The best advice that I can give you is that running away from something is not running towards something. You need to find something you can run towards. Do yo

The best advice that I can give you is that running away from something is not running towards something. You need to find something you can run towards. Do you like what you do and not who you have to work with? Perhaps you want a job in your field that's "good enough" where you take a pay cut for better quality of life (defense, govt contracting, big banking, life sciences, non tech companies that still have hard software problems). Do you like building but you want to call the shots on something you want to build for a decade? Perhaps entrepreneurship is for you. But, it's tough -- having made the transition, you trade off one set of people problems (and lack of agency) for another. Net-net it's more stressful and while the highs are higher, the lows are much lower. Do you want a completely different field entirely? I've seen folks purchase blue collar flavored "lifestyle businesses" (self-storage, landscaping, etc) and scratch the entrepreneurship itch "in the small". I've seen folks shift to building physical things (taking up welding or woodworking), but you run into the physical constraints of your body which can present challenges. But, this is probably the hardest path for me to answer or advise towards, in part because it requires you abandoning or at least closing the chapter you've build your career experience inside of. Best of luck. I'd start with the first question; it sounds like you've worked at companies with "ambitious" technologists and found a common thread of misdirected ambition. That doesn't necessarily mean that you can't find a happy home inside technology. Technology is a big world.