Loved this comment. I'm 46 and dislike my job at a mega corp, especially as compared to my previous startup job. There are way too many cooks in the kitchen on every halfway interesting project. But the mega corp job pays too much to leave. Do this for a few more years and I'll reach financial independence. Then I can go back to a startup or ... something else. Part of me wishes for the layoff and severance that more and more of my colleagues are getting. Sorry to be such a downer. Most days are enjoyable and I can tune out the mega corp nonsense.
If you’re only a couple years off financial independence I’d consider quitting that job now and doing something that will make you happy!
You’ll reach your goal either way, but you probably won’t regret it even if it takes a year or two longer - if you’re working on something more fulfilling during that time!
At least reconsider what options you have right now. You probably have more than you realise.
I was 4 years away from the financial number I had in mind while working for a big company. 2023 was a pretty miserable year and I got laid off in 2024.
The severance was nice (4 months of pay) but if you’re a few years from financial independence then that shouldn’t be what’s stopping you.
I wouldn’t have left on my own. And it wasn’t more tolerable I would have preferred to stay for 4 more years. But given what I had control over - it didn’t turn out too bad and I am not looking to return to a big company for the next few years - I’d rather semi-retire for 8.
The most important part of FIRE is avoiding lifestyle inflation, otherwise you're just treading water.
On the other hand I've also seen folks retire early and then return to big tech because they didn't have anything to retire to, i.e. you need to make sure you also have a life.
As someone who is currently in the “one more year” camp the hardest part isn’t knowing if you’ll have enough. I do. The hardest part is change. If you’ve spent your entire life working and saving, suddenly shifting to not working and spending can be a scary thought as weird as that sounds.
I used to think the OMY types were foolish or Chicken Little’s but now I kind of understand.
Just switch to not working and not spending. Find hobbies, or better yet, activities that help out your community or the people around you, that don't require a lot of financial outlay.
Right before my grandfather retired at 55 he studied ceramics and spent the rest of his long life doing pottery. Endless satisfying learning and experimenting with little capital outlay.
I could live cheap if I was homeless. My cost of living is like 35k per year and I rarely go on vacations or do anything. I eat out about once a week. Bills, mortgage, and healthcare are just huge. After the mortgage is paid off the house will still cost half the mortgage in taxes and insurance
The economists are right, luxuries got cheap and necessities got expensive. Maybe I should buy a PlayStation.
>After the mortgage is paid off the house will still cost half the mortgage in taxes and insurance
After the mortgage, the house isn't necessarily cheap though a newish condo may not be as bad depending upon where you live.
But I figure my house is easily $15K or so per year for necessary expenses unless you're incurring major maintenance debt. And, for example, I just had a random spontaneous kitchen fire in the middle of the night and, even with good insurance and quick fire response, I'm sure I'll be spending a bunch of money out of pocket related to that.
I will be 45 this year, just started a new job after being laid off 8 months ago, when I got a VERY good severance package, and I lived life to the max with my family. And I enjoyed every second of it, minus seeing my saving draining, even if everything was planned and I would not have part of those savings if I weren't laid off.
SO ideally I would try to work 10-12 years more and then retire, but not retire in the frugal FIRE way. I like to travel. I like to eat at good restaurant, or buy good groceries and cook them at home. I started playing drums and I will probably buy a better set in the future etc. I want to help my daughters going to university (we live in Europe) or finding their lives and be able to support them economically if needed.
So, as I write this, retiring in 12 years is probably a big utopia but... who knows?
I've known to greater or lesser degrees a few investment banker who largely retired very young. I'm sure their jobs were very stressful but they made bank and got out young and AFAIK never really regretted it.
I don't have 15M, but I know that once I had a decent amount of money in investments I suddenly became more risk averse. The prospect of not having to work forever and/or monitor spending too closely is very alluring. The instability in the world right now is actually a good reminder that in some ways money is a false sense of security though and you've got to seize the day still.
Well, "just another year" can easily become the path of least resistance. And COVID threw something of a wrench into the works. I might have done things differently had I been able to do a bunch of travel a few years earlier. As it was, there wasn't much of an incentive to make the shift.
I've always thought this was an extreme response to managing the fear of death. By postponing retirement with that much in the bank you're saying: who knows, I could live so long I could run out of money - a flattering thought.
If I could talk to those people I would say: like it or not, you're going to die, sooner rather than later. If you're 65 you'll probably die within 30 years: use that as your reference point. It's death that makes your savings excessive, since you'll die before you can use it. You'd be better off accepting this truth and spending some of it now.
When GE did pandemic layoffs I was smiling when I got the HR meeting on my calendar. I was also smiling when I got on the call. People offered me other jobs in the company...no thanks.
It's interesting how many commenters are defending PIPs. To me it shows an inability to think beyond the ways in which many tech co's operate today. There are so many better ways to deal with an employee who is failing to meet expectations, both for the employee and the company. Giving people more feedback, more frequently can help. Giving people flexibility to switch teams or even roles can help. Better interviewing before hiring can help. Better financial and role planning can help, especially at startups. Retraining can help. Letting people go with a decent severance is often better for everyone involved. PIPs are pretty clearly sub-optimal.
None of the things you mention seem to be mutually exclusive with PIPs. Without commenting on PIPs specifically, I can at least say that I work at a company that has PIPs and also practices all of those things.
I work in Tech at Walmart and the funny thing is that of all the places I've worked they do the least in terms of surveying employee satisfaction. If they just asked, I and many of my colleagues would be happy to tell them which people and policies are toxic and which are wonderful. There's broad agreement in the rank and file on much of this. There are some truly awful and some truly wonderful things about the way Walmart manages tech. When I mentioned this to my VP, the response was basically that Walmart top level management didn't want to know some things because they might be compelled to act. Maybe all this "AI" rigamarole is just a way for Walmart top level management to get information without being legally or morally obligated to do anything?
There are a lot of posts claiming that advances in technology over the past decade or two have been leading to "productivity gains". But the economic data simply doesn't support these claims. Productivity growth has stalled in most of the developed world.
I like the way tech companies operate. I like slack. We don't use P2 but it looks interesting. I just don't really believe it'll turbo charge productivity at my company, much less at a more traditional company.
I'm going to avoid saying anything one way or the other about AI because that would be a separate argument.
Thank you for writing this! I often feel the same way.
My relationship with Slack kind of summarizes things neatly. I enjoy using Slack and it is far and away my preferred method of communication with work colleagues and even work friends. At the same time, seeing slack messages or even the number of slack messages waiting for me is anxiety inducing. There is a false sense of urgency. Zoom is worse, on basically all counts. But Slack is a great idea and tool that is somehow awful for my mental health. I don't know what the solution is. I guess unplug and take a walk. No one has ever complained that I don't reply to a Slack message fast enough.
sorry, you lost me at: "Reason 1: You Reward The Right People The Right Amount"
if that were true, i too would say that Performance Reviews matter. i'm 45 and it's literally never been true at any place i've worked.
"Without them, you’re letting managers just make things up." sadly with them you are also letting managers just make things up.
we pay so much attention to the hiring process, but i think Performance Reviews need a shake up. i've consistently seen the wrong people rewarded. you want to talk about people only hiring people who look and act like them? how about people only promoting people who look and act like them?
Seconding you here. This reads like a very shallow analysis of a much complex problem.
There's a good amount of data that suggests that we should indeed can performance reviews. The best approach here would be to start assessing and questioning the assumptions behind the "need" to have them. Like for example how fair (objectively) you think you can be when you're "evaluating" someone and not risking alienating the rest?
there have been a lot of little prizes and awards to collect at some places i've worked. sometimes people had to interview for those awards. and i always wondered how much unnecessary damage we did to the morale of the people who didn't win the awards.
and i'm big on fairness. it's a challenge to make sure Performance Reviews are as fair as possible, especially with larger teams. you think it's obvious who is a good worker and who is a bad worker right up until you have to manage a large team.
I bought a V60, one of the few remaining station wagons for sale in the US. And it is great for those with 1 or 2 kids, but, like the author implies, doesn't really work for those with 3 car seats. The only thing that has grown faster than the size of our cars is the size of our car seats.
I'm a bit lost in this terminology. But coming from the Operations Research perspective that gave Dynamic Programming its name, Dijkstra's Algorithm is very clearly Dynamic Programming. It's Forward Dynamic Programming as opposed to the much more common Backward Dynamic Programming, if that helps any.
What are you talking about? She has no qualifications and her publications are juvenile. Her h-index is 8. She has no background in CS and has a few publication in Foreign Affairs. If she is the leading academic, then AI safety is not a serious academic field. She is in no way comparable to Ilya. This is the worst take I've seen on HN in awhile.
reply