True that.
I have one friend who went to a FAANG in the early days (he was their HR lawyer who they asked to come in house as GC, and gave up a partnership at a name firm to do so). Made over $100M after 4 years of misery (probably a multiple of that now) and retired at 40. But also got divorced, his health sufferedā¦ and he certainly didnāt work less than 80-100 hours a week.
This feels like a smart path. The key thing is to pick the right place. Youāll never get the range of exposure that was available in the early days if you go to FAANG companies nowadays (in my experience it was bogged down 8-10 years ago, and I hear much worse now). You need the equivalent of Google in 2001 or Facebook in 2007. Hopefully a big shakeout will make it easier to identify the best options in a year or two, because thereās a lot of nonsense if not outright fraud out there at the moment. In the meantime consulting/VC/PE might be one way for a new grad to survey the field.
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Operational skillsets are different than advice giving or deal making skillsets. Transferring from IB to Tech or consulting to Tech may still happen, but is not that easy.
Iāve met lots of ex-PE and consulting people in FAANG firms. The key thing is to be the first one that the next Netflix hires (like my lawyer friend) not the 500th one that the current Facebook hires. Thatās also the hard part: he had a hard enough time deciding to give up a secure job when to most external observers it was obvious that this was a high percentage bet.
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I would also add the IB groups specializing in tech to this list. That is one advantage they all haveāvery good visibility across multiple companies in an industry, and some skills to be able to tell good ones from bad ones.
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Yes exactly. I could tell my friend that his offer was a near to a sure thing as he would ever see, and it would be crazy to turn it down (even so he negotiated up his cash comp and gave up some shares to do so - then the shares later increased in value by 1000x).
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We have a couple of friends like that. One in particular would go to smallish companies and always ended up CEO. Had some crazy soft skills that screamed leadership. My spouse worked for him and the guy became a mentor and he learned a lot. That CEO guy ended up rich and divorced. It was very sad as he loved his wife and kids. He has a beautiful view, a second wife and a lot of regrets.
The FAANGS in the early days of course are great. Another path is to go a large firm growing exponentially that gets taken over. Not going to be 100X, but can be enough to do what you want. Of course, you canāt be sure a company will be bought but at the higher levels they might tell you. My spouseās current company just got purchased. They told him before he was hired that it was an acquisition target so he set up his compensation on that basis. It got purchased sooner then he would have liked. But heās experienced so he knew what to expect.
Takes a tough person to keep up the workload and keep rising to the top. You get older and just donāt want to work as many hours. Or, you canāt for health reasons, family reasons, whatever. IMO, money is great as long as you can pay all your bills. After that itās family, friends and fun. In that order.
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Yes, very sad. For younger folks who come across this thread, Iād suggest they also read Clayton Christensenās āHow will you measure your life?ā and reflect every so often on the 3 questions he posed to his HBS students:
First, how can I be sure that Iāll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure Iāll stay out of jail?
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Thanks for the link.
Iād add to that, if I have kids how can I make sure that I spend time with them and make them good people who reflect our values and love?
Weāve made work choices to reflect what we wanted in our family. Could have made a lot more $ but the trade offs werenāt worth it to us. Now that kids are nearly grown, weāre happy with the results. For us, family was priority #1. Job choices were often made with that in mind.
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Cautionā¦.