I have never been directly employed at a large Silicon Valley tech company. Is it really that difficult to work on side projects on your nights/weekends while working at these places? To be sure, it would take longer to get your projects finished, but you would also be doing so with the benefit of a steady paycheck and health insurance. If you happen to hit the lottery with your finished project, great - quit your job. But it seems insane to me to just gamble on something with such absurdly long odds, especially if you have a wife.

Also, the sad reality is that only a very lucky few will create games that become popular enough to generate a living wage without somewhat aggressive monetization techniques, such as ads and in-game purchases. This guy seems to really dislike his corporate job, but apparently not enough to monetize his games well. If anyone else wants to follow in his footsteps, you should do some soul searching before you put in your notice and decide if you can live with a near-zero chance of success while sticking to your principles, or if you want to have a much higher chance of success but with the caveat that your users will be seeing ads and buying power bars from you. Life is full of crappy trade-offs.