That's nonsense. I'm not an entreprenuer, I work for a guitar company. My financial standing is ridiculously better than it was just a few years ago... While I disagree that those represent the "standard" model, I'll discuss only #2, as that's where my experience is. I dropped out of college three months after starting. Seems I had a problem with the fact that I was expected to do more than party all the time. I ended up joining the Navy at age 18. I "stayed there", retiring at age 38. At age 38, life was far from over. I wasn't real interested in a government job or a job with a defense contractor (both were offered), so i went into music instrument retail. I did that for about three years, until I was hired by my current employer. I know a lot of people who've retired from the military, get a pension, and move on to a second, and wildly successful, career... Oh, I absolutely agree with that, although I look at people like Spears and Eminem as having more luck than anything else; that's just the nature of that particular business... My daughter is 20. I constantly tell her to take risks. Her employer, Anheuser-Busch (they own the theme park where she works) offers a 401K. I always tell her to choose high-risk, high-yield stocks, and forget about the stocks that I might elect for my 401K. The reason being is that, at such a young age, she can afford to lose money more than I can, because she's got time to recoup it if she does lose it. Thus far, at 20, she's doing pretty good. She's sure in better shape, financially, then I was at her age...