According to levels.fyi, E5 at Google gets you $385k TC annually. If you save a third of that (which is not easy) for 10 years you get to approximately $1.3 million. Maybe your investments get you above $2 million, but it would really depend on what decade that was. If you had the Great Recession in the middle of that, not so great.
If you think it is easy to save more than a third of your income, remember you’ll have a federal marginal tax rate of 35% or higher, will probably have to work onsite in a HCOL state, and unless you’re lucky enough to live in WA, a high state income tax. Yes you can shield some of your income via 401ks and Roths, but for the former you’re going to get taxed on withdrawal, and for the latter you get penalized if you touch it before you’re 59.5.
Now if you’re dual cogs with no kids, maybe. If you do have kids, you’re not retiring until long after ten years.
This is very easy, actually. You just happen to like fancy things and houses, probably.
> Now if you’re dual cogs with no kids, maybe. If you do have kids, you’re not retiring until long after ten years.
I find it depressing that so many people use kids as an excuse to avoid facing their own problems with money and spending. Look deeper and you can find happiness with a lot less.
Actually I just looked at my last year at a FAANG in California.
I earned about $370 K (including 401K match). $135 K went to taxes (Federal, Social Security, Medicare, State).
If I save absolutely everything left ($235 K) for 10 years that gets me to 2.35 million.
The parent post mentioned saving $2-5 million. To get to $ 2 M I have to live off $35 K a year (I realize I'm ignoring investment activities).
EDIT: additionally to minimize taxation you’re probably doing some of that savings in a 401k. Let’s say $25k * 10 year (I was). But that actually creates a deferred tax obligation. Let’s say the tax rate you pay that at is 20% (very optimistic but by the time you pay it you’ll likely be used to living below the poverty line). That takes you down to $30k a year. Actually even worse the employer match is taxable when you withdraw it, so another deferred tax obligation means that to get to $2M (accounting for future tax obligations) in 10 years you need to live on $25K a year.
That seems challenging in Northern California. Also why would I want to do that? - living at that spending level is likely to affect my long-term health and happiness, so the motivation is not clear to me.
Of course, a bad market makes it longer, but the converse is also true: it's more likely a good market makes it shorter! (historically markets go up more than down, of course)
Add a spouse that also saves and invests, and you can have MORE than $45,000/yr of expenses covered within 7 years of earning at that rate. You can also back off to part time or have one spouse continue working after having kids, and all you need to do is cover SOME (not even all!) of your expenses.
> I want to do that? - living at that spending level is likely to affect my long-term health and happiness
The freedom of not dealing with "the cult of impact" [1] and other such silly things is amazing. Having a huge pile of money allows solid peace of mind in a way most people can't even conceive.
And finding out how much happiness you can get independently of spending money is truly eye-opening. Most people are too scared to even TRY finding fulfillment away from what society tells us is "fun".
> But that actually creates a deferred tax obligation. Let’s say the tax rate you pay that at is 20% (very optimistic
There are also ways to get at this money with almost no taxes paid later IF you are not working--look for "Roth IRA conversion ladder".
Also look into "Mega Backdoor Roth" for more tax sheltering.
> That seems challenging in Northern California
You don't have to retire to California. Just pay minimal costs while you're there. Many places in US are beautiful, have great infrastructure and health care, and don't cost as much.
And investment growth is a LOT; don't ignore it. And after just a few years of not working, unless you have a bad start you can probably live off of much more than the initial safe withdrawal rate.
That's not a broken clock, that's a clock that's set to the wrong time. Unless it remains 10 minutes behind, even when you set it 10 minutes forward, which would be a great prank gift.
As an Eastern European, also on the spectrum, this nature of passive aggressive communication proliferating especially in the Bay Area really grates me. I prefer to resolve conflicts directly; it's more efficient.
I'm not too fussy about efficiency, but one of the things about passive aggression that drives me crazy is the pretence. Passivity makes the communication as though it never happened, except everyone knows that it did. To many autistic people this seems literally insane.
Central Asian is a good balance between Eastern European directness and rudeness, and Asian politeness. It is about as polite as English culture but direct when necessary (perhaps due to long Russian influence).
it might be your preference, but what happens when you can't? e.g. when someone you can't confront directly says or does something that's really not to your liking?
You mean can't as in "directly affects the outcome of the present situation"? Like when I'm at a bureaucrat's office and he's going to hand me the document I need? Or trying to close a deal? Then I just shut up.
Or do you mean can't as in "the person is in a more powerful position in general"? Then I'll tell them directly but in a polite way. In the worst case we won't make business together.
The VW group is weird. From the outside it looks like they must have the most mental internal politics, unlikely that they'd push an initiative like that through all their brands that operate almost as distinct companies
I think I have this right: The Porsche Family owns half of Porsche SE (but 100% of the voting power), which in turn owns the majority of voting shares in VW, which in turn owns the majority of Porsche AG (the car manufacturer). All of which are distinct publicly listed companies. I'm surprised anyone knows who they actually work for.
arithmetic is implemented as bitwise operations so i’m still confused. the lower the precision / smaller range of values you choose to represent means fewer bitwise operations are required.
You have it backwards. The assumption is that there is no privileged reference frame. And that assumption (along with a few others) does imply an invariant speed. That's the whole point here.
Let's assume there exists one or more privileged ref system(s), and deal the two cases one by one.
If there was one privileged reference system, and in our deduction process it's not involved,then the original deduction still holds. therefore the special ref system is an redudunt assumption.
If there were many such ref systems, we would have to carefully get them involved in any possible deduction process, which is impossible.
QED
