I'm glad he's taken decisive steps to increase his life satisfaction. I was a serial startup entrepreneur who kept trying, wouldn't give up and eventually got g

I'm glad he's taken decisive steps to increase his life satisfaction. I was a serial startup entrepreneur who kept trying, wouldn't give up and eventually got good at it and then was profitably acquired into a big public tech company. Initially, I didn't especially like it and I also pretty much sucked at "doing BigCo" well. Fortunately, my acquirer was one of the better examples of the BigCo breed. Generally, well-run, ethical and at least trying to do the right thing. Despite this, I found the patterns that had worked for me as a tech startup founder, didn't work nearly as well in the context of a tech BigCo. I say "context" because the actual activities my job entailed were remarkably similar but the 'system' was quite different. I decided it wasn't really working and that they were probably going to figure out that my way of thinking wasn't a good fit for their context and we'd part ways on good terms. Instead of just waiting around for this, I decided I would try to use my remaining time and 'rope' to try to learn as much as I could about why my previously successful patterns didn't work in this context. So, I essentially stopped trying to do what I was 'supposed' to do and instead looked at the organization's objectives behind my tasking - and try to actually help deliver what they really wanted. Technically, this could be considered insubordination but I tried to be as subtle about it as I could while still being effective. I figured I might get myself fired faster but instead, I was actually partially successful in getting "good things" happening. So, I doubled down on this approach and escalated. I got reprimanded by my direct manager (a very senior exec) for not following specific orders but no one was too upset because it was clear I was trying to act in the best interests of the company. Those of you with relevant experience can probably guess what happened next. I got promoted because leadership decided I was just "difficult but getting stuff done". This led to nearly a decade of my constantly escalating my efforts to "do the right thing", even if it wasn't exactly in the order or approach I was instructed to take. I managed to continuing to deliver enough success (along with some failures in-between) to not get sacked. Eventually, I escalated my "do the right thing" so far, we did end up parting ways but it was mutual and they were very nice about it (by this time I'd pretty much told everyone around me what my approach was). I'm happy I stayed and did it this way. In the end, I worked my ass off, delivered good value for the company, made really good money and when we parted ways both the leadership and I felt the net of my service at the company had been a success. In short, I think the OP could have possibly stayed around to figure out the "meta" game of that BigCo. Maybe a good mentor would have helped. Alternatively, maybe it was just a lousy company or a 'broken' group within the company.