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Actually, Google does give employees time to work on their own ideas. It's just that they own anything that comes out of that time. Arguable this is just as evil, so your point stands. I think the solution may be to think of your job as buying you time. Set a baseline salary that'll let you live a simple life with adequate health & safety. For a single guy, that's about $20K/year (= grad student wages); for a married guy with a couple kids, about $40K. If that seems low, remember that 50% of America lives on that. Then take the difference between your actual salary and your cost of living, and think of it as time. For example, if you graduate with a $60K/year job, set aside 2/3 of your salary as savings, and every hour you work is buying you 2 hours of freedom. When you have enough time saved up to accomplish what you want, quit and "spend" it. For example, I'm currently saving about 2 hours of time for every hour I work. I'm looking to quit after slightly more than 2 years at my job (that'll be another 6 months or so), at which point I'll have 4-5 years saved up. I met an innkeeper in Alaska who followed this strategy. He and his wife decided when they got out of college that they'd live like grad students. They worked in the computer field. After 15 years, they each quit their jobs, bought a sailboat, and sailed around the world with their son, stopping at every port they came into. They finally settled in Seward, Alaska (pop. 3000), bought an old building, and fixed it up as an inn. |
Where's your Buying Your Freedom As a Modern Day Wage Slave essay? ;-)