I very much would rather get a daily anal probe with a cactus than ever work at BigTech again even knowing the trade off that I now at 51 make the same as 25 year old L5 I mentored when they were an intern and their first year back as an L4 before I left.
If you have FIRE money, getting off the hamster wheel of despair that is tech industry culture is the winning move. Well-played.
Not quite FIRE money. I still need to work for awhile - I just don’t need to chase money. I make “enough” to live comfortably, travel like I want (not first class.), save enough for retirement (max out 401K + catchup contributions + max out HSA + max out Roth).
We did choose to downsize and move to state tax free Florida.
If I have to retire before I’m 65, exit plan is to move to Costa Rica (where we are right now for 6 weeks)