I personally retired early in 2020 with way more than what I calculated I needed to pay my living expenses for 40 years. I never had a pension, and I was never a highly paid corporate executive.

I did this thanks to 25 years of compounded gains in tax deferred 401K plans invested automatically in index funds every month, stock-based compensation I received as RSUs, and investing aggressively in growth stocks like Amazon and Shopify (thanks, Tom Gardner!) in my self-directed IRA. At one point, my initial purchase of SHOP shares with 5% of my portfolio grew to 20% of my portfolio, before I trimmed it. I currently have 6 years of living expenses in Schwab money funds (SNSXX) yielding a guaranteed 5% (and yes, I know that's too much in cash, even for a retiree). I still have 70% of my investment portfolio in stocks, and the rest in bonds.

Thankfully, according to Vanguard, the vast majority of investors did not flinch when their 401K balances declined by 20% during the 2022 bear market. That phrase is so important, I'll repeat it in bold: they did not flinch. There are now roughly 400,000 401K millionaires in the US and almost an equal number of IRA millionaires.

cnbc.com - Balances dropped in but investors barely flinched

Investing does not have to be complicated by market timing. You could have the worst timing and have invested a lump sum at the high of the market every year during each of the last 20 years, and you would still have almost the same amount as someone who invested at the annual lows each year. Investing consistently every year, and staying in rather getting scared out, is what matters.

To the millenials and GenZ-ers with 30 years to go before retirement - don't get scared out of investing because someone tells you the market is overvalued. There's no formula that uses a trailing P/E ratio that can consistently predict future market returns. Schiller's CAPE ratio can't do it either. Read this study by tedthedog to understand the true facts about CAPE -

tedthedog writes on OT: CAPE's Predictive Power

And, for inspiration, read this article about a Gen-Z who achieved financial independence at age 29:

businessinsider.com - Retire early vp jp morgan invest tax advantaged accounts

It's OK if you have not achieved FIRE status at that early an age, the basic principles of investing to tax deferred accounts and setting up a backdoor Roth iRA apply.

The reason why P/E ratios don't work as valuation yardsticks for hyperscalers like Amazon is that they've built platforms that they use to unlock new revenue streams that you can't possibly guess today. Could you have guessed that Amazon would go from books to the "everything store", to AWS, advertising and Prime Video, all of which are additional multi-billion dollar revenue streams? Could you have anticipated that Netflix would go from CDs via mail to video streaming on demand to now becoming their own movie studio? What about Tesla and its robots? And Microsoft and OpenAI? Did you know that Nividia makes revenues from software as a well as the very expensive GPUs that they sell? What are the future revenue streams from those? You can't easily plug these unknowns into a DCF formula.

Uber recently got added to the S&P 500 index. This forces Vanguard and every other index fund and ETF to buy shares in Uber, no matter how expensive they think it's trailing P/E of 125 is. (It has a forward P/E of 58.) I take 5 or 6 vacations every year, and I always use Uber no matter what country I go to. That's because I get Uber cash via my Amex Platinum csrd, good for discounted or free future Uber trips. I certainly did not anticipate that I could also order lunch via Uber delivered directly to my house or hotel. So I use that service, too. Uber has built a platform, off which they can launch multiple services. Will Uber eventually offer rides via self-driving cars? Now that's something that I can anticipate they _will_ do.