I mean yeah but 1.5M by 40 would require something like 100k post-tax savings rate. Considering the median salary for a programmer at Google is less than that post taxes I think you're looking at a further minority than 1%, like dr. Oz levels. 200k pre-tax isn't going to get you a 100k savings rate, especially since engineers making 200k don't live in Milwaukee Haha.

I just showed that depending on your preferred standard of living an anesthesiologist making less than 3x gross salary actually is accumulating wealth at a rate 8+ times as fast.

That's the main fallacy of comparing salaries is neglecting that what really matters is the surplus money after a reasonable standard of living. That's why the rich do so much better.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-savings-rate-by-income-level-2013-3 Seen here, the second quintile (80-135k, aka computer programmers) save 23.6% of their salary the top 1% save 52%. This matches up to what I was saying. A computer programmer making 100k might save 23k, but a doctor making 400k may save 204k, or over 8x the rate of wealth accumulation. This means effectively that a doctor "catches up" to a computer programmer in 3 years (one year for debt), and saves more than the computer programmer will in their life in the next 3 years.

Medicine is indeed stressful, I wouldn't say more than banking or law though.

The reason I think about this so much is I think about whether it is worth pursuing a more lucrative specialty or something easier. As you can see 100k 200k vs 300k vs 400k is really more accurately seen as 10k vs 80k vs 150k vs 220k assuming post tax lifestyle of 60k a year. The difference in savings rate is pretty astonishing when you critically examine it. The effects are less pronounced the more frugal you want to live. Not sure I would want to live below 60k a year post tax after training if I have kids etc.