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> How can mere continuity be worth millions of dollars? Or did you skip a particularly lucrative opportunity?

If you are at tier 1 non-FAANG like Square, Stripe, yes, it is very lucrative.

Back then I was a junior that got luck with IPO ~2011 and went up to senior fairly quickly.

If I stuck to that company, I could have been staff/senior staff by now. Imagine being staff eng since 2015. That's a lot of millions probably.

I regret a lot. I came back and join tier 1 non-FAANG and still hit a few millions. But I could have had ~10 millions instead of a few millions.

This is a lifetime money that is worth sacrifice a few years of my life. Also, working at these companies are not bad. It's actually great and enjoyable as well. You live like a king (e.g. spending 20k for a 2 weeks vacation is kinda meh.) and still save like 200K-400K a year or something.

For me, this kind of money is just crazy. I made like 10x more than my parents. This was why I took a year break. I thought I was already too wealthy (oh boy I was so wrong).

Deciding to take a year break and traveling at the height of tech is one of the worst decisions I have made.




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