 is so true its scary, when you resign after so many years it's like you're dead, gone & no one cares hey, scary existence we are having.

Abitibi_Doug great story indeed!! just one question - don't you have any dependants all the way?

@@pardeeprawat13 most xhoose not to have kids as in the future jobs will be rare to get and most will be very poor with government basic income to barely survive and kids would live in utter poverty

YOU ARE THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE AS MOST OF THE POPULATION DOES NOT HAVE A COMPANY TO SELL.

@@charlesbennington9951 Where did I say I sold a company?

@@Abitibidoug "I took company buyout ........" I would assume you would have to own a company or at least be a partner with a majority share." Either way you sold "something" that 90%+ of the population does not have that enabled you to go into semi retirement ? There must be something missing or something far more interesting to your story than that absurd and inane question.

If you are genuinely passionate and actualized about the work and end goal, it is surprisingly decent

Would love to read it if it's available? 😊

Your comment is an intelligent and reasonable response.

I'm grateful you had that takeaway from the talk. Especially now, given how disrupted the world is, it seems counter-intuitive to take time to reexamine life and work. But now more than ever, we should all be thinking about where the world is going, where our work may be going, and reposition for personal and professional success in this new reality.

How do you think the companies you invest in make their money when nobody consumes the stuff they sell. The economy would collapse if people quit consuming.

@@maythesciencebewithyou economy would have a Correction & shift.

@@maythesciencebewithyou lol, sad truth. Most need to keep consuming so the rest of us can retire off of their spending habits.

Just buy Bitcoin💯

​@@maythesciencebewithyou Of course no one is going to quit consuming entirely. But we can consume less and invest more. Prices will come down as people stop bidding them up so high, and this will naturally increase consumption to a level that will sustain an economy. A market has many natural feedback loops. And yes virtue is rewarded, not punished.

Steve Will great line...I am gonna use it...

bull's eye

Only in the US.

College shouldn't be a "vacation", you should be working and studying so you're not saddled with a bunch of debt when you graduate.

College isn't the problem, it taught me advanced science and useful modern skills that allowed me to find a great paying job afterwards.

You missed his point. This whole thing , find you passion and do it for rest of your life doesnt work. Things change, people change, and that's what this ideo is about. Stop looking for passion, DEVELOP you passion.

dansweeney10 some of the best things I've heard were on RU-vid you want to take that away... :P

More like wasting time with a half baked comment. Wasting time is reading the bible.

How is RU-vid a waste of time. Most of my DIY and fix for things are from RU-vid. Not to mention Tedtalks like this.

Divorce is the worst financial disaster to a man.

It's becoming more and more common

You should probably share this talk with them 😃😄

How did you get this done at such a young age ?And why would people be critical of you living your life your way ? I feel as if we are missing some detials.

Truth

That is more a choice than a necessity.

The poony is they do it by choice as they have enough invested/saved not to. Working part time for different periods of time as you get bored then each time taking months or years off in between is essentially same as full retirement with that work more like a hobby.

You most likely are not single or have children

If I'm looking for a medical specialist, I'd agree -- I'd want them to do nothing in their life but spend all of their attention practicing heart surgery. But for most us who didn't spend 10+ years on training, evolving our careers to adjust to changing markets and demands is imperative. Heart surgeons will always be relevant and in-demand as long as people have heart disease. For those of us working in professions or industries where demand changes, we need to consider how to position for our next move. Our jobs and employers may disappear. One day, even some doctors may be supplanted by robotics.

Thanks for the teaching moment but I think most of us know about specialization. How about not reducing his talk with a ridiculous comparison.

Why can't you specialize in more than one thing? I'll let the heart surgeon fix my roof if he also knows how to fix a roof lol

I've done many jobs. The best involved working with people and travelling, the worst being stuck in one place and producing things - skilled but mind numbingly boring. The money has no bearing on the LIFE satisfaction at all.

I got 5 on it ....or you can invest first while your young and live with parents and buy real estate to hold as rentals then before you move out to buy a house, buy it cash. Or buy a duplex,triple, quadplex live in one unit and let your tenants not only pay your mortgage but allow you to live for free basically. That to me is common sense.

disagree, let's say you got a mortgage at 5%(if you have decent credit should be lower), the S&P 500 has averaged something like 9.7% the last 50 odd years and you can write off what you pay in interest on your mortgage for taxes; even after taking 15% off capital gains you will on average do better with stock market. For risk avoidance you would be better off stockpiling a large emergency fund in the short term as if you put all your money into paying down the mortgage then a crisis comes up before it's completely payed off you have no emergency fund and still have the mortgage payments. Even in the long term there is an argument for not paying down mortgage ASAP, it is a low interest method of leveraging your investments that allows you to invest your capital where it can make higher returns than the interest you would be avoiding. As for the wisdom of investing an emergency fund I like a small stack of readily available cash and a larger stack that is invested in bonds and stocks, as they tend to be inversely related(reducing risk for poorly timed crisis) but both have an upwards trajectory unlike cash due to inflation.

l retired working for an employer at 39 , l'm 42 now and l write personal finance books, and make money from that.

really?

What state is that?

Pensions averages 53% of ones highest earned income and based upon this measure dependency on social programs to compensate seems likely provided you find no part-time work

masayako I doubt it. If no one's working, where will the taxes come from?

Nonsense, not every job will be automated. Just the jobs that do repetitive tasks.

hahah AI is not for repetitive task its for the tasks that need thinking

and how do you suppose companies will thrive if there's no consumers, and who do you suppose will build ai

The problem is capitalism. If production was not about profit margins, but instead about sustainability. Everyone could work 4 hours per day (doing something they enjoy), and know that their needs were taken care of.

People are so obsessed to live longer but so many hard working end up in nursing homes rotting away and not even visited, loved or taken outside the compound or even building for years or decades

It needs a total renovation

What do you propose instead of moeny system? equality of income? If so, good job trying to get highly specialized and risk job workers to go to their job.

There are numerous strategies to achieve high yields during a financial crisis, but it is crucial to undertake such trades with the guidance and supervision of a professional financial advisor to ensure informed decision-making and risk management

That's true. I've been assisted by a financial advisor for almost a year now. I started with less than $200K, and I'm just $19,000 short of half a million in profit.

Nicole Anastasia Plumlee is the coach that guides, you probably might've come across her before I found her through a Newsweek report, she's quite known in her field, look-her up

Excellent point Paul. Though if you work a 2,000 hour work year, that infers you'd master a craft or skill in 5 years. If you retire and re-position yourself every 5-10 years, you'll have mastery of many crafts and skills within a diversified life/work portfolio. And finally, if you expect to work for 50+ years of your life, you'd certainly develop mastery throughout, position yourself for new markets and opportunities as they evolve, and enjoy time off all throughout your life.

@@carlseidman9334 Yeah, OK, that's fair.

I somewhat agree with you. My philosophy has changed on this since I was younger and I now believe in mandatory civilian/military service...up to the individual to decide. The amount of student debt in this country is pulverizing while at the same time college graduations rates (people who start but don't finish) are poor. To expect young people decide on a life and career path at such a young age is unrealistic for many. I believe we should allow young people to grow, develop, connect with others in society different than themselves, and save money. While I don't believe that number has to be 25, when they are a bit older, they're better positioned to make wiser fiscal decisions.

Lousy excuse to not work towards financial freedom at an early age. Saving and investing is key. Buy assets, not liabilities.

You have no idea...

what he forgets to mention is that you need a level of intelligence to be able to manage your money well and even more to be able to invest it properly.. must people will not be able to do this.. i am guessing you are one of them

p000000Lverr you sound 17

He looks terrible

p000000Lverr it’s his receding hairline.

@@Xn0VV7hj31ph I am 17 :C

I was thinking the same thing. When he said "we millennials" I was like wtf

Thanks Alexander, your point is a valid one. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to get into the specifics of compound interest in the 9 minutes. If I do some simple calculations: Assume an individual starts work making $35K at 21 years old and makes a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over his/her lifetime until a retirement age of 80 years old. This CAGR is adjusted for slower earnings in earlier years before accelerating to a $125K annual salary from 47 years old to 65, $100K to 70, and $50K (part-time work) until 80 and retirement. I make a lifelong assumption that taxes are 25%, the savings rate is 10% (which is aggressive for the US), and that interest remains at 1% perpetually (perhaps unrealistic but I'm being conservative). I assume that any healthcare expenses, housing expense, college expenses are covered by the 10% savings rate which amounts to just under $400K of lifetime savings without interest. Under these assumptions, this person can retire at 80 years old with $500K. So yes, it's certainly possible to achieve a retirement balance of $500K at 80 which would be incredible for most Americans. However, most Americans don't save 10% of their after-tax income, because of housing costs, healthcare costs, and consumer behavior, and most people don't make the salary trajectory I outlined. So yes, if you have a substantial balance at the end of your work-life, even a 1% interest rate and reasonable withdrawal rate can float you. Do you believe most people will get to a healthy retirement balance? I personally don't.

Totally agree with you Carl. Especially, in terms of consumer behavior. Most people could, but likely won't put away enough money towards retirement. If given the choice between a short-term gain like a brand new iPhone, and the long-term gain of putting the same amount towards a retirement fund, the majority would always choose the iPhone. Some people may be better off if the knowledge and understanding of compound interest is spread. But, we'll also need systemic mechanisms to ensure that people achieve the minimum of healthy retirement savings (without the need to understand diversification or complex market mechanisms). Do bear in mind, I'm coming from a European's perspective here. Currently, one of the most promising options seem to be a citizen's wage. As we approach an automated world, more and more people will have to change career path, and some people can't/won't have to work at all. It will be up to the coming generations to decide what type of world we want to create for the future of humanity. I think most would agree that we want a world where hard work pays off, and you have the freedom to choose how you want to live your life (and spend your money). Albeit, with no man left behind.

@@Alexander-ql1rj, all very well said. Thanks for your perspective. We're in a very interesting time where technological and societal shifts can help. I hope people and leaders will think longer-term.

Free market capitalism, aka. lawlessness, is what needs to change. There are plenty of variants of capitalism, like facisim and monarchy, and socialistic capitalism, which is a market, where government intervenes in positions where a person is rendered vulnerable, which has no place in the free market. Collectivism is not diverse and causes much chaos before devolving into facisim. Your ideal economics falls somewhere probably in the socialistic capitalism, which favors small business rather than large business.

well the thing is most people don't have that money. They have to borrow it.

steelcurtain656 You'll become what they call a manager. Lol.

By definition he made the cut by 1 year

He has lots of overtime, that's why he's 39. Otherwise he'd be like 17.

god only knows Leave the wife to me.If she is pretty, I'll take care of her.

He was born in 985.

video was posted in 2016 and he says, "several years ago when I was 32". He had to be born "several years" before 1984.

1980-1994

Maybe retiring early aged him.

@@Derpster2493 AD or BC?

Andrew, this is a very valid point and as a society is currently set up, you're completely correct. I feel we seriously need to address part-time work, encore careers, and sustainable lower-wage employment for elders.

@@carlseidman9334 Sounds like wishful thinking. Sounds nice but I see zero evidence of a move in that direction.

@@spindriftdrinker I completely agree with you that it's wishful thinking at this point. There are some local efforts and non-profit efforts but by no means a sea change led by govt leadership. It will likely take legislation to help move it more substantially.

Indeed living to 125 or 150 seems crazy right now, but even if the average life expectancy increases by 10 years to 90 years old, retirement as we know it will be over. Much of the workforce will have to endure gainful employment until the 70s or 80s. How the structure of the workforce and eldercare will support that is what remains largely unsolved.

@@carlseidman9334 Thank you for commenting, Carl! My dad is 95 and still working, though not presently with the Covid situation. He never wants to retire, lol. By the way, I was raised in Chicago. Best regards!

@@DocinaplaneGood for your Dad -- like him, I'd also love to work as long as I'm physically and mentally able. Why retire indefinitely if you like what you do for work.

Iam Ian He looks pretty old for 32.

He said "several years ago, at the age of 32....' Not sure what "several" means in this case.

His LinkedIn profile states that he took his first "retirement" in 2013, which, if it can be believed, translates to an age of 37 or 38 in 2018.

Dubble D it's in the title of the video...

title of the video isn't "how I retired at 32" it's "why" and that's what he explains.

With that mentality is the reason you are not in the top 10%.