alt Hacker NewsProblem with this is that this can get you to 1-5 million in net worth (declining fast, someone joining a FANG now certainly won't make it as a single contributor to 5 million, unless they're truly exceptional) (of course 5 million effectively pays you a relatively high level FANG salary just from 4% safe investments ...)
Maybe you can get to 50 million with a reasonable management career.
But let's say you're on this path and you have 3 million or so, at 35/40 years ... then what? Management at all costs? No reasonable job at a FANG will get you to even just double what you have at that point.
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> But let's say you're on this path and you have 3 million or so, at 35/40 years ... then what? Management at all costs? No reasonable job at a FANG will get you to even just double what you have at that point.
If you have $3 million at 35 years old then all you have to do is invest it, keep your expenses manageable, and find a comfortable job that pays the bills for the rest of your career.
If you’re setting your sights on either very high net worths like $50 million or very early retirement targets like $5-10 million in your mid 30s, even high-normal IC career paths like working at FAANG aren’t going to get you there without some extreme luck. You either need to be grinding hard at TC maximized overall career paths or getting very lucky with equity at risky early stage startups.
If you're at 5 million you're already well past wealthy and should probably not be stressing about this.
I think you can make it to 5 million in maybe about 12 years at FAANG. Maybe quicker if you're frugal. More if you raise the ranks quickly.
You don’t need a FAANG salary, that just makes it easier. My net worth is nearing $1M after saving for 8 years, making less than $100,000 a year. If I exclude the ESOP equity I have, it’s still over $500,000 and that’s just maxing out 401K and Roth each year for 8 years with the market return.
When i saw this is immediately wondered if FAANG now is heading to Microsoft territory, once it was a sue fire way to become wealthy, then it was a good strong income, now it's a thing of the past.
See also IBM
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If you have $5 million USD wealth you're in the top 5% of the US (and top 0.5% of the world).
If you cannot have a happy life on that, well...
But I get it--if your goal is to accumulate more wealth (no judgement--that's a legit goal) then it gets harder. When I was at Microsoft, partner-level engineers were making $1 million per year; now it's probably $2 million. Staff-engineer at FAANG is probably similar, I bet, to say nothing of the AI labs. I bet you could reach $25 million after 10 years with the right investment strategy. And $25 million throws off at least $1.25 million per year if you invest right.
Beyond that, you probably do need a startup or some other significant ownership stake.