What is "taking a step back" exactly? Leaving a job that you don't like for one that you do like but pays less?
"What do I want out of my one short life? To spend it toiling away unhappy 90% of the time and spend money trying to be happy the remaining 10% or find something I enjoy doing the majority of the time that can also pay some bills?"
A lot of people are asking themselves these questions, and if you're not -- why not?
So, trading your week days for money to do everything you want in the weekends is pretty okay now. Being a company (wo)man is sort of seen as being a class traitor?
Maybe that's just because I work with low income college students, though.
Then a generation of millenials collectively got millions of degrees in liberal arts and humanities, but the degrees didn't have any class-signaling power or economic value the way a college degree in 1970 did, so instead of getting cushy careers they ended up in low-paid, low-status unfulfilling jobs, with debt from a useless degree.
Gen Z saw that happen and took a more practical view towards college, careers, etc.
In addition, it can be non-job motivations. e.g. you take a year off to travel for a bit, or engage in some hobby that you know won't make any income. I wouldn't mind doing some art classes if I ever got to that kind of money to live off of for years.
How does that work?
I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious here. I’ve been in tech for almost twenty years and the only way I could have 7 figures in stocks is if I still lived at home and didn’t contribute anything to the budget. There is a whole world of people working in tech outside of Silicon Valley’s ridiculous compensation. Money is still a concern for the vast majority of us.
No one in my company has equity except the founder. On the off chance we actually get far enough for me to get equity I’ll be lucky to get $100k out of it.
But yes, it was a purposeful use of extremes. Unless you rush to young retirement or are in that SV scene and move out, most people won't have the means to metaphorically move out to the pastures and become a farm hand.
But that is in fact an option for a few in tech. I recall some 20+ year googling choosing to leave and pick up comedy as a career.
I've received an offer from a company that seems to have a lot better alignment... But it pays 10% less. Meanwhile my current salary has not kept up with inflation over the past couple of years.