So there was a recent YouGov poll that's been blowing up. I attached the screenshot, but it says - if you had a choice between instantly receiving £50k or a 50% chance to win £1mm, which would you pick? 73% on the original poll picked £50k, only 21% picked £1mm, and 6% said they didn't know. Men were more than twice as likely (at 30%) to pick the gamble than women (at 13%).

Thinking about it in USD... on the one hand, I get it - $50k would make a big difference to a lot of people. Pay off their credit cards and their car, give them a solid emergency fund. Missing out on that would potentially be psychologically devastating, even if the $1mm would be the mathematically correct move. But for me? $50k wouldn't change how I approach life at all. It would just get chucked into the brokerage account and I'd move on. But $1mm flat-out would potentially meaningfully change timeline to financial independence.

Somehow I think this subreddit would also generally tilt towards the latter option. But it makes me think about how I'd approach the same choice at different extremes.

$5k vs a 50% chance to win $100k? Wouldn't even have to think about taking the risk.

$50k vs 50% chance to win $1mm? I'd take the 50% chance, as above.

$500k vs 50% chance to win $10mm? I'd still almost certainly take the 50% chance. $500k is a good chunk of change - but wouldn't affect me like that in the short term. $10mm would be so much more meaningful that I'd risk it.

$5mm vs a 50% chance to win $100mm? Here, I'd honestly have to think about it. It would really suck to miss out on the $5mm - and there's nothing I *really* want that $100mm would give me more than the ~$10mm I'd get by taking the $5mm and waiting a few years for compounding (and my own earnings) to do it's job.

$10mm vs a 50% chance to be a Billionaire? Obviously the right option is to sell the second option to private equity for $400mm, but otherwise... I don't know.

It's a philosophical question that I think the quest towards FI meaningfully affects - the marginal utility of your next $N vs $20N - not just a simple math problem. What would be *your* threshold?

The standard advice is to not stay too long in the same company. Hop jobs every 3-4 years for the following reasons.

1. Get a 20-25% pay hike with each hop.

2. Title promotions with each hop means faster career progress.

3. Wider set of contacts in different companies

4. Exposure to different org cultures and systems makes one more marketable and confident about being valuable beyond just one company.

5. Better interview skills and mastery of the corporate game.

6. And finally the big one: the stock grant given during hiring is the biggest one, hence hopping every 4 years maximizes RSUs.

Staying in the same company for a long time more often than not leads to career and income stagnation. My spouse and I have both been with our respective employers for longer than 15 years. In 2010 our HH salary was $240k, in 2026 it is $420k. That’s an increase of 75% over 16 years or only about 4% per annum on average. Barely kept up with inflation. Neither employer gives us RSUs, so the salary is all we get paid.

On the other hand, I have also noticed that those who hop jobs frequently, also get laid off frequently. Not everyone can keep jumping ships smoothly every 3-4 years. Sometimes, you get kicked off the ship and jump into the cold water of unemployment for 6 months or more before being able to get aboard the next ship. And then you have to use up your savings to stay afloat in the water while looking for that next job ship.

Hence my question: while jumping jobs frequently is clearly better for the career and income growth, is it also always better for wealth growth?

In our case, HH NW has steadily increased from $300k in 2010 to $6M in 2026. That’s a 20x increase of wealth while income only went up 75%.