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Quitting a high-status job at Microsoft for freedom
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- davisr 2y ago"I bought my freedom and you should be happy for me! If you are lucky, and spend your precious youth working for the corporate machine, and just ignore your inner light and the ensuing depression caused by the cognitive dissonance until you one day snap and fold, it could one day be you!"
- teaearlgraycold 2y agolol exactly. I had to quit big tech after a little over a year. But for me I actually enjoy my profession. Finding a smaller company where I can learn every day while working chill hours is pretty close to ideal.
- tonymet 2y agoWord to the audience here, many of whom are in a similar position. Please just keep quiet about it. Not because that's the decent thing to do while other people are struggling, there's a technical reason I'll explain. The Fed's inflation target is to stimulate "job growth". That is a euphemism for debasing money (via money supply expansion , aka QE & other tactics) so that people have to work harder. What it also means is that people who may be comfortable managing life & responsibilities with partial work or early retirement are forced back into the workplace. Sure it's great you have 7 figures of assets and are outside of the crashing wave. But the entire workforce & those at 1-1.5 Σ are running on a treadmill that's increasing in velocity. the more you brag about having the money to retire, the more signals you send to the Fed and policy makers to keep cranking up the money supply treadmill to keep the pressure on working people.
- yunohn 2y ago> the more you brag about having the money to retire I’d like to believe that policies are (atleast partially) based on data, and not braggadocious tweets/blogs.
- tonymet 2y agoget into politics. the decisions are made via handshakes and sold using data
- wbl 2y agoDo you think tight money leads to people retiring early? I assure you, having been alive in 2008, it does not.
- tonymet 2y agoinverse vs converse
- testfoobar 2y agoYour advice is useful in a social context - friends and colleagues are all in different life circumstances. The Fed and other central banks can see aggregate asset values, productivity, and spending in the economy. Lots of money is being spent by the wealthy. 2024-Apr: "Airline executives predict a record summer and even more demand for first class" - https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/17/airline-execs-predict-record-summer-even-more-demand-for-first-class.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/17/airline-execs-predict-record...
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThe Fed stopped doing QE in June 2022 and has done $1.5 trillion worth of quantitative tightening since then.
- tonymet 2y agoand?
- rufus_foreman 2y agoHere's what their quantitative tightening looks like: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL# https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL#. They have a ways to go. And they just announced they would be slowing the pace of the quantitative tightening. What are the odds they get back to the pre-great recession trend line before the next crisis that demands quantitative easing? (Hint: the odds are zero).
- marcosdumay 2y agoIt's way more intense than what I expected to see. This is at the level where economies fail. Keeping inflation under control usually means turning it into a horizontal line.
- thr0waway001 2y ago> the more you brag about having the money to retire, .... I think every rapper out there didn't get the memo.
- tonymet 2y agoI don't knock rappers , that's how they sell their product
- comte7092 2y agoIf you think the Fed is trolling HN/Twitter to figure out how to set monetary policy for the entire country/realistically the whole world, you are living in la la land. The fed hasn’t done QE for years. I’ve seen literally any policy move they make characterized as some sort of conspiracy by the gold bugs on here. They are tightening the money supply right now and have been for some time.
- tonymet 2y agohave you seen the money supply graph. and predictions for the next year?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- willcipriano 2y ago> keep the pressure on working people. The Boomers have sacrificed so much for us the least we could do is orient the entire economy around them for a few short decades they have left. Imagine if they had to sell their houses to pay for needed labor (higher wages) in old age and some young family (yuck) moved in? Better they reverse mortgage it so Blackrock can rent it out to that family after they die.
- tonymet 2y agodaily viagra is expensive have some sympathy.
- sabas123 2y ago> the more you brag about having the money to retire, the more signals you send to the Fed and policy makers to keep cranking up the money supply treadmill to keep the pressure on working people. I hope federal banks are smart enough to not base monetary policy of anecdotes
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y agoFederal banks don't make decisions, people who work at federal banks do. And people often do make decisions based on anecdotes. Especially if they already support an idea that were already in favor of. So, yeah.
- sevagh 2y agoLike Jerome Powell reads anonymous developer blogs to influence monetary policy? Come on, bruh?
- csomar 2y ago> the more you brag about having the money to retire, the more signals you send to the Fed and policy makers to keep cranking up the money supply treadmill to keep the pressure on working people. If the FED used these articles for its policy, I really don't see a way out of this.
- singleshot_ 2y agoTechnically, they’ll be using an LLM trained on these articles.
- tonymet 2y agoWarren Buffet famously used private underwear sales indicators as an economic bellwether . Billions of dollars moved because people were or were not buying underwear. Economists are extremely sensitive to consumer behavior. The abstract indicators like CPI, WFPR, M2/M3 etc are trailing indicators not leading indicators for them.
- GoodJokes 2y ago[dead]
- chrismcb 2y agoI'm pretty sure the Feds aren't going to ratchet up the heat just because a handful of people are retiring.
- tonymet 2y agoworkforce participation among meaningful segments is nearly 5% below the peak. "retirement" isn't just boomers taking vacations. Lack of participation is due to part time work, and borderline "disability", and a dozen other qualitative factors that are influenced by price pressure (taxes & cost of living) I live in an older community where people are forced back to work due to skyrocketing property taxes & cost of living increases. That is a deliberate measure
- lifestyleguru 2y agoCrack your teeth on the skateboard, Bridget.
- switchbak 2y agoOof, why the hate? At first it seemed like a bunch of humble bragging, but she really did seem pretty genuine about the challenge it represents on your identity, what others think of you, etc. I appreciated the perspective. Ok, on second though it really is a perspective from a VERY privileged position. While I think she was genuine and all, it's tough to contrast that with the increasing everyday challenges that most people are facing.
- anon291 2y agoAnd it's literally written in a magazine aimed at... other CFOs. I don't understand people's beef with this. Good for her. Not everything is about everybody.
- ericmcer 2y agoCan you be an ex Microsoft CFO and a cool skateboarder? What if she is legitimately good at it? It is tricky to divorce the spirit behind an activity from the activity itself. Also wow you have to seriously lack self-awareness to pose for skateboard pics as the CFO of a gigantic corporation and think it is going to be cool.
- selimthegrim 2y agoNeal Katyal posted Twitter photos of himself walking out of Burning Man with a ridiculous hat on
- dh2022 2y agoQuote from the post: "I understood that I would have to retire at the age of 50 to be able to enjoy the time I had with the people I loved and do the things that brought me joy while I still had the health to be able to experience them fully" In my opinion this is a bad approach. This approach is does not make sense as Warren Buffet put it: "Is like saving up your sex life for your old age". In your 50s you cannot ski as fast as in your 30s; you cannot hunt as well as in your 30s; you cannot water surf / dive underwater as well as in your 30s, etc.... Enjoy life today and every day!
- devilbunny 2y agoOn one level, sure. But I spent my twenties and early thirties in medical school and residency - so even if I had time off to do things (which I often did not), I didn't have the money for them - certainly not skiing or diving, which would require an expensive flight on top of the costs of the activity itself. Hunting I could have done, as I already had guns and knew people who would let me hunt their land, but I don't much enjoy it. Yes, live your life because you don't know what's around the corner. But OTOH it's not insane to decide that you're going to kick it hard at work through your forties and then relax - if you can be reasonably certain it's going to pan out for you.
- user_7832 2y agoTBH that's partly due to the rigors of medical schooling. I suppose it's also expensive if you don't live near a skiing site though which is understandable. But if you're happy with your choice of pursuing this field I think you may find more satisfaction in your work than a CFO at a tech corp.
- dh2022 2y agoreplace skiing with your favorite outdoors activity and the conclusion still stands: you will have more fun in your 30s than in your 50s. I am in my 40s and I was thinking about finally getting a fast car. And I noticed that now I am wearing glasses, my reflexes are slower and my hands tremble a bit. So I did not buy the car. I am thinking that peak physical performance is late 20s / early 30s. That was probably the best time to buy a fast car for me. About the CFO turned skateboarder at 50s: she would have had a lot more fun in her 20s / 30s. If nothing else, you recover faster when younger from the inevitable skateboarding falls / bruises...
- squigglydonut 2y agoI'm not going to read this because here's what it's saying "I had a great job that only some people would dream of having, now I'm leaving to do nothing and have a nice vacation." This is tone-deaf to the life of 99% of the entire world's population. Why does an article need to be written about this?
- sevagh 2y agoLike the saying goes, "this is not an airport, you don't need to announce your departure."
- squigglydonut 2y agoLike the saying goes, "this isn't a comment airport, you don't need to announce your comment on my comment". I will absolutely comment this when I see garbage content. But you're right, maybe I should just let HN burn instead of providing some feedback that maybe we don't just wanna read about how nice it is for rich people.
- sevagh 2y agoI was agreeing with your statement and referring to article author's departure from Microsoft.
- transitivebs 2y agoThe skateboard pics are amazing :) you look so happy
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoIt is possible to realize you only have 1 life, and still need to work to live.
- slightlydisgu 2y agoOh yeah I would also retire from a job as soon as I hit 7 figures. It's not hard. In contrary it's just being either very happy with your live (which again is not hard if you earn a shit ton) or it's being tone-deaf and uncreative. I have plenty of other things I wanna do before work comes up... What a weird article to write tbh.
- ssag2 2y agoThe term "CFO" appears 29 times in that article. You were a CFO not a vegan, you don't have to say it over and over.
- nullindividual 2y agoAlternative title: Wealthy individual gets to retire early while you, the proletariat, get to suffer under the 9-5 thumb, crushed by the system the wealthy created. Enjoy, suckers!
- testfoobar 2y agoNarcissism is easy to spot among a lot of the "elite"...
- anon291 2y agoearly retirement is pretty much entirely about spending. Given this forum's topic, about 100% could retire early if they're happy with their current lifestyle.
- alex_lav 2y agoWhat an out of touch comment
- testfoobar 2y agoAt least in the US, health care costs in old age are unpredictable and nonlinear. Long term care - where in an assisted living facility - or in home nursing can get expensive to the point of depleting savings of even reasonably wealthy people.