<prompt> Human: Can any long term investment alternative plan beat out semi-maxing out or Maxing-Out 401k at work?Just saw a really negative slide show about the negatives and downsides of 401k.  <response>: Negative slide shows about 401ks tend to come from MLMpyramidreal estate schemers and scammers. Instead of having a secure retirement, theyd rather you took those funds and gave em directly to them.To seriously answer your question, there are not long term investments which will consistently beat maxing out your 401k as it pertains to ensuring youll have a comfortable retirement. There are plenty of speculative instruments such as crypto, house flipping, commodities, forex, and casino gambling which certainly can beat out the boring ole 401k investment, but 90 of the people who go the speculation route will lose everything, and the remaining 10 will win big by taking the money of the 90. 