CNBC: 37-year-old left her $390,000 Google job in Switzerland for an 18-month ‘mini retirement’—and may never return to full-time work

Coffee
41

Why not?

She could like that section of the publication, have had time and thought to herself “why not send something?”

She could have been planning to monetize her travels and could have used the fame.

She could have wanted to communicate her success with people she’s known in Belgium with whom she’s lost touch.

She could genuinely see it as an accomplishment and feel pleasure and fulfillment in sharing it (we’re apparently not impressed - I’m not - but that doesn’t take away that it might feel so on a personal level + we don’t know her origin story).

There are plenty of other reasons she could have wanted to do it.

I see several points of bragging in the article so that colors my view of her potential motivations but I’m sure there are plenty of others that could be likely and of which I haven’t thought.

Edit: she’s apparently selling herself as a career coach on LinkedIn so that could be a marketing operation. @Your_Full_Name You could hire her to help you find the perfect older rich partner of your dreams! :money_bag::heart_eyes::money_bag:

:money_bag::heart_eyes::money_bag:: I’d personally try to target someone in the business of manufacturing power cords used to illustrate AI-GPU circle-network relationships!

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42

I guess she saved around 200k a year for 7 years.

But she has a partner earning 700k. Do you have that? :wink:

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There is a lot of discussion on the salaries. But I am wondering why did they decide to quit? Is it only how the article says or there is more to it?

I often feel that when you make a million dollar then your reference is a million dollar paycheck. It doesn’t really matter how much you need. But then the couple decided to quit.

Could it be that there is a lot of pressure for these employees to remain employed at these levels?

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Probably because the jobs were too stressful, meaningless in the long term and in the grand scheme of things, and unfulfilling. Edit to add some balance and credit to the person of the article: possibly the coaching will be the reverse of all of the above.

My PhD supervisor stayed working until 70 until the university forced him to retire, he had a £65,000 salary and a couple of million in the bank from a startup sale, yet continued coming to the lab every day, and still reads papers, goes to conferences and lectures from time to time. My mother’s gynaecologist continued consulting in difficult cases and lecturing in university well into his 80s, and stopped surgeries at 65. An uncle of my mother’s was a big time importer, yet maintained a tiny shop in the heart of Athens and stayed there working (while owning a multimillion EUR flat next to the parliament, several properties around Europe) well into his 90s because he loved the hustle of trade. These are people who trully enjoy what they do, and none of them needed the money :wink:

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45

She would also have been entitled to RAV during that time

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Lovely video - good for them!

Positive = Mini-retirement, coast-fire, prolonged sabbatical together in early/late-middle age call it what you want, it’s a project in progress anyway, so can’t be totally defined yet. I’m happy for them, and if I was in a similar situation as they were in 2024, I’d be inspired by it (their motive maybe - inspiration and show what’s possible?)

Now the negative, IMHO - Strange thread! A lot of strange comments - The negativity¹ , the wrong assumptions², calling out bragging3, the questioning of the real motivation4, jealousy re high salary, implying she’s registered at RAV5

I actually feel sadness to read such comments on a FIRE Forum. Once again shows not to spread the news of one’s FIRE/FIREplans with too many “friends” nor talk about financial situation with almost nobody!

Sorry, I believe they are finished with their stressful corp job, have enoug money, want to enjoy real life (24/7) together while they can (he is already mid-50, who knows how long he is still fully healthy (hopefully for long, but ja, not a given).

1 making fun of the fact she has an older partner, and he pays 2:1 expenses. Her partner who probably has more than twice her NW (assuming >10y at Google) contributes 2x her amount to the monthly expenses, that’s actually simply a fair deal, considering she’s taking a bigger life-risk than he is.

2 both have gone into min-retirement not full RE.

3 I did not get a bragging impression at all, and if somewhere this can be heard, I’d bet it’s the producer cutting the film so it comes across “more controversial”.

4 They want to spend quality time together while they are “not old” and healthy and fit. That time is now, not in 10y!! What more motivation do you want/need?

5 You don’t just get RAV money while you’re off for >month in Australia and Belgium etc. And you certainly don’t show your face in videos like this, while “pretending to look for a job” via RAV.

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47

They say 6.3k USD, which is like 5k CHF per month.
Still not cheap, but it‘s well in their budget and the apartment seems to give them a lot of joy.
I‘m very happy for her/them to be able to enjoy their mini-retirement, after what must have been stressful years.

48

All true, thanks for calling us out.

Maybe to offer some … hm, explanations they are not …? Why people – even like myself – would comment in a way you perhaps seem to dislike?[1]

  • making such an amount – USD 390k – of (income) money is beyond – almost absurdly beyond – what a “normal” person in .ch finds … er, normal. Simple as that, change my mind.

    Off topic, but related: It feels similar to (Swiss company) CEOs making tens of millions per year. You have every right to disagree with me, but I personally do not believe for a moment anyone is worth paying tens of millions of $ or CHF. A million is already borderline in my book, especially if the cleaning staff in the CEO’s bulding make, I dunno, less than 50k?

    The take-away for the common person is: how can someone with a somewhat fairly mundane skill – a Program Manager after all is not a rocket scientiest, apologies to anyone offended – make such a high comp.
    The anwer is, IMO, there is no explanation. There, I said it.

  • checking out of contributing to society at the age of 37 is maybe something not everyone is comfortable with just accepting as is.
    Of course it’s nice, and I enjoy spending my time on what I enjoy spending my time on (editor: this forum mainly), but maybe, on average, that only works out if everyone works and contributes until a certain age.
    I know, completely opposite to what many are pursuing in this forum, but actually almost fully in line what the general public might think about what is the right age to retire.
    When someone retires at, say, age 56 (hi Goofy!) the public might raise an eyebrow. When someone retires at at 37 … well, I don’t know. Isn’t a 37yr old retiree just a lucky brat who got a huge inheritance or a some windfall or is sheltered by his or her partner’s even larger pile?

Anyway, although these sound like statements, I’d really more pose them as questions.

I’ll still stand by my conclusion that these seem to be very lucky people who seem deliberate on things I do not understand why one would have to deliberate about it.

Call me confused.

To make your response more easy / or difficult: I am a capitalist at heart. Yet I find some aspects in the compensation structure of the public and private sector as well as the mix in between as mind-boggling.

1   Aware that in this schizophrene situation of having myself benefitted from the GOOG while at the same time lashing out at some of the … I was going to write: obscenities, but let me downgrade it to maybe … hm, I don’t know. I don’t really have a good single word describing what I feel. The situation reminds me a bit of the movie Oblivian. Of course there no shithole living-your-life scene down on earth in Switzerland like in the movie, but the difference between those making income of USD 1M and those just getting by is not one that I can embrace, especially in .ch
Where should the line be drawn? I don’t know. But the line drawn by this story is not one I personally feel comfortable with.
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49

I do not have experience of these high-paying google jobs, but for those who have (@Your_Full_Name):

Is salary in these places linearly correlated with stress? Or is it mainly these L levels you mentioned that give more stress hence people try to stay lower L but higher salary?

It must also be related to skill/experience and not just stress, no? Otherwise, why not hire 2 people for 390/2 that share the work, still have a life, and still have a good salary (195).

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I did not make that kind of money until I stopped working. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

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51

It’s really hard to have good work life balance for senior roles (just the fact most stuff happen on California time means you often stay plugged in late in the evening). This is somewhat easier for junior roles who may (but not always) have less cross-continental interactions required.

Also the amount of politics in fairly high (IMO), plus the rolling layoffs, etc. That quickly adds up.

But to answer your question, junior role also have a well above average total comp (check the levels.fyi numbers linked upthread, L3 is usually a new grad).

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52

In my experience in consulting, it’s not necessarily about skill and experience, those play a part but majorly it’s about the liability. Sometimes written in the contracts, ie if you eff up your employer, and in turn you, are liable. How much damage can you do, basically. How many other salaries of your employer and your client can be harmed, even customers.

Simple example, 10 years ago a health economist colleague made a mistake in a cost-effectiveness model which would go on to be used to determine pricing for a novel drug globally. The client picked up the mistake, thankfully, so the damage was contained. People (3) got fired. If that had gone out to the end users, and assuming nobody picked up the error, it would have been used to impact a global pharma’s pricing in a very wrong way. National bodies like the BAG and the NHS would have picked up the mistake. That would need amendments to the dossier - those cost time and money, and patent exclusivity erosion. The submitters (pharma people in Switzerland and the UK and everywhere else really) would be red-faced publicly. Maybe their jobs would be at risk. The pharma would be ridiculed globally and publicly - shareholder damage? Internal damage? Patients not getting a novel drug? This health economist was making sh1tloads of money, a lot rested on their shoulders.

Lawyers - a Greek member of parliament declared 18.5million EUR income for 2024. He defended Novartis in the US. Doctors cutting into people’s heads and chests. Engineers signing off bridges and skyscrapers. It’s all about liability.

To (rarely) disagree with @Your_Full_Name the cleaner, and baker, server, cook etc have an immediately impactful job, but very low liability. Waiter dropped a tray? Ok customer will wait a few more minutes and the restaurant is out of a steak (will come out of the waiter’s wage anyway because the world is sh1t…). Jensen Huang effs up? Trillions, mortgages, pensions down the drain. Musk doesn’t count.

Edit: For balancing again, I’ve mused many times with a friend who’s a corporate lawyer, worked for Credit Suisse checking contracts, multimillion contracts, and dead bored of his ultra high-paying job, that the waiter bringing us souvlakia, and the cook that grilled them, do more meaningful things for the world than either of us does :wink:

That said, I do believe - and have had my posts edited out when saying it - that there’s a concept of too much money, in an ideal world nobody should earn more than say 100mn, and absolutely nobody should inherit this amount.

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53

Thanks for calling this out. I posted this link as an example of someone “from our community” reaching their goal and getting to experiment with a mini retirement. I’m just happy for them.

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54

Actually pretty weird, but in my experience*, at least at L5 level it can actually be pretty chill. Yes, you have the little overlap with California which pushes you to late meetings and you have the dysfunctional management/cross team dynamics. But WLB wise, people don’t demand overtime (i.e. you have late meeting, but you don’t need to be in early either, and as much as possible folks try to focus late meetings on 1/2 days a week), and even today folks are pretty chill about office attendance still. Finally, in most parts of the company deadlines are not super hard, so not a ton of stress on that side either.

So it has its problems, but I’m not entirely convinced you can get a chiller job easily by just jumping down to a company with less comp. Which makes me a bit wondering about what path one could take to coast FIRE.

(Of course the more senior you get the more pressure you have to have meetings with the US, and the more the management issues are going to mess with you)

*: Teams do be different, no guarantee it will be your, or a random employees experience too.

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55

Yeah, I think you can make it work at L5 while staying pretty chill unless you’re working on super visible project.
Tho you need quite a bit of discipline to detach outside of working hours, at least was the case/main issue for me where I often stayed somewhat connected large part of the evening, but that’s also team dependent and senior folks probably have a wider net of interactions.

That said OP (in the article) was probably in a role with more interactions and politics, can definitely be stressful/frustrating.

(anyway it’s probably still some of the most cushy job in Switzerland, most other sector with comparable pay are much higher pressure)

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Decline the corp phone/profile helps a lot. And yeah as PM (as OP was?) it is probably harder.

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With my sample size of N=1 I would say that higher L meant higher stress level.

But, no, as lower L (generally) meant lower total comp, most people would not opt for (still comfortable but lower) total comp, but aiming for higher L and higher total comp (and higher stress level).

You’re asking a totally reasonable question into an environment that would just ask the question of why – I am exaggerating – you would want to hire 2 undermotivated probably underperforming how-do-they-even-explain-themselves fucks into a role that 1 normally motivated (for our company’s base level) dude could fill out easily.

I mean, what are your reasons?

I could personally see many, but none that I could have successfully explained to Google at my time with them.
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CHF 320k … is … a lot.
Way more than I ever made. I won’t be changing your mind :unamused_face: Way way more than “normal people”, yes, but this here is not the comment section of blick.ch or 20min.ch. We have regular posts on the “my salary progression” thread with people giving :+1: :tada: and :heart: to people posting their 250k+ salary update.
I don’t understand why she gets a different response. Maybe you shake your head at those high salary posts and don’t approve. It just feels like we’re picking on this one person (for reasons i don’t understand).

I disagree so much with this “similarity”, exactly those CEO’s can never seem to get enough, always somehow getting themselves more and more (exponentially) and even hanging on/around later as Verwaltungspräsident till they’re 80, just so they can get even more.
Florence on the other hand has realised 1.5M is enough buffer and can walk away and will from now on do something that gives her more purpose (after her sabbatical).
This is my takeaway from the film, not the last salary she had at the job she left almost 2y ago.

She is not checking out, she will do something which gives her more satisfaction, more on a social vein probably, I assume, maybe badly paid, but she can then supplement her salary with dividends.

Not quite getting what you mean, aren’t we deliberating such “things”/topics on this forum all the time? Or do you mean deliberating the topic in such a medium/film?

I definitely think it was a bad idea to agree to appear in this film, it’s going to hit 20min in a few days and will start another shitstorm on expats, childless couples and early retirees. And even maybe them personally for a few days, Thalwil isn’t a village, but still.

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Mmh, yes, but I actually find this “concept” below more mind-boggling of our capitalist system. I see you gave a :+1:t2: :wink:
In fact I’m sure it’d also get lot of disapproval by "normal people*.

But I’m certainly not disapproving @cubanpete_the_swiss 's comment since it is a cornerstone of FIRE, and we live by it.

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Yes. For their sort of income, this flat seems even frugal. I don’t want to sound bitter.

On a separate note, spending $600 on food per month (or $380 on her part) seems ridiculous. It doesn’t add up with that 35-65 split and would be extremely frugal even for people with low income. You can’t buy quality food with that money. Idk, do they live on beans the entire month?

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