That was what I thought you might have intended. (literally “middle 7 figures”)
Still not entirely clear on whether you were being facetious about this, though… 
$5MM net worth (including home equity) is 97th percentile in the USA (across all ages).
And if you down select for age 45-49, 4MM net worth is still solidly 96th percentile.
That seems pretty damn far from “everybody is doing it” 
Off Topic (age discrimination). RE: FIRE.
Anyone can have FIRE anytime … as long as they are spending less than what they have incoming. 
So, to have FIRE = lifestyle + medical <= investments + other non-work income (i.e. S.S.) For some this is $5+ mil. For others $2 mil. Or even less for those living out in rural area and are mostly self sufficient/sustaining lifestyle. My wife and I have disagreements on this all the time. I say $2 mil, she says $3 mil. Even through, I’ve shown her charts and graphs that $3 mil isn’t needed and that even with $2 mil, we would have, with high probability, enough for up to age 100…and not counting on S.S.
For most people that have FIRE … many still work, but it isn’t to supplement their income because they need it. They work to keep busy (workaholic? or volunteer), enjoy the work (call it a hobby), and/or they want ‘extra’ income to buy a $50/$100/$500k/$1mil yacht/antique/painting… although this last bit might border on lifestyle, it’s not quite the same thing.
Some of the spending can go way down, too, if the W2 is knocked out and only other income. Which lowers the amount that needs to be covered.
Subsidized health insurance (and possibly other programs - things like free home improvements and lower utilities if they only look at income and not assets), almost no income taxes, possibly less transportation costs, etc.
$3 sounds about right for my guesstimate for two. I’m looking for $2M at one (and expenses don’t go up much for additional in household). But I want to travel quite a bit.
Good reasoning… I just got off the phone from buying a new 2021 Yamaha Kodiak 450. 
But aren’t IT pros also in the top tier of income earners? All the salaries mentioned in this thread are north of $100k/yr. Two earners at the bottom of that range would make for a HHI of $200k which is 96th percentile. That seems believable that they would have net worth to match, no?
And some still have kids in the house so may as well keep working, especially if you enjoy your work… 
But good point on net worth needed to FIRE. If you scale down lifestyle and move to low COL area, you don’t need as much.
Two earners at the bottom of that range would make for a HHI of $200k which is 96th percentile.
Surprisingly, a household income of $200k is “only” 89th percentile, at least for the numbers/reference I found. (though $270k gets you into the top 5% of household income)
So that at least would imply that the typical household bringing in $200k/yr isn’t in the 96th percentile for wealth, just due to the size difference in the groups.
I’m not disputing that if people making that income are good savers and invest over their career that they are capable of having the size nest egg you mention – but reality doesn’t appear to bear that out as typical behavior in practice.
I made the mistake of looking at individual income I think. In that case, a 45-yr old with $200k income is 95% percentile. Your numbers are the correct ones in terms of HHI percentile, $200k/yr is 89th percentile for 45-49 yr olds.
Looking at the net worth of people 45-49, the 89% percentile corresponds to a NW of $1.3M, definitely short of $4M+ and likely not enough to be FIRE.
Anyway, that’s a bit off topic but your point is well taken that while it obviously can be done, many IT pros may not be FIRE by their late 40s unless they really worked hard at it. I blame this financially-savvy community for giving me a biased picture on this.
Boy am I out of touch! I read here about salaries of $100K, and $200K, and even more. I never made that kind of money before I retired!! Boggled my mind.
But I forgot about inflation. Using one of the online inflation calculators I discovered my annual income at retirement years ago would, today, amount to well in excess of $200K. And I was working in a place, mostly rural, with a low cost of living and plenty of cows. 
I feel somewhat better. But it is still tough for me to wrap my head around that level of inflation. Geez.
I’ll add my $0.02 here… I was at some point “rich” on paper, after receiving 5000 stock options for earning the Presidential Award in a now defunct tech company. Literally 24 months after earning the award, the company began to close down divisions and eventually went belly up. My stock options weren’t worth the paper printed on. I kept the very nice crystal trophy, though.
The point I’m trying to make is that in high tech, many people can look like a sure FIRE one year, only to wake up mere mortals the next.
That is quite a story! When I retired I cashed in my stock options pronto. I took the money and invested it elsewhere (not in stocks), ran away like hell, and I still have that money.
That is smart and VERY well taken. When I retired my principal concern was that a large number of years lay ahead containing so many things unknown and unknowable. Throughout my foremost objective has been to remain retired as opposed to becoming rich. This because I really enjoy being retired. I can live just fine without being rich. That prioritization has worked out for me, at least so far.
This holds so many people back, I guess because they want to quit work where they live (understandable for family reasons, familiarity etc.). But if you’re willing to move life is your oyster, it’s very easy to ER on $1mil if you pick your spot right, own everything and LBYM.
You can EASILY retire with $1mil NW as I mentioned above, just have to pick your spot. FireCALC, Bengen 4% WD rule etc. will give you $40k a year to live on ($35k if you want to go conservative) and it’s simple to live well on this kind of money in many areas of the USA. Just using us as an example, with everything paid for we rarely spend more than $24k a year and that includes regular travel (before Covid). Health insurance is basically free frex.
This NW is investable assets/cash of course, not counting house.
You still have those original funds plus all the extra % $$ earned with proper care. All the good ideas I have picked up from you have also helped me to increase my $$.
The poster’s around here are all top notch.
I wouldn’t assume 2 high incomes. Thats not going to be the situation for most.
Generally also net worth and income don’t correlate as well as you’d think in America.
The median net worth for top 10% income households is ~$1.6M That doesn’t account for age but I’d expect the top 10% income group is mostly older.
Its absolutely ‘doable’ for someone making 6 figures to save 7 figures over a couple decades. But it does take a basic frugal nature, financal sense etc and you’d be surprised how many people don’t really have that. Lots of people plan or expect to work their whole lives so FIRE isn’t appealing to them. Some people value high priced homes, expensive vacations and luxury German cars much more.
I would say that most of posters on this site would fall into the frugal area. Otherwise, why spend so much time (as I’ve noticed here) finding the cheapest way to pay taxes. 
Well, I’d say as frugal as I have been my whole life, I fit into this column. I’m a saver & have been for many years. I can now afford to manage that lovely home, nice vacations & drive a couple beautiful automobiles.
RE: Company Stock. – Those with company stock … take harish7631’s lesson learned to heart. (Almost) Never hold any single stock … unless you consider that money to be ‘play money’. As soon as you are able to sell company stock for a profit from ESOP, Options, or some other method, sell it!
Hind sight, you can always say, yeah you should of held on to Microsoft or RedHat but … more often than not, unless you have a crystal ball or are day trading, as the average retirement investor… don’t hold on to company stock.
RE: Rich on Paper– Technically, almost all of us are ‘rich on paper’ if your retirement is in stock/mutual funds … so unless your retirements funds are hard currency cash, previous gems and metals, and bullets. … we are only rich on paper… stock market takes a dive and and most wake up poor…
I think there are a few folks on here do not believe in keeping money in the stock market…
To clarify as this is important… the 5000 stock options were a type of golden handcuffs. I couldn’t cash them in for certain number of years. It wasn’t that I kept options that I could sell. By the time I could start selling, the company was down and soon to be out. So, no lesson learned here.
On the other hand, an employer hires an employee to do a job. Isnt it the employee’s responsibility to have, and maintain, the skills necessary to perform the job for which they’re being paid?
As far as simply getting the job done, hiring a new employee with the skills to replace the old employee without the skills has just as much merit and is far from a “organizational failure”. You can make the argument that ongoing education is a good business decision for a multitude of other reasons, but it’s not right or wrong, it’s just a different philosophy.
In addition it often ends up being too many eggs in the same basket. You’d rarely want that much of your portfolio in stock of a single company, no matter how much you believe in its health/mission. It’s just too much vulnerability. You could keep as much as you would of the highest stock holding you’re comfortable with in your portfolio but should probably not be much more than 5%.