Yeah, after doing the numbers, 5M makes sense for my generation. But of course it depends on what "financially successful" means. This isn't defined in this piece, so I defined it as "can myself for a career, save for retirement, and pay off any emergencies". My current yearly expenditures are $60k or so, so if I give a 50% buffer for taxes, savings, and emergencies funds, then take that over a career of 40 years... 3.6m dollars.

And to be fair, my expenditures are very small compared to most others. No loans, no major medical issues, single person living alone. Having a family easily triples this number and we get right on that 10m figure.

The incomes are still wonky, though. I don't know how financial success is double, but income demands are tripled.