I'm glad to meet many friends here, including a few in NYC area who happen to know you :-) We still keep in touch with each other in wechat group.
Most of them dived in the stock market and real estate big time in 2008-2009, again in 2020. I believe many of them joined 10-million club already. They are all ordinary W-2 earners here, no mom and dad bank. But they are all prepared and determined.
"Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold. When downpours of that sort occur, it's imperative that we rush outdoors carrying washtubs, not teaspoons. And that we will do."