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I did basically this except that I already had ~4 years of work experience (all in startups) when joining Google, I "retired" at 33, and then un-retired at 39 t

I did basically this except that I already had ~4 years of work experience (all in startups) when joining Google, I "retired" at 33, and then un-retired at 39 to have kids and buy a house in the Bay Area. I wouldn't recommend doing it now, simply because "past performance does not equal future results". Joining Google in 2009 was an awesome move; the stock has roughly 15x'd since then. Joining Google in 2023 will probably not result in the same performance. Tech companies have this pattern of growing and growing and growing and then...dying. Just ask anyone that worked at Silicon Graphics in the 80s, Apple or Sun Microsystems in the 90s, or Yahoo in the 2000s. It's unlikely that Google will have the same growth or compensation in the 2020s that it did in the 2000s and 2010s.

fragmede 3y ago
It's funny you would bring up Apple. Accounting for stock splits, it was at $0.37 in 1995 and now it's at $184! I think the lesson is, if you can, work at Apple instead of Google. Also have a time machine and buy AAPL in 1990. Or NVDA a couple months ago.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  Except nobody in their right mind wanted to work for Apple in 1995 - it was a broken, dysfunctional company hemorrhaging a couple billion dollars a year because nobody was excited about their products. And if you had gone to work for them, you would've watched your stock grant go from $0.37 in 1995 to $0.13 in 1997. I was a die-hard Mac fan - first computer was a Mac LC - through the early 90s, and even I gave up on them when they took the MSFT investment in 1997 because I felt like they'd sold out to the evil empire. Working for Apple in 1995 was sorta like working for Twitter in 2022. (Hmmm...)
  - fragmede 3y ago
    I mean, I certainly didn't want to work for Apple in 1995. And Google didn't exist until 1999, so there's that. Back in 1995 there was Sun, Oracle, HP, and IBM, among others. Working at OpenAI would be cool now, but three years ago? It's hard not knowing the future. AMD would be a cool place to work if they turned things around, but you don't get the same upside if you join after they've managed to turn things around.
    - nostrademons 3y ago
      There's usually an information gradient between when employees & early adopters realize a company is turning around and when Wall Street realizes they're turning around. It'll be subtle signs like: the company's hiring again, and hiring back people who aren't idiots. Prominent ex-employees who left go back to work there. The products don't suck anymore, and you actually get excited when they announce something. The product strategy starts to make sense again, and isn't an unfocused mess. Microsoft under Nadella is a good example. Nvidia or OpenAI I'd argue might be an anti-example: most of the excitement for their stock seems to be because of the hype around AI, and they're already incredibly richly valued, while a true sleeper hit usually has much more subtle signs. (When I went to work for Google in 2009, my previous boss told me "Didn't you miss the boat already on that one?")
gigatexal 3y ago
The stock thing shouldn't matter right as long as the stock doesn't fall a bunch. If it stays stagnant like MSFT did for some 10 years that'd be fine because in this scenario you're vesting your shares every quarter not speculating on them growing in value over time since you can't predict how the company's stock will do any better than you can any other stock (otherwise you'd be the richest person in the world being able to reliably know when companies were going to fare well or not and where their stock prices would go).

fragmede 3y ago

It's funny you would bring up Apple. Accounting for stock splits, it was at $0.37 in 1995 and now it's at $184! I think the lesson is, if you can, work at Apple instead of Google. Also have a time machine and buy AAPL in 1990. Or NVDA a couple months ago.

nostrademons 3y ago
Except nobody in their right mind wanted to work for Apple in 1995 - it was a broken, dysfunctional company hemorrhaging a couple billion dollars a year because nobody was excited about their products. And if you had gone to work for them, you would've watched your stock grant go from $0.37 in 1995 to $0.13 in 1997. I was a die-hard Mac fan - first computer was a Mac LC - through the early 90s, and even I gave up on them when they took the MSFT investment in 1997 because I felt like they'd sold out to the evil empire. Working for Apple in 1995 was sorta like working for Twitter in 2022. (Hmmm...)
- fragmede 3y ago
  I mean, I certainly didn't want to work for Apple in 1995. And Google didn't exist until 1999, so there's that. Back in 1995 there was Sun, Oracle, HP, and IBM, among others. Working at OpenAI would be cool now, but three years ago? It's hard not knowing the future. AMD would be a cool place to work if they turned things around, but you don't get the same upside if you join after they've managed to turn things around.
  - nostrademons 3y ago
    There's usually an information gradient between when employees & early adopters realize a company is turning around and when Wall Street realizes they're turning around. It'll be subtle signs like: the company's hiring again, and hiring back people who aren't idiots. Prominent ex-employees who left go back to work there. The products don't suck anymore, and you actually get excited when they announce something. The product strategy starts to make sense again, and isn't an unfocused mess. Microsoft under Nadella is a good example. Nvidia or OpenAI I'd argue might be an anti-example: most of the excitement for their stock seems to be because of the hype around AI, and they're already incredibly richly valued, while a true sleeper hit usually has much more subtle signs. (When I went to work for Google in 2009, my previous boss told me "Didn't you miss the boat already on that one?")

gigatexal 3y ago

The stock thing shouldn't matter right as long as the stock doesn't fall a bunch. If it stays stagnant like MSFT did for some 10 years that'd be fine because in this scenario you're vesting your shares every quarter not speculating on them growing in value over time since you can't predict how the company's stock will do any better than you can any other stock (otherwise you'd be the richest person in the world being able to reliably know when companies were going to fare well or not and where their stock prices would go).