Microsoft's CFO FIRE journey to retire at 44 | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft's CFO FIRE journey to retire at 44

rydoo.com

18 pointsfmfamaral35 comments

Another story where being friends with a higherup is what got them the job:

>That’s when I began to rethink my choice of becoming an auditor and progressing my career. Shortly after, I was auditing Microsoft and the CFO at the time, who I already knew and had a good relationship with, thought I wasn’t looking like myself. I explained that things weren’t going as well as I had hoped and that I was considering leaving Deloitte. She told me then that Microsoft had a vacancy available that I could apply for, and I ended up being chosen for the job.

Ya. At a certain point it's pretty much how it works. Relationships have been the difference maker in my life at almost every point. Something that does require some intention.

Which, much as some people here don't like it, is extremely common. My current job came directly through an email to the president of a company that was a client. In that case, they actually created the position for me.

“Be interesting to people who can provide you with opportunities,” someone wise here once said (although the link escapes me; will cite if I find it).

That wasn't the CFO job though. They still had to be competent to advance.

I've gotten jobs through people I know, or referrals. I've tried to hire people I know (because I know they can do the job). But I've rarely seen an incompetent person hired because of who they knew. It does happen, but usually it's just hiring known competence and not cronyism.

Being friends with a higher-up didn't get them the job. Being talented and diligent enough that the higher-up is willing to put their reputation on the line by recommending them got them the job.

Great way to put it!

> My daughter sprained her ankle on a playground in the United States, and we had to wait for three hours at the hospital for an X-ray, just to receive a bill for 1300$, and that’s after insurance. In Portugal, the public health system covers this expense. It’s not excellent, but it’s praiseworthy when compared to other countries.

I really wish the USA would switch to this sort of model. That sort of health security would engender a wave of innovation and efficiency.

If you are at low risk of dying, such as a possible broken bone, you should first consider going to an urgent care center https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urgent_care_center . They are more affordable and targeted towards injuries like that. Leave the ER for the gunshots and heart attacks.

An ER could easily triage people into an urgent care wing of the hospital, but hospitals don't have those. Because they don't have any incentive to provide anything resembling cost effective care.

Urgent care centers are everywhere near where I live. That's where you go for minor injuries, ear ache, sore throat etc. 10min wait, ~$200.

Have we seen innovation and efficiency in countries that have implemented these sorts of things?

Probably not as much as one might want on a forum for american business types and their nihilistic thirst for efficiency, but my own anecdata suggests a lot of regular folks are quite content with their socialized health system.

> their nihilistic thirst for efficiency

In practice this mostly means removing resiliency from the system so that it does in fact cost less in the successful steady state but is fragile in the face of any disruption.

This is why it worked so well for management consultants in the 80s and 90s: get the win right away, get paid, then après moi le déluge.

Exactly. And it always only ever benefits those at the top.

I am of the opinion that good business requires leaving money on the table, sometimes lots of it. It is the slack in the system that keeps so many happily employed and maintains resilience in the network itself.

I wish supply chain people and networking people would talk.

Can’t speak for innovation, but on efficiency; in terms of percentage of GDP spend (which is also significantly greater per capita on the US side); the US spends greater than 65% more of GDP than Portugal on healthcare but has among the worst overall outcomes of the ”developed” world.

It is the most expensive healthcare system in the world that provides excellent healthcare for the richest people in the world (perhaps in the top 3 for this category of “customer”), but in terms of efficiency, outcomes, and statistics that matter for the general population, it is barely in the top 30.

Please share anecdotes and not make random dismissive claims as a reply.

Doug Stanhope always relevant on this issue:

https://youtu.be/rn_xdTc_EsI?si=gOxZTNhEtVYQuWDr

It's free, but also very, very expensive.

Is it? The US system consumes a lot more the of the GDP than any other system.

We’re already paying.

*Microsoft Portugal

It doesn't change the article but, yes, there is a difference between the CFO of Microsoft and of Microsoft Portugal.

I imagine comp is ~50x different.

Fair enough. She is looking at a relatively minimalist FIRE. Whereas, if the CFO of Microsoft were to retire tomorrow (she's relatively young at 52), she'd be very comfortable doing almost anything she wanted to do.

(I was mostly referring to her thought process about retiring early. But obviously the financial position of the two people is much different.)

The title is gibberish anyway.

FIRE is unnecessary in the title. FIRE adds nothing and it's confusing to someone who doesn't know what FIRE is.

> In other words, you have to live a minimalist life, without great luxuries, that’s the only way to achieve certain goals. And that’s not to say that other options are wrong, this was just the one I decided on.

As usual, this is classically wrong. She said that it's the only way to achieve certain goals and it certainly isn't. The r/FATfire subreddit is an example of people who almost never compromise on luxuries.

One thing I would mention about the whole FIRE journey is that it needs to be one that both you and your partner are set on. I think a lot of people here on HN (and in the (fat)FIRE world) do get lucky with their spouse and manage to align on that but I find there are far more people out there with FIRE-mentality but not the FIRE-spouse.

I've always lacked the FIRE partner. All the women I've met have explicitly told me that they would like to stop working permanently as soon as we had kids. Obviously, I have no issues with this if they have $10m socked away by the time we have kids but they usually have way less money than I do. Sadly, this has made my journey of having a family way more challenging than I could have ever expected.

The only couples I know who are on a FIRE journey tend to have met in college or maybe one year after college. It is hard to find women like in the article who are career focused like the overwhelming amount of men are.

sounds to me like you value FIRE more than a family?

In almost all the families I know the spouses are home with the kids and either stopped working, don't plan to go back to work, or only plan to go back to work once all kids are older.

In almost all (modern) families I know, both parents work.

That isn't the case for the majority of the families I know in the US, LCOL area, with small children up to middle school. Women generally stays at home for 10 years or more.

I'm not in the US, this helps!

If someone wants to be a partner - they need to contribute.

good luck.

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