For me, it helps to remember that just by virtue of making six figures working in tech, I’m easily one of the richest 1% of humans who have ever lived (probably more like 0.01%), and practice gratitude for that. Who cares if a handful of people out there have it “better”? My life is awesome, and I’m happy for them.
Nonetheless it feels within reach. Unlike being the child of a billionaire. Hence the disconnect.
To the grandparent poster: if you actually have the goal of passing that faang interview, just keep trying. Taking multiple tries to succeed doesn't make you a subpar engineer. I worked for one of those FAANGs for a while, but there was another one i wanted to work at, and I kept coming short every single time during onsites for that one specifically. Like, it would always be good enough to go to the hiring committee, but it would inevitably end up with "you were so borderline, only if that one interviewer out of 5 gave you a slightly higher score, you would have been hired." Turns out, 4th time was the charm, and I got hired. And now, I am not noticing being "subpar" to any other engineers i work with who got in on the first try, my perf review was quite good, and I like the job I do, so trying all that time ended up being worth for me. So if you have that as your goal, don't get discouraged by failing, just give it another try later.
That's a matter of luck rather than timing, although being in a VC-hub really helps.