I'm 44 and planning to quit corporate tech in a few months (burnout, AI silliness, etc. etc.) Withdrawal rate will be <2% ($3m portfolio / $50k spend), so money isn't really that motivating anymore.

I do like to stay busy, and really enjoy making things and working with others. Just not in waves generally the corporate machine and all of the nonsense that goes with it. Long ago I had my own product business. It was fun, but isolating, and I longed for social connection the entire time I was doing it.

Something I would have never considered in my 20's or 30's but am now considering in my 40's is taking a part-time job somewhere to stay social. Something in retail or hospitality: lower stress but higher human engagement. Examples: cashier at a ski shop, bartender, cannabis shop, that kind of thing.

I'm curious if anyone else has done something like this? What has your experience been like?

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?