Could you specify location of the minicamp? Or suggest several possible locations? I just want to calculate trip time from San Francisco International Airport, I also hope it will be useful information for all applicants outside of USA, like me.

The ability to highlight and have it automatically sync to Amazon servers makes Anki deck making A LOT easier.

How exactly do you use this to make Anki decks?

A kindle has finally allowed me to start reading one book per week, something I've been trying to do for quite a while now with little success. The ability to buy books instantly, and the fact that it's much easier to take along than an actual book, means I get a ton more reading done. The ability to highlight and have it automatically sync to Amazon servers makes Anki deck making A LOT easier.

You can also sell your gift card for ~80% of its value (just google "sell gift card").

I don't know the statistics but my impression is that the expected value is higher and the variance is lower in finance than in tech. My sample is biased because I don't personally know any rich tech people but I know a lot of rich traders.

In general I think it is pretty foolish to think you can walk into a competitive field and make $Millions without even any passion for what you are doing.

I went and read that paper. I don't think it says that at all. Their exact conclusion is:

"An individual with a coefficient of relative risk aversion of 2 and assets of $0.7 million would choose employment at a market salary over becoming an entrepreneur. With lower risk aversion or higher initial assets, the entrepreneurial opportunity is worth more than alternative employment"

I didn't understand relative risk aversion, so I looked it up. Here is an example:

"[if you have constant relative risk aversion utility and] If you would give up 2% of your wealth to avoid a 50-50 risk of losing or gaining 10%, then you have a coefficient of relative risk aversion of 4." If you would give up only 0.5% of your wealth to avoid the same gamble, you have a coefficient of 1.
source: http://www.rasmusen.org/x/archives/cat_economics.html

Maybe I'm just not risk averse, but I would not be willing to give up much at all to prevent such a gamble. I'm WAY below a coefficient of 2, and I suspect that many people here on LW are as well.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of lifestyle and investment strategy are you planning to support a long-term life of the mind on $1M USD? Or is millionaire more of a figure of speech representing "a whole lotta money"?

If you make 5% a year on that and live a very frugal lifestyle in a low-cost area, you could do OK, but medical expenses, children, inflation, etc could hurt your capital considerably. I think you'd need a good bit more than $1M to have a large safety margin.

I wonder what the ratio of "people who plan to become millionaires through tech entrepreneurship" to "people who become millionaires through tech entrepreneurship" is. Really, I wonder what it is. I would assume it's rather low, but then, a million dollars isn't really that much. Can moderately successfully start-ups provide a million dollars (in short order), or is it win/lose?

As one with similar plans to jpulgarin (minus the dancing?), I too am quite interested in relevant research. I know Carl Shulman has investigated entrepreneurship success rates but I don't know exactly what he found - I think I'll email him to find out. I am particularly curious about that '9/10 startups fail' statistic, which is repeated everywhere but I haven't yet seen confirmed.

Be specific. Exactly what experience do you think you are incapable of having? Why do you think this?

That seem like a more general reason we should pay attention to what older people say, and is a valid point. However, it doesn't seem to specify why the very end of life is a significantly more important time than say, the first 12 weeks after turning 65.