I'm extremely glad that I never pursued a career as a software developer. I hate the word "career", and I've never wanted one. When I was about 14 years old, I decided that I needed to avoid a career at all costs. Eventually I understood that entrepreneurship and ownership in a company was the only way I would ever achieve financial freedom. I wanted to (and I still want to) do whatever I want, go wherever I want, whenever I want.

> You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity - a piece of a business - to gain your financial freedom. [1]

(Naval's recent interview with Tim Ferriss was really interesting [2].)

I also gave myself a deadline of 10 years. I decided that I would join startups and try to work on my own projects and app ideas. If I ended up with nothing after all this, I would join the workforce and put away my ambitions. I would still try to achieve financial independence the normal way, and perhaps try to retire at 55 instead of 65.

Against all odds, I've been able to achieve my goal. I was one of the first employees at a startup that has become a unicorn. The IPO will give me a life-changing amount of money (> $3 million.) While waiting for the IPO, I also founded multiple failed startups and side-projects. I eventually managed to build a modestly successful bootstrapped company. I just reached the point where the income from my startup ($120k) is higher than my initial salary at this unicorn company in San Francisco ($115k). Growth is good and I will probably sell the company for $2 million within the next few years.

That's my story. If I could go back in time and tell my teenage self something, I would say: shut up, you are completely wrong.

I grew up in a country with limited career opportunities for software developers (aka anywhere outside of Silicon Valley.) I had absolutely zero idea that a software developer could earn total compensation of $300k, $500k, $750k, or even $1M per year.

If I had known that a career at a FAANG company could pay so much money, I would have told myself to stop wasting time on side projects and work as hard as I can to get my foot in the door at one of these companies, and work my way up to these extremely high salaries. Then I would retire after 8-10 years of extremely high earnings, and I would be much further ahead than I am now.

I am an extremely talented programmer. I have been doing it since I was 5 years old. I've never had a job at a FAANG company, but I think I could probably get one.

The stress from startups has wreaked havoc on my mental health. The freedom of freelancing and then owning my own source of passive income has ruined me for regular employment. I will never go back to being an employee.

If I could do it all over again, I would pour all of my energy into preparing for the Google Technical Interview, then work my way up to a L7 or L8 software engineering position. Part of me wants to do it now, just to see if I could do it.

I'm very happy with how everything turned out, but I walked along the edge of a knife, and I was a dumb teenager who didn't know anything. Now I'm a dumb adult who still doesn't know very much.

Also I guess everyone already knows that FAANG compensation can extremely high. I only learned about this a couple of years ago, and I struggled to believe it for a long time. I just didn't know that $750k in compensation was even possible. The people who earn this much money just work pretty normal hours, and they don't deal with a ton of stress.

I'm sure there is a top 0.01% programmer who is reading this while earning $80k in the mid-west, or €70k in Germany. If you want to make a lot of money and retire quickly, you should consider applying for a job at a FAANG company in the US. Instead of working on your next SaaS idea, it would be better to spend 6 months practicing data structures and algorithms and getting ready for your interview.

[1] https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103670400417792

[2] https://tim.blog/naval-ravikant-on-the-tim-ferriss-show-tran...