After 3 years a programming job came up from a company that was an early adopter of telecommuting and had (organically) adopted many business concepts since popularized by 37Signals (i.e. better job by eliminating the crap). The company I was at was asphyxiating due to 2008 crash, so I took the leap. Coincidentally I had read 4 Hour Week around that time. I knew it was a potential "step back", but it seemed like a better way to work (I could be a programmer, and strongly influence the direction of the company, and have a much better work-life balance).
Best choice I ever made. I have since changed jobs twice (first company got bought out by a bigger public company, who ruined the fun with bureaucracy), but what I look for now is a company that is structured in a way that front-line technical people (and Support people, and Sales people) can meaningfully influence the success and direction of the company, and the executive management spends most of their time with sleeves rolled up, coding or closing deals, and very little time as overlords. Those companies are out there, more now than before.
Many people who I have worked with in the past are now in executive positions. They often try to persuade me to move into management (so far, unsuccessfully). Some of them make more money than I do (that, fortunately has also changed in the last 10 years). All of them spend their days doing things that I would enjoy less than what I get to do, the things I would have been doing if I'd stayed on the executive track. The pay/asset difference would not make up for the work and life I enjoy now.
YMMV