
Real Wealth Is Owning Your Time: Why I Walked Away from Half a Million - tuckerp
https://medium.com/@prestontucker2/real-wealth-is-owning-your-time-2a6f115fd756
======
gnicholas
As others have noted, the title is not the best. Only someone with lots of
money would say that time is the "real wealth" (ask a poor unemployed person
if they agree).

Perhaps a more accurate summary of the post would be "real wealth is having
enough wealth that you can make money via passive income and thereby manage
your time". But that's basically saying that real wealth is having tons of
wealth.

~~~
wtracy
I'm going to offer a defense of his definition, then cast it aside and offer a
better definition.

If you're poor, you spend a lot of time doing tasks yourself that other people
would outsource. (Food preparation, home repairs, etc.)

If you are employed, you probably invest a lot of time working relative to the
returns you get. You probably spend a lot of additional time commuting, or
doing other tasks adjacent to your job.

If you are unemployed, you're almost definitely going to spend a lot of time
scrambling for some sort of income.

This is less tangible, but you also spend a lot of time _worrying_. True
poverty means never getting to relax, because any number of small problems
could turn into financial disaster.

Which brings us to the definition I'm going to offer: Wealth is _security_.
It's knowing that you can quit your job at any time, and have enough in the
bank to tide you over until you land another. It's knowing that if your car
breaks down, you can afford to get it repaired, and afford to rent another or
take Uber in the meantime. It means being able to focus on getting emergency
medical care for a loved one without worrying whether you will still be able
to make rent.

~~~
wait_a_minute
I think your definition is better but not quite complete. You could be _able_
to do those things before you have become wealthy. If you have 100k in the
bank, you are starting to be well-off and can afford to do those things, but
you are still one bad accident or one bad year away from having to start all
over again. So what I would add to your definition of wealth is how much of
those things you can afford.

Meaning, being wealthy means being able to cover emergency medical care for
your family with cash and never even noticing that the cash is gone.

~~~
em-bee
or you could be someone who is very confident about the future, (and maybe
trusts in god if you like)

you could also live in a country with universal healthcare and a social
support net, so that, even if you don't have/earn enough, you never have to
worry about food, a place to sleep and your health.

to worry is more of an attitude problem than it is a wealth problem

------
atmosx
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an engineer in possession of a
good fortune, must be in want of blog post hits.

~~~
luckylion
Especially if they worked at Amazon, I believe this is the second or third
person to "walk away from a lot of money at Amazon" for the same reasons and
now needs to tell the world about it.

Maybe there's a I-Left-Amazon-To-Become-An-Influencer-SaaS somewhere that
produces these posts.

~~~
exdsq
That and others from FANG. Before they start YouTube channels and courses on
how you can get a job with them too.

~~~
binaryfour
techlead, joma, Clement, the list goes on and on and on and on...

~~~
exdsq
I genuinely cringe when their content pops up on YouTube. Suggesting anyone
can get a $200k job if you memorise enough algorithms through their courses is
just sad - especially around the state of the industry at the moment.

~~~
binaryfour
tbh, I'm sick of working with leetcode engineers. Typically they're not
actually very good engineers since an actual career in software very seldom
involves those type of skills.

------
curiousgal
> Take big swings and bet on yourself.

Oh please. It's easy to take big swings from the comfort of your $600k house.

Everything is conditional in life. Yes time is important, but only when you
have enough money.

~~~
ghaff
Of course. But many people who have "enough" money nonetheless continue to
take more money from the relatively sure thing even if they don't really like
it and/or don't have enough time to do things they'd really be preferring to
do.

~~~
xwdv
Look man, it’s easy to take risks when you got nothing to lose.

If the bet on himself fails do you think he’s finished? Lol no, he’s got
savings and will just go crawling back to a FAANG.

The guy who is taking real risk is the poor entrepreneur from south side
Chicago betting his entire life savings and going into some debt for one last
startup idea. If he fails he has no future.

------
opportune
Unvested RSUs aren't half a million it's just stock-based compensation. Stupid
clickbait title.

More accurately: "How I walked away from $200k-300k/year to go into Private
Equity"

------
john_moscow
> However, if 95% of businesses fail within their first 5 years, was that the
> best risk/reward tradeoff? What if I could just buy something already
> successful? I started researching buying internet businesses because they
> could be run from any location. I was shocked when I found out they average
> 30% returns every year across the industry.

> I made four investments in 2019 and will double that in 2020.

As a person who has been running an online business for the past 7 years, I
couldn't disagree more. Business is always about doing something better than
your competition. Small business isn't about having more capital, or a better
PR team. It's purely about efficiently aligning your own strengths with the
market demands. Being able to understand the market and its changes, knowing
how to sell to your niche audience, being able to successfully execute many
things at once, since you niche size very much limits what can be hired out.

When you sell a small business to a random "investor", all of this is lost.
Sure, you will still have the market share for a couple of years, but unless
you already know how to run that kind of business, you will lose to the
competitors very quickly. It's like buying a trunk of a tree. You'll get the
lumber, but it won't grow anymore.

There's also a question on why would the founder want to sell a successful
business that gives a 30% return. They could very well remortgage their house,
or scale down and take a part-time job to survive the rough times. If they
didn't, perhaps it's because they understand something about the market the
the buyer doesn't.

~~~
fragmede
Or they took a second mortgage on their house in order to start the business,
have been doing contracting on the side to pay the bills, and are simply burnt
out. Or, they don't own a home to start with. (or worse, it's still underwater
from 2008's GFC!)

Small business isn't about having _more_ capital, but businesses fail because
they don't have _enough_ capital.

It is entirely possible that there is lurking issue in the market that the
seller hopes the buyer is naive of, but it's also possible the seller, as a
human being, and not a perfectly rational economic automaton, has their own
reasons for getting out that means it's a good deal for the buyer.

------
rwalle
I quit reading the post after halfway through it. When I saw the headline, I
thought, "when you have enough money in your hands, you can walk away from
anything", and the article just confirmed that. I don't need any of this
dude's life advice.

------
awillen
Man, lots of critics here. I think this is great and even with the security of
owning a home, it's still a big leap to go your own way.

Where are you finding businesses to buy? I've been considering something
similar and have been keeping an eye on Quiet Light Brokerage, which has some
interesting ones. Also, are you looking at Amazon FBA or doing your own
selling/logistics? How much time are you putting into the businesses? I have
lots of questions about how one does this effectively :)

~~~
tuckerp
That's fine--all of the criticisms were predictable. I never expected this to
be for everyone.

Quiet Light is great--there's a number of other brokers out there too, Empire
Flippers and FEInternational are two other major players. I use those +
sourcing off market deals which are generally the most advantageous to
acquire. Off market takes a ton of time to source until you have a big enough
reputation that people know you and just bring opportunities to you. Those
happen occasionally for me, but still represents a small percentage of the
deals I assess.

Part of my screening criteria is to only acquire businesses with high
automation in place, or high potential to automate.

Shoot me a DM if you want to keep chatting!

~~~
twelve40
Just curious why is this getting downvoted, are those some scammy websites? It
honestly looks like a benign comment to me, maybe I'm missing something.

------
gnicholas
> _I made four investments in 2019 and will double that in 2020. I’m targeting
> replacing my prior income by 2023. I think the rise of micro private equity
> investing is just beginning, and this is the perfect time to take advantage
> of the opportunity.

Take big swings and bet on yourself._

So is he investing in others or betting on himself?

~~~
fierarul
He's betting on himself towards having an investor career.

------
raldi
_> Thursday, September 12th, 2020_

I think you meant 2019. This coming Sept 12 will be a Saturday.

Also it hasn't happened yet.

~~~
Hoasi
> Also it hasn't happened yet.

Or maybe that's the twist.

------
reidjs
Thanks for sharing your story, it reminds me of the 'golden handcuffs'
phenomenon. You wrote about how true wealth comes from relationships with
others. Are you going to try to reconnect with the folks from your past, or
maintaining the relationships you already have? Are you going to try and build
new relationships through entrepreneurship? All of the above?

~~~
tuckerp
A combo of the above. I have several close friends who were also colleagues at
one point and have since left to pursue their own entrepreneurial paths as
well.

------
drcross
This is why I like the Tech Lead on Youtube. He's now retired but he
encapsulated the typical engineer playbook we are all striving for, get highly
educated, get a good job, be happy. From examining his outlook we can see that
there rarely is satisfaction at these high stress jobs, and that there are
other goals in life that are far more wholesome.

~~~
skinnymuch
How come I’ve only heard negative things about tech lead? I always assumed
based on that. Especially from people I’d normally trust. That he’s a
charlatan not being honest.

~~~
drcross
Watch his videos of don't. Make up your own mind.

------
yibg
There have been a few of these articles lately, about leaving a high paying
job to pursue something more risky but more fulfilling. They've all contained
bits about leaving behind hundreds of thousands in RSUs to do so. I wonder
though where the cut off is. If it was a couple of million in RSUs, would
folks still do it?

~~~
ghaff
Depends on circumstances like everything else I assume.

If someone has six figures of low seven figures in the bank and holding out
for a couple years in a not-horrible situation will likely result in a couple
of million, then it probably makes sense to hold on. After all, they could not
unreasonably retire after that.

If they already have FU money (however you define same) and they really hate
their current situation and are maybe older, then, yeah, maybe.

------
Traster
I'm genuinely intrigued about what this article is attempting to achieve? Is
this like brand building? No offence, but it's quite low effort - a graph of
Compensation vs Desire to own my time? Not a completely uninteresting topic,
but then just x=y? It's very vague on what he actually does, but is this brand
building for deal flow for his investments? Maybe there is some alpha in this
small scale investing, but in my experience small businesses aren't just about
who puts the money in - they're almost always full time jobs for the founder,
and that stops when they sell, making the business much less attractive.

------
xedrac
Time is subjectively more important to me than money right now because I have
enough money to meet my needs and not enough free time to explore my
interests. But I'd add that if you don't have your health, you have nothing.

~~~
perl4ever
>if you don't have your health, you have nothing

But everybody loses their health eventually, so that means nobody has
anything. On the other hand, if you can't _have_ anything, then you can't
_lose_ anything.

------
Mulpze15
Again, people spreading false statistics, maybe to serve the "hero/risk taker"
narrative? Yawn.

About 50% of businesses close their door in the first 5 years, not 95%. [1]

When someone makes such a common huge mistake, I am thinking that either they
are not the slightest competent, or that they have an agenda that cannot be
justified with realistic/honest numbers.

[1] BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics:
[https://www.bls.gov/bdm/entrepreneurship/entrepreneurship.ht...](https://www.bls.gov/bdm/entrepreneurship/entrepreneurship.htm)

------
geoffbp
Interesting blog post! not sure I agree with the premise though, you can have
autonomy and good work life balance without working for yourself.

~~~
tuckerp
I agree--in my experience though it was fleeting and not a long term
guarantee.

------
hogFeast
"I was shocked when I found out they average 30% returns every year across the
industry"

Amazing. There are some real gems here but this...I thought I was reading
Reddit. Very nice.

"I made nearly $400k in my final year. I was respected by my peers and
superiors and had a path to Director. I bought a damn $600k house with a movie
theater when I was 26!"

5000 dollar suit...COME ON!!!

~~~
skinnymuch
A great man for sure! Worked hard for everything he did. Keeps his head down
and just works.

------
angarg12
Pretty rich how many of this FIRE fellas are pretty well off to begin with.

And here I am, in my mid 30s, with a mid level programmer job, no career
progression and spending a significant chunk of my income in rent. I would
love to have more free time but hey, I got bills to pay.

~~~
aeyes
They seem to have too much free time on their hand to be brag about it. 99% of
us just keep working quietly.

------
dimitar
Whoa he became a manager straight out of college? How does that happen outside
of a startup?

~~~
titanomachy
Amazon hires very inexperienced managers. This is unusual among top-tier
companies.

~~~
supercollision
OP can maybe comment or correct (btw Congrats on making the jump, OP!) but
given the business/operations language this might be the Ops Manager ladder,
on which there is an entry-level manager position. IMO interesting, and cool
if it works out for everyone.

[https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/899809/amazon-operations-
are...](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/899809/amazon-operations-area-
manager-2020-entry-level)

(trivia, Amazon is listed as having 840k employees, I knew it was high of
course, but wow)

~~~
dimitar
This is very interesting! So by getting the job you get the valuable
experience of managing 50+ people, but the trade-off is that you are expected
to works shifts, stay on your feet for more than 12h, if needed to physical
work, and be willing to relocate.

I understand why they will have a hard time finding experienced managers for
this, but it is also a great opportunity for newly graduated young people who
are serious about getting in to management.

------
gnicholas
I don't understand the chart. Typically the X axis is the independent
variable, and the Y axis is the dependent variable. Is he saying that as his
desire to own his time gets larger, his compensation goes up? Or are the axes
flipped?

------
baxtr
Many are downplaying this and saying that it’s is easy to hold that position
while you’re rich. At the same I agree with the notion that working towards
financial independence is worthwhile. This can be achieved by an austere
lifestyle.

~~~
ghaff
>This can be achieved by an austere lifestyle.

There are also degrees of everything. Some make a good salary and do fairly
well with RSUs/other investments and make lifestyle choices that don't revolve
around maximizing wealth without living "austerely." There's a big space
between never going out for a nice meal or spending money on other
"unnecessary" expenses like foreign travel and buying the most expensive house
you can't afford in a high CoL area and generally spending extravagantly.

------
naveen99
Most financially independent early retirement (FIRE) types don’t preach “micro
private equity”... especially in a time when leveraged people are getting
margin called with Covid. good luck to OP.

------
xwdv
Most people would still argue money is a big part of wealth.

~~~
toast0
Yeah, it's not like he walked from half a million and had nothing. He walked
from having half a million _more_. (In RSUs, subject to vesting, not including
salary).

------
purplezooey
This post reeks a bit of #firstworldproblems.

------
arbol
This is a non-article. Not worth the time.

~~~
binaryfour
click bait for him to get deal flow as an investor. Kinda sad to see it
upvoted on HN and you be downvoted for pointing it out. EDIT: and now we've
gone full blown meta as I'm getting downvoted ha ha...

