I'm not sure where this trope of people working 80 hours a week at FAANG companies comes from. In Silicon Valley it's well known that people at FAANGs are mostl

I'm not sure where this trope of people working 80 hours a week at FAANG companies comes from. In Silicon Valley it's well known that people at FAANGs are mostly just chilling compared to people at startups or unicorns while collecting a fairly good salary. Sure, there are teams where people work much harder, but there are also many teams just working on some slow-moving project where everyone clocks in at 10 and leaves at 4. Plus, at all of these companies there is a "terminal level" where you can stop worrying about career growth (eg. L4 for Google, E5 at FB) and no one will stop you. It isn't necessarily fulfilling and you will never become truly wealthy, but if you just want to make $300-500k/year for 35 hours a week it's possible and quite common.