Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your last sentence sums it all up for me. Having come into Google through acquisition (and product then killed off) maybe biased me, but still. That's how I see it. I worked at Google for 10 years and didn't have more than a few minutes of job satisfaction and jumped from team to team hoping to eventually find a place where I could fit in and maybe get promotion. But I never went for promotion ever. The whole process…
How is 10 years of L4 ($270k now) not retire early money? That's double what the median earner will earn in their entire 40 years of work.
lifestyle creep. living in the bay area, kid or two in private school, driving a tesla... $270k doesn't go that far.