I went from big tech to a team of four at a small org. To work uninhibited and with close to zero speed bumps from management has been life changing for me and my stress levels. We all have each other's backs and there is none of that "West Coast Nice" stuff going on.

I worked manufacturing in my younger days and also spent some time in the Marines, so I feel ya on the cushy tech jobs... But I'd just about rather go back to Iraq before I go back to corporate culture.

Not to mention that with AI, the pleasure is going out of it, at least for me. I enjoy the crafting of code at least as much if not more than the actual results of the code. For almost 20 years, I’ve been declaring myself ready to leave tech behind and buy a chicken farm, but now I’m pretty much there emotionally and financially. I likely won’t actually raise chickens (maybe a couple backyard chickens for eggs), but I’ll be pretty much opting out of economic productivity and just doing things for the pleasure of them instead. Unless, of course, the economy crashes and my retirement savings turn to dust and I end up having to continue being a cog in the machinery of capitalism until I die.

Why a chicken farm? The medium to large scale ones I have seen videos of look like terrible places, for both the chickens and the human workers. I expect they smell even worse.

It’s more a rhetorical thing than a reality. The appeal to me of raising chickens for eggs is not having to slaughter them,¹ but reality is much uglier than that, of course.

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1. Back in the 00s, I would buy our weekly supply of eggs from a woman who sold eggs at the Beverly Hills farmer’s market. She had photo albums of the chickens at the farm. One Sunday morning, I overslept and arrived towards the end of the market. The egg lady had no eggs, but was selling whole chickens out of a cooler. I was relieved to discover that she’d just sold out of eggs and the chickens she was selling as meat weren’t the hens who laid the eggs (although still, chickens were slaughtered to make meat). And yes, I’m the kind of urban hypocrite who is happy to eat meat as long as he doesn’t have to think about how it transformed from an animal into a food.

>The appeal to me of raising chickens for eggs is not having to slaughter them,

Doing that in your backyard with a few chickens sounds great.

>but reality is much uglier than that, of course.

Much uglier at any sort of commercial scale.

> I end up having to continue being a cog in the machinery of capitalism until I die.

Vs what exactly?

Living off savings/investments and not having to do things because they will generate money.

You also don't need the politics and corp bs. I worked as a contractor for tiny little orgs doing good things for ~11 years - basically 2-5 people, almost no BS, good money, tons of time flexibility.

I shifted away to get more predictability and less accounting/biz management stuff. Maybe the party has ended, but I bet there's still some ability to freelance for small orgs? Alternatively working for small yet sustainable companies should be similarly lean.

I find the BS really ramps up with the size of the org. Small orgs obviously have their own problems (and often create problems that don't need to exist), but pick your poison.

I have this idea that AI might actually be a real enabler for small or 1-man teams if you find the right niche. I haven't acted on it yet, but I expect a lot of folks are doing that right now.

15 years in running a tiny micro agency (me and my wife), working with non profits. Still looking ok right now, and I still love it and my clients who are ace. I’m mainly a PM though with hacker-developer tendencies. Hoping my sector hold together for another 10 years. I’m 53 so that’ll do it. We’ve been relatively sensible over the years, good work / life balance and our children (now adult and left home) know who we are. So that’s the main job done :-)

Agreed this is one way to go. But tbh, I'm not sure if I've lost the passion for tech as much as rather spend my time doing other things like be with my kids, travel, ect. Also, take better care of my health and be more active. We'll see if there's a desire to keep the sword sharp but I don't expect that for some time after I retire.

I have had multiple years of good times like those. But eventually it always comes to an end from my experience. Usually because the business is not doing as well eventually.

I think you can get lucky and be in those good environments for longer (looks like you got lucky for 11 years) but by the nature of capitalism and competition those things never really last.

Oh it's definitely sink or swim, and you always have to be setting up the next thing while working on your current thing. It's a big part of why I got out - I'm much happier with a more stable situation. It's all about tradeoffs, how much you can stand the stink of corporate BS vs the downsides above.

And I will admit that the mid 2000's to roughly 2020 was a pretty good time to be in that mode. I haven't freelanced since 2019 so I might just be talking about good times that are gone now - it does seem like a tough world out there right now, but I bet there's still plenty of niches to be found.

Do you have a plan other than “wait for the money to evaporate”?

Not entirely but looking forward to having the time to make one. Die with Zero helped a bit with perspective. At my NW and spend it will likely be much larger when I go.

Wait for the money to evaporate ... more slowly than your remaining lifespan (and dying happy in your own bed for example) is one definition of winning.

exactly! after a certain time, you get to a new normal and you want something new or better in life. nothing wrong with that though.

Why not check out now? Why after this year ? You supposedly have the means to do so now , so why not exit now?

You won’t exit after this year. You’ll keep pushing it out.

Everyone always need twice as much as they have to retire. Most people will also never do it.

Reading the FIRE subreddit I have realized that most people like the fantasy of retiring more than actually retiring. A lot of them wouldn't actually know what to do without the daily societal pressure to grind. Life is tough when you are out of the beaten path and need to figure out how to fill your days apparently.

TBH I think most people's lives are on autopilot and I can't blame them. This is what late stage capitalism has endoctrinated into our culture. I was one of them until some events made me look critically at retirement. After crunching the numbers I could have retired years ago. Sticking it out a bit longer to squash the rest of the concerns my spouse has.

> How do you reconcile the apparent hypocrisy of your wealthiness?

Does this specific category error have a name? I see it so frequently, it's ridiculous. Being genre-savvy/aware of the meta-game doesn't mean one can opt-out, or refuse to play. Recognizing how a game is rigged often allows one to play it better than the average person.

I'm not GP, but my acknowledgement that society is unequal, and that I sometimes benefit from the inequality doesn't mean I have to be dude under the bridge, nor is it immoral since I cannot opt out of humanity. All I can do is minimize my odds of falling into societal cracks, and I make no apologies for that.

For myself I usually call it "(not) playing to win", after David Sirlin's book (see also https://www.sirlin.net/ptw for the free web version). In it, he describes a phenomenon in competitive videogaming where some people try to forbid valid moves in an online game because they are "broken", like throws in fighting games or rush strategies in RTS games. Sirlin argues that because they recognize a powerful tool but refuse to use it, they needlessly handicap themselves. As such, they're not playing to win but playing to feel morally superior and consequently lose to those who do use all the tools the game provides.

In reasonably balanced games, it usually turns out the "overpowered" strategy is not all that overpowered and that they have huge downsides when played against people who know how to counter them. In real life, which has no requirement of being balanced, we can recognize that certain strategies ((explicitly legal and often even encouraged!) consistently work really well. Choosing not to use those strategies doesn't make one morally superior, just bad at playing the game of life.

That said, "minimizing your own odds of falling into societal cracks" often still includes caring for others around you. On a small scale, being rich but alone because everyone around you went bankrupt and/or became estranged to you is not much fun. On a bigger scale it's just good governance to make sure everyone has food, safety and entertainment, just to keep the pitchforks away.

Sweet summer child. Two things can be true at once

> How do you reconcile the apparent hypocrisy of your wealthiness?

I'm not sure this is full on hypocrisy.

In this case this is the game we are forced to play (late stage capitalism). Doesn't mean I need to like the game, but since I'm forced to play I will darn make sure to win as much as I can.

Hate the game, not the players

As you can imagine, it's a planning heavy decision. I came off parental leave earlier this year and prior to that my wife and I talked about me not going back. However, we decided to delay until my next vesting later this year and to see how the midterms play out with this clown car of an administration and the potential impacts on healthcare. Barring anything catastrophic, it's happening this year. Parental leave already gave me a taste of the life I'd rather have.

Same boat, my son was born in October last year and have been back at work since February and I am already completely overwhelmed. Our plan is to wait for the second child and get another paternity leave and then I will fuck off from any corporate/enterprise job and try to do my own thing first and we'll live off menial jobs + the income from the couple of apartments we have on AirBnB.

I am not planning to stay out of tech altogether though, at least long term.

This was also my plan; hang in there for the next kid, wait for the next vest, etc. ultimately daycare is expensive, healthcare is expensive… I’m still stuck 6 years later waiting to quit but something always comes up and there’s always another vest around the corner.

Well obviously. Vesting schedules are explicitly designed the way they are to keep people around. That's their entire purpose.

Retirement is inherently a choice to earn less lifetime money and pour that time into family and other things you like doing. Waiting for the next vesting cliff is inherently a choice to earn more money and spend less time on your family.

Happy journey friend. Enjoy those kiddos

> potential impacts on healthcare

Healthcare is the item that most FIRE folks underestimate. It was actually pretty tenable when the Obamacare subsidies were more fully in effect. Now that those are mostly gone it's a much larger line item in the household budget. I've only got a couple of years until Medicare kicks in so I'm not too concerned - unless they mess that up too - but for folks thinking of FIRE'ing in their 40s & 50s with kids still at home it's probably not advisable now.