A while back I understood the true cost of rent. You are burning your money and you pay off someone else’s mortgage. In the future you end up with no money and no place to live. The other person ends up with a house that can be sold.

Well, now, I look at the employment. Nothing different. You put your time and sweat into building someone else’s company that will be sold eventually. No illusion, you are serving someone else’s interests and getting paid just enough to keep you from going hungry.

Really, the horrible situation is when a smart, adult person exchanges his time for money while building someone else’s company. And then use these money to pay someone else’s mortgage (aka rent). Such a guy has a zip tie around his balls. A voluntary slave.

I don’t think this is an exaggeration. The system reward dependency and compliance. Ownership and agency don’t fit. It hits hard once you see it clearly. Time is the only non-renewable asset — and most people trade it away for just enough money to stay afloat, never to get ahead.

You work a job to make money -> You manager gives you a “performance review” and says that you must be a little more enthusiastic about the company -> You use that money to survive — rent, food, subscriptions, maybe a short vacation (for which you need ask for permission from your manager) -> Meanwhile, the person who owns the company you work for builds equity.

The landlord builds equity.

You build… nothing.

At the age of 40 you wake up in your rental apartment, realizing… You’ve helped other people become wealthy, have good lives, send their children to good schools, buy them the best sports gear, treat their wives to the latest Cadillac Escalade. While your own position hasn’t fundamentally changed in years. You’ve been in motion, but not in progress. Now, you are tired and fat. It is too late to change something. The tragedy isn’t working for someone. The tragedy is never breaking out of it. The longer you stay, the harder it gets — you age, get addicted to comfort, fear risk, and cling to a paycheck like a fucking lifeline.

The zip tie around your balls is not visible, but it’s real.

No need to be reckless. Just wake up and don’t let the world convince you that a company’s “off site” is worth the peanuts that you’re getting paid. Promotions and titles offer illusion of progress. What is Resume? What is the real purpose of it?

What percentage of people actually is able to break away?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau:

• ~10% of U.S. adults own a non-employer business (i.e., self-employed without staff).
• Fewer than 6% operate employer businesses (i.e., a business with employees).
• Only about 20% of small businesses survive beyond 10 years (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
• Only 1–2% of Millennials and Gen Z reach financial independence before 40.
• Most of these generate modest income — not “breakaway wealth.”

The top 10% of Americans own:

• 89% of U.S. stocks
• 66% of private businesses
• A majority of investment property.

That means that 90% of people don’t own assets that grow wealth passively.

Only 1 in 10 people escape the trap of trading time for survival and start building assets that work for them. The system is working as designed.