The honest comparison

Your impact.

What a career in a job you don't love actually costs — and what's on the other side of it.

By the numbers
40
Years of work
Average corporate career span
2,080
Hours per year
At standard 40hr/week
83,200
Total hours worked
Over a full career
10
Years of meetings
~25% of work hours in meetings
$10M
Retirement goal
Enough to never work again
0
Years left at goal
The whole point
Side by side

Now vs. retirement

A direct comparison between the current situation and the retirement scenario your donations help create.

Right now
  • Status update meetings An average of 23 hours per week in meetings, most of which are acknowledged by participants to be unnecessary.
  • The daily commute 30–60 minutes each way, typically underground, fluorescent-lit, and spent next to someone eating something with a strong smell.
  • 9 to 6 on a laptop Three browser tabs are error messages. Four Slack notifications since you started reading this sentence. The coffee went cold.
  • Two weeks of vacation per year Out of 52. One week often consumed by a trip you partially work through. The other disappears into recovery from the first half of the year.
  • Projects that actually matter to you — on hold The book, the trip, the side project, the skill you've been meaning to learn. All waiting, indefinitely, for time that never quite materialises.
After $10M
  • Tuesday morning surfing Not a vacation. Not a weekend. A Tuesday. Because the schedule is entirely self-directed and includes whatever you want.
  • Photographing Paris, Patagonia, Tokyo For as long as you want. Not 7 days before you have to go back. The itinerary is yours. The return date is flexible or nonexistent.
  • Sleeping until 11am on a Wednesday Guilt-free. No alarm. No standup at 9. The day begins when it begins, and it belongs to you entirely.
  • Actually writing the book Or painting. Or building the thing. Or learning the language. The project that's been waiting gets the time it was always asking for.
  • Zero status update meetings Not fewer. Zero. The word "synergy" no longer enters the auditory system. No one shares their screen on a call that could have been an email.
The math behind $10M

Why $10,000,000 specifically

It's not an arbitrary number. It's based on the 4% safe withdrawal rule — a widely used retirement planning benchmark.

4%
Safe withdrawal rate
Historically sustainable annual draw from a diversified portfolio
$400K
Annual income
4% of $10M per year, indefinitely
$10M
Portfolio intact
Principal largely preserved for 30+ years at this rate
∞
Years of freedom
If invested well and withdrawn at 4%

Note: The 4% rule is a guideline based on historical market data, not a guarantee. Past performance does not predict future results. This is not financial advice. We are a website asking strangers for money, not a fiduciary.

Be part of the gap-closing.

Every dollar genuinely contributes. You get nothing in return. That's the deal.

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