Thank you for writing this.

I am thinking continuous smaller returns rather than the big one payoff is easier to obtain. One becomes financially free when the income is greater than the outgoings at the standard of life you choose.

You don't need the billion, just revenue income without working (swapping time for money) that is more than your outgoings and where that income is diversified enough that given events like 'end of life' of the value generation (product end) or events like Corona or Brexit etc, don't totally screw it up, and it increases enough with inflation or the % is higher than inflation.

Of course this is not easy, and does take a long time to build from scratch, but it doesn't have to be all done at once. Small investments incrementally over time can be better than the unicorn.

Applying this to age and 'end of life' of us, i.e. death, still leaves you in a harder place later in life because you have a shorter time.

The relationship between money and time is not linear. It is only linear if we think about swapping time for it, but investments dont work like that. The payoff is related to risk rather than time.

Having multiple options running simultaneously with different risk profiles (essentially diversification across risk) might give you an income in time if you have enough starting capital to do this.

Just don't gamble the pension on the dice!

I dont have a pension, ive been investing mostly in myself, but putting part of my money swapped for time into non-linear investments for quite a few years and ive got to a bout 1 month per year, so its not easy. But it can be fun if you don't screw it up :)