I’m not disagreeing with his choice, it’s a personal one and he may not want early retirement, but I would find it extremely difficult.
Able to work from home might have significantly sweetened the deal.
It's not possible to fully experience a foreign country/culture in a 1 week vacation.
No idea about surfing, but it's not possible to even get a sense of what skiing has to offer in a couple of weekends a year.
Maybe, for a few people, it's possible to find the motivation and energy to fully immerse yourself in working on your own software after already having put in a full day of work, but they are in a tiny minority.
This is the only life we’ve got. Don’t spend it bored.
The openness to remote work has been huge. I have colleagues in the bay and NYC. We get paid the same but my money goes twice as far.
At the same time, I've always been a frugal person. When at FB, I budgeted like I was making about 1/5 of my actual income since I always saw it as a transitory windfall.
I don't think I've done anything outside the standard box of lowering my expenses and investing anything I've saved.
for me personally it mean getting the opportunity to not be shackled by money.
you can spend the rest of your life working on whatever project/idea you want without it ever needing to be perverted by money in order to sustain yourself.
a lot of problems/services solved by many business would be more effective for both sides if the business didn't have as a goal first generating profit and then solve stated problem second (or further down the list of priorities)
I won’t stop working, but I might work the kind of jobs that would otherwise require sharing a rental or living in sprawl.
In 3-4 more years at big corporates I think I could get my 1BR condo paid off with some passive income to offset property taxes. The HOA fee is basically a “normal” rent and I could pay that out of any job. I’m not sure what’ll happen if I ever need a 2BR though.
And I've found it gets worse once you realize you are financial independent or within spitting distance of the early-retirement. It magnifies the BS and makes it easier to mouth off. It also magnifies the concerns around inflation and stock market returns that could chain you to the 9-5 longer than planned.
Most millennials or younger won't be retiring until they're 70+ if ever on average the way the world is going. I certainly hope I'm as lucky as you and glad to hear you're enjoying it and keeping your mind engaged.
Sustainability is a real thing. You don't have to wait until "FIRE status" or whatever the cool kids want to sell you podcasts about in order to have a life.
I’d have to really hate my job to give that up, especially since he noted it’s easy to rest and vest with a few hours of work per day.
EDIT: forgot the employer match. More like $600k.
(This is not financial or tax advice; listen to me and I will definitely lose all your money and send you to club fed.)
As someone mid career and planning on early retirement, I look at this situation as a choice between working X more years at Facebook being mildly fulfilled or 2*X years elsewhere for only a chance at being happier.
Again that’s my personal view based on my own retirement goals and savings rate. I’m sure he made the right choice for himself.
For those of us not in that situation it's a lot harder, especially if you want to work now so you don't have to work later and can retire asap.
But, I’ve watched colleagues who get and stay miserable because they just need another 15/10/5/3 years. Misery is tough and I’ve seen people really destroy themselves chasing the end goal.
Point is, find your happiness first.