Go to http://www.esmartpaycheck.com/FreeCalculator/ Change cycle to annually (2019) and in column cp put in 250k.
the taxes I am talking about are: Federal Income Tax Withheld $61,363.50 State Income Tax Withheld (CA) $22,103.55
That's where you can make a substantial amount of savings by diverting that into a solo 401k and defined benefit plan. You need to pay taxes but you can knock that down quite a bit.
So from 250k down to 150k is your take home... imagine you can structure your business to save a substantial amount of that.
Health insurance ... ehh yea can be expensive but you can use an HSA and high deductible plan... That's why keeping obamacare laws are helpful. As long as you can get bumped off for pre-existing you are ok.
Screw the non cash benefits... Im sure many Sun and IBM employees enjoyed those same perks too. No FAANG company has a 25% match policy, they usually have 3% or some small matching percentage across the board for their 401k safe harbor provision... The same match for all employees.
People are catching on and making these calculations... Sure moving around FAANG companies might seem easy but just because company A pays you X doesn't mean company B will pay X+Z... It may seem like it in the hype but ask any former Sun employee making X why they can't find X+Z.
Options... that's where you might get real lucky. You got me there. That's something I am still learning about... But in your defined benefit plan you can just buy a basket of FAANG stocks.
Take a look at https://watsoncpagroup.com/kb/turbo-charged-401k-plans_302.h...