[takinola]

My guess is that it is much easier to get rich from working at a tech company and rising through the ranks. Being a FANG middle manager for a couple of years and managing your money well should put you in a very comfortable position. However, if you want to be private island rich, you need to do your own startup.

[ttul]

Certainly in my own circle, people who were fortunate enough to work at FAANG during the right window of time became comfortably rich. Many of my own investors just worked as engineers at Microsoft for the right decade and are worth tens of millions. They worked really hard and sacrificed a lot, but they got paid every step of the way.

Predicting which big tech company will do well enough in future to give you that big stock reward over time is a big gamble, but certainly a smaller gamble than doing a startup.

I know plenty of people who have joined half a dozen startups, none of which yielded any gain. And many entrepreneurs who worked super hard many times and have nothing to show for it but scar tissue.

Whatever you do, the best advice is to ensure you are enjoying the journey. Don’t waste your life just to be rich. That path nearly always yields a Pyrrhic victory.