Some questioned how the guy couldn't live on 500-600k. There is some foundation for this. People do tend to spend up to their means. It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking you "need" that $5m house, $150k/year in private schools, save up $1m/child to pay for 4+ years at an Ivy League school and so on when hardly any of that is true and trying to make it true is really what's making you miserable.
Fact is, if you'd be much happier in your job this will reflect on your family life and your children's lives much more than being able to go to Yale with no debt ever will.
The second thing is though, depending your career, you have to realize that you won't be earning $1m+ a year for 30-40 years. This isn't even necessarily about early retirement either. Think of pro athletes. Your earning window may be very small. You may also have to factor in luck. If you're a corporate lawyer, for example, you may not make it to partner or your firm may go under and that was really your one shot.
So having worked for now two big tech companies, I see these kinds of complaints about not being happy or not being paid enough or the like primarily from people who live in the Bay Area who have decided they need a 5 bedroom house in Palo Alto and all the aforementioned education expenses.
The fact of the matter is that the Bay Area is (IMHO) a pretty terrible place to live. The way I like to put it is people choice to live in the Bay Area to work for company X. Everywhere else pretty much they're working for company X because they live in city Y. The Bay Area probably has a high number of temporary residents. I've met more than a few people in tech who intend to "move home" in N years (where N is typically <7). To be fair, NYC probably has a fairly high number of temporary residents too (although my guess is less than the Bay Area).
Lastly, this article was written about MBAs. Honestly, if corporate politics isn't your thing it seems like they've picked the wrong career track. Or they've done it for the money and don't really enjoy it and that's a pretty stupid reason to do anything. I know some of my worst decisions have been made "because money".
Some questioned how the guy couldn't live on 500-600k. There is some foundation for this. People do tend to spend up to their means. It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking you "need" that $5m house, $150k/year in private schools, save up $1m/child to pay for 4+ years at an Ivy League school and so on when hardly any of that is true and trying to make it true is really what's making you miserable.
Fact is, if you'd be much happier in your job this will reflect on your family life and your children's lives much more than being able to go to Yale with no debt ever will.
The second thing is though, depending your career, you have to realize that you won't be earning $1m+ a year for 30-40 years. This isn't even necessarily about early retirement either. Think of pro athletes. Your earning window may be very small. You may also have to factor in luck. If you're a corporate lawyer, for example, you may not make it to partner or your firm may go under and that was really your one shot.
So having worked for now two big tech companies, I see these kinds of complaints about not being happy or not being paid enough or the like primarily from people who live in the Bay Area who have decided they need a 5 bedroom house in Palo Alto and all the aforementioned education expenses.
The fact of the matter is that the Bay Area is (IMHO) a pretty terrible place to live. The way I like to put it is people choice to live in the Bay Area to work for company X. Everywhere else pretty much they're working for company X because they live in city Y. The Bay Area probably has a high number of temporary residents. I've met more than a few people in tech who intend to "move home" in N years (where N is typically <7). To be fair, NYC probably has a fairly high number of temporary residents too (although my guess is less than the Bay Area).
Lastly, this article was written about MBAs. Honestly, if corporate politics isn't your thing it seems like they've picked the wrong career track. Or they've done it for the money and don't really enjoy it and that's a pretty stupid reason to do anything. I know some of my worst decisions have been made "because money".