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Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

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Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#311

Post by mark_l_watson »

sah2ed wrote: post #306
mark_l_watson wrote: post #260

I planned on retiring in 1998 when my wife and I moved from San Diego to the mountains of Central Arizona. I had some ‘getting bored’ issues and had some concern that our savings wouldn’t last forty+ years so I started periodic remote consulting gigs. In the last six years, I increased the amount of work I did, going to Google in Mountain View, doing an on site gig in Singapore, and lastly temporarily moving to Illin…

Oh, you are that Mark Watson that used to hang out on TSS [0] back in its hey days? 0: https://www.theserverside.com/discussions/

I think so. Back then I was the number 1 search hit for “java consultant” and I posted a lot in shameless self promotion:-)

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#312

Post by sriram_malhar »

mertnesvat wrote: post #208
sriram_malhar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I did. At the age of 42! Funny you should ask. I posted about my experience in a recent thread a few weeks back. Search for my user name here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21299546

Yes indeed, I've read with enthusiasm :) Thanks for sharing, I want to congratulate you and your wife because I assume as we get older big changes like quitting job, moving to another country or even moving to another house is getting harder to decide. But I guess hard choices are mostly fruitful in the long run.

Ha, thanks!

Some choices are hard because of uncertainty and fear of the unknonwn. People live through terrible relationships, suffer terrible commutes, work in soul-sucking places etc and are yet unable to quit because the alterntives are less defined.

While I have enough finances to be comfortable (and reduce uncertainty), I don't know of anyone personally who has made the choices I have, even though many are vastly richer than I. They continue to grumble about expenses and commutes and health issues. Middle class people vastly overestimate how much they really need, and peg their lifestyles to that bar, often at the cost of everything dear.

I have a very simple approach. I ask "What's the worst that can happen? Will this affect me next year?". I find that once I quantify it, most fears just melt away. Say my laptop gets stolen and everything in it is irretrievable. No backup, say. What's the worst? It would be a royal pain to get back my life, but by this time next year, I'd be just fine. Moving to a different country to do a PhD? What's the worst? I'll perform badly and get chucked out, and I will return and get another job. Five years from now it would be a fine story to regale my friends with.

Sorry. I'm getting wordier as I grow older!

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#314

Post by sriram_malhar »

lrmunoz wrote: post #218
sriram_malhar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I did. At the age of 42! Funny you should ask. I posted about my experience in a recent thread a few weeks back. Search for my user name here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21299546

Nice story! I'd love to try do exactly the same, did you have to move to Cambridge for your CS PhD? For context, I have a graduate diploma from the Judge business school, but that was a semiresidential program that allowed me to live in my country.

Yes. I moved. I wanted to. There is no substitute to meeting your friends at elevenses (tea at 11 in the morning), pubs etc. Getting the degree is just 10% of the fun.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#315

Post by wopwops »

jakecopp wrote: post #212
wopwops wrote: post #199

I left corporate IT for good back in 2005. Then left the U.S. Moved to a small farm in the middle of nowhere. Never went back. Regrets = 0. Well, there are no Mexican food restaurants here.

Do you still work remote/at all? Sounds like a pretty good life!

It's a great life! I just wish I'd been in a position to do it earlier. (I'm in my late 40s now.) I do a bit of IT, but nothing like before. Very basic. It amounts to desktop support and basic networking. I do other stuff too. I sold solar power systems for a while, for example. We have a solar power system and a Tesla Powerwall 2. That has almost totally eliminated the electricity bill. We produce a lot of our own food and we have no debt, so we don't need much money to survive.

People I know who are still in California tell me I wouldn't believe how bad things have gotten there. But the thing is, it was already "that" bad to me back in the early 2000s. I feel very lucky to have gotten out of there.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#316

Post by sriram_malhar »

brightball wrote: post #241
sriram_malhar wrote: post #53

I quit full-time work in 2001, after being burned out in the dot com boom. I did well for myself financially after the startup I was in got bought. The phrase "well" is of course subjective, considering that no colleague of mine quit. I left a whole lot of money on the table, but never once have I regretted it. I decided that the name of the game is to optimise quality of life. That means, infrequent brutal deadlines…

You’re describing the reason I wanted to transition into developer management for so long - to be in a position to have the conversations that will prevent the type of environments that create burnout. So far, it’s working but it’s not as easy at it should be. I do work for a company where I legitimately care about the mission, the company and it’s impact but I get most of my sense of purpose from taking care of my t…

Your colleagues are lucky to have you.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#317

Post by dmoy »

tempsolution wrote: post #68
dmoy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After a decade in FANG and living a not extravagant lifestyle, you could easily have a couple million socked away. That at least gives you breathing room to do whatever for a few years.

For a few years? What kind of lifestyle do you have that a few millions only last a few years? I really doubt with that math you would have been able to save a few millions in the first place, unless you won a lottery.

A couple million would let you retire and live off of say $60k/yr indefinitely if and only if you magically solved healthcare issues.

If you've say spent $100k/yr and still saved up $2m (still easily doable), then you don't want to retire yet because you're gonna eventually run out of cash. Sure it'll last more than a few years, but it's going to deplete the longer you go.

Also figure your healthcare costs increase drastically without being employed.

Also half of my statement wasn't a financial one, just an assumption that after a few years you might get bored and want to do something for employment anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#318

Post by BrandonWatson »

I'm an ex pretty sr level exec at a few of those FAANG companies (we'll add an M on there to make that true). I transitioned out in 2016 to redesign my path and optimize for my quality of life. It's been the best decision I could have possibly made, though I'm not sure I could have made it earlier since the hindsight afforded by being in my 40s allowed for a far greater understanding of what was important than if I had tried the same thing in my 30s. That's a data set of 1.

I wrote about this transition (9 min read): https://medium.com/@brandonwatson/designing-the-life-you-wan...

I ended up in a very unexpected work situation which I am finding is exposing many interesting opportunities related to the potential for ex-FAANG folks that they may never have considered. If we all agree that software is eating the world, imagine what an unbelievably unfair advantage a FAANG-capable tech leader (or product leader) could have working as a leader inside of traditionally non-tech, smaller companies in industries not yet assaulted by tech workers.

This is the entire premise of why I joined the private equity firm at which I now work. To find people like me and get them plugged into our portfolio companies as leaders and support the hell out of them as the control investor. To innovate with our portfolio to give their employees unfair competitive advantage in their industry.

Chasing unicorns is all fine and good. The growth equity companies we target are already making money and we want them to grow faster. The risk of company failure is much lower when you have profits, and the risk of dilution to the employees goes way down when you aren't constant chasing funding. Many of the companies that we would target for investment would have no idea how to recruit an ex-FAANG, much less fully utilize them. That's my role across our portfolio.

To any FAANG-capable mid and senior leaders who want to learn more, reach out to me. I'm easy to find, eager to talk to you, and have a very heavy belief in the notion that you can design the life you want while working on interesting companies and still achieving the financial outcomes that are commensurate with your potential in FAANG.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#319

Post by pound »

ghaff wrote: post #290
fooker wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>barring misfortune like a health incident. Here is a reminder to everyone that a health incident is only a financial misfortune in the US.

If a health incident makes you unable to work, that's a financial issue in much of the world.

It's not just being unable to work, it's about all savings: "66.5 percent of all bankruptcies were tied to medical issues"

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#320

Post by sriram_malhar »

mertnesvat wrote: post #189
csomar wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had a similar junction in my life and I selected money instead of pursuing family and academic life, now I'm starting to think maybe wasn't a good decision. I'm getting older (38) Wasn't a good decision despite making money or wasn't a good decision because you didn't make enough?

More specifically, I think at the end, money that I got wasn't worth not spent time with family and pursuing different life paths. My friends who were taking it slow has not much of a different life than I do now. More deep in that topic, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi has a good experiment where they research about what life worths living by asking many participants with different incomes. Result was pretty clear that afte…

This book sounds very good. I'll order it.

Have you read the book "Scarcity"? It had a life-altering effect on me. The authors first illustrate the ways in which poor people make terrible economic decisions (spending it all in the first few days of getting a pay check, for example). Then they show how people who are always short of time -- poverty of time -- make similar irrational decisions with their scarce resource, time.

Once you are assured of a certain financial level, one needs to optimise for time.

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