To be honest, I'm really surprised this blog post of nothing but platitudes is on the front page of HN. Yes, you want to do well in school so you can get a good first job, make yourself excellent at something, don't inflate your lifestyle. I mean, yeah, duh.

The much more valuable and harder advice is what to do in a particular situation or when things go awry. For example, most career paths where you really end up at higher earnings require that you eventually manage large groups or many teams. The thing is, a lot of people hate managing people, and setting them up for a career path where they have to move into management is a recipe for misery. Much more valuable for these folks is to know what a good IC path looks like, and which careers can be particularly lucrative even if you don't need to manage people.