Collins invokes this sentiment — widely attributed in various forms to Einstein, though the attribution is apocryphal — because the mathematics of compounding genuinely do produce counterintuitive results that most people fail to internalize viscerally enough to act on.

The classic illustration: $10,000 invested at 10% annual return grows to $25,937 after 10 years, $67,275 after 20 years, and $174,494 after 30 years. The raw growth in the final decade ($107,219) exceeds the total balance after 20 years. The force is not constant — it accelerates. Early investors are not just ahead; they are structurally advantaged in a way that later savers cannot catch up to without dramatically higher contribution rates.

Collins makes this vivid by computing what a 25-year-old who invests $5,000 annually accumulates versus a 35-year-old who starts with the same contribution. The 10-year head start produces a retirement balance roughly twice as large, despite identical contribution amounts per year. The extra decade of compounding is worth more than 10 years of contributions.

The strategic implication Collins emphasizes: time in market is the primary variable under an investor's control. Getting into a low-cost index fund early and leaving it alone produces more wealth than sophisticated stock-picking started later. The advice is simple, but the compound-interest math underneath it is genuinely powerful — and most people dramatically underestimate exponential growth intuitively.