Whenever I read articles like this and the ensuing "just relax and go have fun/travel" comment chains, I think to myself I'm living in an alien universe. Not having a job is a pants-on-fire emergency, and I would be interviewing 24/7 until I corrected it, even if the hiring market meant that was hopeless. I'd be a nervous wreck until I found a job, any job.
It's absolutely wild to see people 1. with the privilege of having $80K in liquid savings to just... chill while unemployed, and 2. with the willingness and mindset that allows them to do that chilling without freaking out. Total Zen Masters you all are. I couldn't do it.
Every $10K I blew through while unemployed, I'd be thinking to myself: Accounting for time value of money, that's just pushed out my retirement date by 3 more months.
EDIT: I guess I should add that I'm married with a kid, since that obviously does affect the math on this one. Still, I don't think I'd change my opinion if I was single.
The people I know who do this are either exceptionally talented that employment will never be an issue for them in their lifetime and/or (it's usually and), they can burn through $100k no problem, any day of the week.
Nobody I know is leaving a $70k a year job to take a sabbatical. They're usually leaving a $400k+ per year job and there'll be another similar job waiting for them when they're ready to jump back in.
Kids are another huge factor that changes this. I don't think I've known anyone who's done something like this with kids in the picture.
I took a break after getting laid off from YCR (2017) and joining Google (2020). My wife just had our baby and she was a bit stir crazy, so I thought it better to focus on getting her a job first (so I would take care of the kid instead). We have a bit of redundancy now, which is useful at least (we are ok if either us loses their job, but we would definitely try to both stay working).
What they don't tell you is that employers are suspicious if you are out of the job market for more than a year. And anyways, no, it doesn't make sense to stay at home and raise your kid, just pay for the childcare and get back to work as soon as possible. And they wonder why birthrate is tanking...
can’t believe the number of comments talking like this… the only way I would work for an employer like this is if my kid and wife were hungry and I had no other choice. without my family I wod rather be homeless than work for an employer like this (and yes, they are in a majority).
> They're usually leaving a $400k+ per year job and there'll be another similar job waiting for them when they're ready to jump back
Will there be though? I honestly don't know. I'm closer to that boat, I get (good) job offers every 3-6 months, but nonetheless, if I was laid off... I think that'll leave a pretty nasty mark on my resume, no matter the reason. I don't think I'd wait a year to start looking for jobs again. A big gap won't help either.
* Recruitment emails from top competitors I should say.
I have two, one year long+ gaps on my resume at almost 40. Only a single employer has even asked about it. Though my situation is perhaps a bit different I suppose in that when I was was asked, I had about as "good" of a reason as you can possibly have, and they proceeded to make an offer.
All in all though, it's not impacted my ability to re-enter the job market, though I must admit I did assume prior that it would.
This will obviously vary by job market, country and your own capability to sell yourself I imagine.
It will not leave a nasty mark on your resume. That's your anxiety telling you that. Nobody cares unless there are other red flags to pair with it (e.g. lots of short tenure jobs, etc).
I took 6 months off last time I did a job switch. I had 10+ offers from top companies and not a single one of them asked me about the break or cared.
Exactly this. And a potential employer has an issue with the "gap" in the resume - RUN FOR THE HILLS (or if you need job immediately take it and continue interviewing and leave as soon as another opportunity present itself).
About a year ago we had an open position and hired SPECIFICALLY a person who took some time off after COVID. She was like "it was insanely stressful time and I need some time to regroup" and everyone who interviewed her was like "perfect, just perfect"!
I can vouch for this advice. I had an encounter with a bad employer and a 6 month period without a job. I ended up taking a position somewhere that treated me like a freak for it and tried to use it to weaken negotiation. Additionally, they took issue to me not having many multi-year roles. Normally, I'd not tolerate that, but sometimes you just need health insurance (thanks, USA).
That place ended up being a terrible place to work for a number of reasons. I eventually found a much better team who didn't question any of that. It was an entirely freeing experience. It truthfully would have been a liability to stay there any longer as the leadership and technical skills were not there. I left alongside many other people and haven't looked back.
Gaps should not be an issue. But it’s still good to have a ready talking point around a gap if asked about it in an interview. If you are perceived as being evasive about an employment gap, it’s not unreasonable for an interviewer to draw a negative inference about that. At that point it’s not your potential employer with the problem regarding the gap…it’s you.
Just about anything can be spun to a positive or at least neutral light.
Depends. If you were let go from a well known and perceived successful organization that didn’t have a public mass layoff in the press, I am damn sure going to red flag that if you are interviewing with me.
You know that you don't have to show employment dates on your resume, right? If you feel like it, you can just show the number of months/years you worked at each position. No one is really going to bother to add them all up to see if they match the calendar years.
We're usually too focused on finding the few people that meet our requirements and don't have the time to waste looking for red flags.
> Nobody I know is leaving a $70k a year job to take a sabbatical.
I took my first sabbatical at 25, with only a few years in the industry, making a lot less and I think $35k in the bank. Everyone told me I was crazy putting a gap in my CV, spending savings, etc. but I did anyway.
It was easily the best two years of my life, I travelled South America and Asia without a care in the world until the money was gone. Then I went back to work without an issue and have continued taking long periods off throughout my career. These days I'm a remote contractor, and even though I can and do work from anywhere I regularly still take months off at a time. I have a lot of savings too and a fully paid house in a country I love.
My point is that we create the anxiety for ourselves. A different lifestyle is possible if you make certain choices.
>Not having a job is a pants-on-fire emergency, and I would be interviewing 24/7 until I corrected it, even if the hiring market meant that was hopeless. I'd be a nervous wreck until I found a job, any job.
Same, although I'm not sure it's always a privilege thing, but also one's background. I've done pretty well for myself these last few years, and financially speaking it would not be the end of the world if I lost my job tomorrow. But I come from a working class family, and grew up with nothing.
I was raised and surrounded by family members who work a lot harder than I do for a lot less pay. They sacrificed a lot for me to go to school and get a good job, so if I were to lose it, the last thing I'd want to do is just chill for 2yrs even if I could afford to.
I think this might be the single biggest factor, and it seems hard, if not impossible, for most people who grew up in financially comfortable situations to truly understand how much it affects every aspect of your life.
I was fortunate to grow up relatively (lower?) middle-class, but even then, we weren't exactly financially secure, and I still remember how bad things were during the Great Recession, even though I wasn't working at the time. My wife grew up in poverty, and even though we're both doing decently in our careers, I don't know if she'd ever truly be able to get rid of the worry and anxiety that something might happen and we'd end up homeless. Even if we suddenly won the lottery and ended up with $500 million, that fear would probably still be there at least a little bit. And like you said, that fear makes enjoying/being comfortable with unemployment impossible.
Absolutely agree. Middle and upper class people view money and wealth fundamentally differently through a security lens. Growing up poor radically alters the way you feel about money, i'm more stressed about money than i've ever been, but on paper i'm doing great. I always feel like i'm one wrong move from disaster that will throw myself and my family into a pit we won't be able to escape from.
>My wife grew up in poverty, and even though we're both doing decently in our careers, I don't know if she'd ever truly be able to get rid of the worry and anxiety that something might happen and we'd end up homeless.
DUDE!!
Im older than you and I grew up poor.
Between my husband and I we have a little under half a million dollars in easily accessible liquid assets. I also have enough in my retirement accounts that I could definitely retire at 65 comfortably if I stopped contributing today (CoastFIRE).
I am just barely starting to feel like I'm financially secure.. like I don't feel it, but I logically tell myself that I am. I feel like I'm finally starting to believe myself.
i think this is the sign of an inadequate safety net. i also grew up poor with a single parent who could not work until us children were old enough to be able to be at home without supervision. so we had to rely on government support.
now i am not exactly well off either. but i never felt i was financially insecure even when i was low on money. that safety net is always there, and having experienced it, i am comfortable trusting it.
The first few years out of university I consistently had < $10k on my bank account and was traveling as much as I could, with just occasional part time work to "fill up" a few k$. I loved it and couldn't imagine living any other way, neither retirement nor risks were just really on my mind at all (it wasn't really a zen thing).
Now I have a child and feel completely different. The moment she arrived I immediately felt way behind on retirement savings and stability and since then my #1 priority has been to catch up. I'm hoping that not long from now I'll be able to translate being more secure on paper to also mentally getting back the care free feeling I had before.
It is incredible how long these feelings can stick with us. My first few years out of university, I didn't even make $10k total combined. It is taking a long time to come to terms with the fact that I'm doing better now. Behind in life and goals, but doing a bit better.
I completely agree with you. I actually have this privilege and I still would be absolutely grinding until I got any job.
I also think in terms of retirement - it's not just savings being depleted, but it's active months I'm not adding to my savings. And I'm certainly not living off of 50% of what I make post-tax, so the burn rate becomes exceptionally high.
I quit my job two years and four months ago. I'd worked non-stop for twenty years (10+ at the last company) and was getting three weeks of vacation time per year. I'm in my 40's and finally decided that I wanted to enjoy some of life while my body was still in shape. Watching the savings drain out is hard, but what's harder is thinking about going back to the grind and never having any time for myself again.
Also just turned 40 this year, coding straight since I graduated college. If you do need to go back to work, there are ways of making it feel more sustainable and not life-draining.
I was feeling close to burnout a couple years ago in my current job, but was lucky enough that they let me drop back to four days a week. And the company is fully remote, so I end up traveling about three months out of the year. I have a hobby that helps me meet people when I travel.
Maybe living overseas also helps life feel less like it’s passing me by.
Ideally I’d be able to take a few month sabbatical, now that I’ve been in my current role for 8+ years. Still working on that…
100% agree with this. Whoever said take a break and go traveling either have money saved up or have no idea what they are doing. Take a break from what ? Most of these people have not even worked for 5 years.
My first thought is "which rich family member can they coast off of when shit gets really bad" or "where's the rest of the money you haven't touched yet?"
So many of these "I've been funemployed for 5 years" articles NEVER talk about the hidden asterisk that, well, actually, they have plenty of money and are just fine; they're just conventionally broke.
Yea, I think a lot of it is this. In a lot of these discussions, nobody wants to admit that their family is loaded. Although they might have to swallow their pride a little, if things get bad they could just move back in with lawyer dad or doctor mom, and they'd be fine indefinitely. I think that's very different, stress-wise, than "I have $100K of savings and am willing to sacrifice years of future retirement to blow through it."
In my experience, the relax and travel crowd has much more than 80k liquid - or the ability to acquire much more than 80k via relatives etc.
Alternately, they have very cheap tastes. It's entirely possible to live off of 15k per year while hiking the AT, there are at least 5 equivalent trails to hike globally.
I would read the story posted with a bit of skepticism. They obviously have more of a safety net then they're letting on - because there's simply ZERO way that they wouldn't be stressing if all they genuinely had in savings was ~60 CAD and the stated rent is 1200.
I also travelled the world, but I did it as an ESL teacher. Nothing encourages you to integrate faster into a country's culture and learn the native language than actually working there, and you feel like less of a tourist.
I get your point because I'm also quite like that, but the reality is that I've spent all of 2024 in dead-end interviews and got no results other than wasting time. In hindsight, "had I had the crystal ball", it would have been more rewarding to relax good and proper. I still don't have a crystal ball, though.
> Accounting for time value of money, that's just pushed out my retirement date by 3 more months
You account for the time value of money, but not for the time value of time.
A week right now is worth more than a week 30 years from now. 30 years from now, your life might have changed beyond all recognition, or you might be dead.
Reasonable people can disagree over how to discount future freedom-from-work vs present freedom-from-work.
Playing devil's advocate: a dollar right now is also worth more than a dollar 30 years from now, both from an inflationary and from an investment perspective.
That said, I'm still largely in agreement with you. While there are a myriad ways to make more money, there's no way to make more time.
I used to be in the same boat. Somewhere in my 30s I realized I could fall back on my skills if it ever warranted. Now I am between jobs and considering not going back to work.
What I’m saying is that your life outlook shifts as you age and experience common life events
the first thing I am going to tell my kid when she enters the "workforce" is that her #1 PRIORITY (she won't have any student loan debt) is to save F YOU money. 6 months at least, 12 preferably. Life without it is terrible. Not just for the fear of losing your job and not knowing what tomorrow brings but (in my opinion) even worse - staying on a job that makes you miserable because you need that paycheck coming regularly to survive...
Does that amount qualify as "F YOU" money? I always thought it was if you have multiple years worth of savings.
But I agree. Some funds to fall back on is critical. The amount is highly dependent on your situation and risk comfort level and can be argued back and forth but not having any puts you at the mercy of whatever your employer/manager decides. Or even you getting sick and unable to work for a while. And even if the former doesn't happen, the latter definitely will at some point.
Though I am reading some of these comments and wondering why they'd call losing a job an end-of-the-world scenario. I've always thought people on this forum are the type of working professionals that could afford to put away a few hundred dollars a month even if they're not on SV wages. Mind you, I am not talking about an amount of money to allow you to retire but just enough to get you going for a few months until you can figure something out. Even if married and with children. That just changes the math a little bit but not the approach. Is there something I am missing?
> Does that amount qualify as "F YOU" money? I always thought it was if you have multiple years worth of savings.
F YOU money is so that if your boss/employer/... pisses you off you can tell him "F YOU" and pack your shit and leave without a single worry on your mind
> The amount is highly dependent on your situation and risk comfort level and can be argued back and forth
Absolutely not - it is a simple math. If I spend $10k per month, I need $60k or $120k saved to have a cushion of 6 months (or 12 months). there is no argument, I said F YOU and I am now without a care in the world and can take my time to figure out what I am going to do next without needing to stay somewhere that makes me miserable (or same if I get fired)
> Is there something I am missing?
"According to a YouGov survey from May 2023, only 18% of Americans have savings between $1,000 and $10,000"
Now of course probably 2% of them or less are here on HN...
To me, F-YOU money means "enough to retire today." It means you can live your current lifestyle using just 3% of it per year, which is a pretty normal retirement draw-down rate. Anything less, and it's not really F-YOU money, it's "I can take a brief sabbatical at the cost of adding N more years of work before retirement" money.
Yeah, that's closer to my understanding as well. Not necessarily retirement but a few years of runway perhaps. The 6-12 months thing I've always seen being called an "emergency fund" which in turn is different to your savings which may not be liquid.
There is a HUGE difference between emergency fund and FU$
If my lifestyle currently is:
- summer vacay in Bali
- two ski trips, one US, one in the Alps
- eating out once per week
- daily Starbucks
- …
FU$ means I continue doing EXACTLY this, for 6/12/18 months.
Emergency fund would be I cut down all my expenses to a bare minimum until I find new source of income. Can’t say FU if I can’t go to Bali (I love Bali :) )
Sure, I wouldn't advise taking any expensive vacations or anything of that nature. But what caught my attention were the terms "pants-on-fire emergency" and "I would be interviewing 24/7". I mean I get it would be a stressful situation and may cause anxiety or panic but having those strong emotions could also lead you to end up working in a bad workplace which would make your mental health even worse. I am not judging, but those words just left me wondering what am I missing. And this is speaking as someone with a family to support.
I agree with the zen masters description though. I wouldn't be so zen about it either.
Here's the YouGov survey if anyone is interested [1]. A lot of people do indeed not have a lot of savings:
> One in 10 consumers do not have any savings (12%) while a slightly higher percentage of consumers say they have less than $100 in their savings account (14%). A further 13% of Americans say they have between $1,000 and $4,999 in savings. Altogether, that means that half of all Americans have less than $5,000 to fall back on.
Except that me saying the amount is dependent on your situation is leaving some margin for if your child is special needs or you're going through a divorce or taking care of elderly parents or things of that nature where you'd probably want to decrease your risks by increasing the 12 months to 18 months to account for more unknowns that wouldn't apply to other people, for example. I do not consider it to be simple math nor a matter of an absolute right/wrong stance.
I apologize for saying simple math in a kind of an “absolute” way but I meant it in a “math” sense that I know my expenses and as well how long of a “cushion” I need to feel like I can FU out of a bad situation (or if get into a bad situation beyond my control). I also know my known expenses are just that - known expenses but of course there is always the unknown. But I am guessing adults could ballpark a figure that will get them through X number of months
No problem. Now that you mention it, I find it incredible that many people I know wouldn't be able to tell how much they're spending on what. Not even ballpark it. This is the first thing to start with and is incredibly easy to do, if you choose to. Whether you call it FU money or emergency or something on the side or whatever, you at least need some numbers.
And we're not talking about wealthy people here but the ones who complain that there's nothing left when there's an interest rate increase. I don't know maybe it's the crowd I hang out with. Or maybe they are actually wealthy and just don't want to say it.
It mostly just comes down to having kids, right? I am certain that if I were single and happy staying that way, I would be living in a van in Moab and doing the bare minimum amount of freelancing to keep myself fed.
I would personally be extremely content living a very spartan life. If there were a barracks type arrangement where I just get a small room with desk and bathroom, and all food preparation were handled for me for a reasonable fee, access to a gym, and solid internet I'd be all over it.
But the minute you enter a romantic relationship, that generally stops being an acceptable living situation.
Why is there such a difference between men and women on this? I literally lived in a closet as a student. I'm quite content as long as I have a nice desk and chair, good internet, access to a gym and perhaps afford to eat out.
>Why is there such a difference between men and women on this?
Biological answer: women had to hold on to resources to care for their ofspring, so it's hardwired.
Politically incorrect answer: they are self entitled nutcases. If you think you are spending significantly more than what you think you can afford, dump your wife if she doesn't agree to downgrade on the lifestyle to save on expenses
That escalated quickly! I think biology has probably shaped us to worry about different things. As you say, I think it's probably that women look for a mate that can provide a good environment for raising kids. There's also the status aspect. Men are also status sensitive but it seems like they are much more willing to sacrifice status short term in order to focus on work and earning money long term, while women want a nice house etc no matter what, and it's up to the man to provide.
I don't think so. I have a wife, but we have no kids and will not have any, and a lot of savings, but I could not do something like this. If my income was less than my spending, I would feel incredible stress knowing there's this Time Limit To Doom hanging over my head. I'd also worry what a gap like that would do to my future job prospects. (I'm not saying I'm correct to feel that way, but that I would feel that way, and it would ruin things for me.) I also don't particularly enjoy traveling or lounging about, so those kinds of stories never appeal to me. I enjoy working. It is what it is, /shrug :)
That makes total sense, thanks for articulating it so clearly. Sometimes I wish I felt more that way, or at least that I could get myself to hate corporate work less. I do enjoy working for myself and freelancing, and that was all I did before I had a family to support. Now it’s too much risk to give up a steady paycheck and subsidized health insurance before my kids are off to college.
Yep. I was laid off a bit over a year ago, and I literally did nothing but try to get my next job, and fortunately got one in 2 months before my severance ran out.
I have easily enough to live a whole year or more without needing to work, but I would never consider that for even 1 second, tbh. Never even thought hard about why, it's just not an option to me.
Reading this article and its comments (except this one), the casual attitudes towards unemployment were striking. I realized just how few people here have children
First of all your situation and context is unique. Everyone has their own circumstances (including aging parents).
For many, even perhaps for you this is a reality. However for others its a fear of worst case scenario as a protection mechanism that served you when you were at a certain stage of life and many just kept it as a habit.
For a single grad without responsibilities after 3 years of working at a FAANG this fear of the future shackles them to explore and take calculated risks.
I've seen people with $20k in their savings account going for 1 year sabbatical describing it as transformational.
Its all priorities I guess and sometimes we can't say for every case that its actually the lack of agency that is holding you back.
Only you know for sure internally when reading this, if its making you uncomfortable and uneasy and if you have an emotional reaction.
For some, as mentioned its a reality and they are fully content with the limitations that they have and choices that they made in life that are now irreversible.
Up to everyone individually to evaluate their situation, however what is important to understand is that whether its really your context that is holding you hostage or just your fear.
Maybe it's the wrong way of looking at things but I have such minimal plans for retirement and that choice has led me to being extremely happy now rather than waiting for it later. The memories and adventures I've had by spending my money on experiences have led to moments and connections I don't think I can see myself having in retirement. It's a gamble but I'd rather live now and hope that when I retire, I 'Ll be happy to live an extremely frugal modest life.
I've been out for about two years. My retirement is a bullet or poison. It's just that simple. I will never earn FAANG money such that I can make up for the lost time.
>Not having a job is a pants-on-fire emergency, and I would be interviewing 24/7 until I corrected it,
This would have the absolutely opposite effect of that, I was in this mood and it made getting a job impossible because I'd appear too stressed and too depressed on every single interview. Sometimes relaxing and letting it be is just better and a lot more productive.
There's a difference between panicking and making it your job to find your next job. We often hear the two extremes, "stressed and depressed" and "relaxed and on vacation".
"Delaying retirement" is absolutely an option - and not a bad one while with extremely flexible financial needs - but it's one to take eyes open.
The odds are extremely high that you live to be at least 80 years old. If you plan on not having any money beyond when you're capable of doing what you're doing now, you're going to have a bad time.
"If you plan on not having any money beyond when you're capable of doing what you're doing now, you're going to have a bad time."
Oh for sure. And no, I am not doing that. But I am not optimizing for my retirement. I optimize for the now. If the now runs smooth, the momentum will also provide enough money and other support later on. But doing a shitty job will bring me a shitty life for sure. Taking a break from that, gave me new and better perspectives, than beeing trapped in a tight routine. We can compare in the future.
I also have a really hard time relating to the the whole financial independence / retire early crowd. I think I'd rather take the chance on growing as much as I can now so that I can be the wise person I want to be when I'm much older. Prioritizing experiences rather than aggressive saving. I figure the worst case is that I'm old living an extremely frugal life in a tiny place in the middle of nowhere Japan (where I currently live) reading books and playing all the games I bought when I was young, happily content with a life fully lived.
I recently went on a very personal international trip that wiped all my savings. I was able to reconnect with my culture and I made two friends who I cherish so much. The kind of friends that I would drop everything to help. I didn't have to go on these trips, I could have kept saving. But I don't regret that experience at all and it changed me immensely.
My problem is that the main thing I want to do when I have free time is work on DIY'ing around my home, and however much money you save in labor, materials and tool costs are still pretty significant.
> Whenever I read articles like this and the ensuing "just relax and go have fun/travel" comment chains, I think to myself I'm living in an alien universe. Not having a job is a pants-on-fire emergency, and I would be interviewing 24/7 until I corrected it, even if the hiring market meant that was hopeless. I'd be a nervous wreck until I found a job, any job.
That's on you. Stress is something you generated, not something that exists in the world.
stress comes from being backed into a corner. this may be from bad decisions or from unforseen circumstances. in countries where healthcare mostly depends on having a job and support is not guaranteed or not easy to come by this can happen much faster than you expect, and it's not always possible to prepare for that.
stress is also created by other people who insist that i am doing something wrong, and don't respect that i have a different opinion on that matter. people who have expectations that i can't or don't want to meet.
i did learn to avoid stress, even as i live in countries where there is no safety net. i am out of work now, and while putting in applications day after day is tiring, i am not stressed. but i come from a country that has a strong safety net, and i know that if i have to i can always go back there. i grew up with that safety net, and i know that i'll never be homeless unless it's by choice. that alone removes a major stress factor. i don't know how i would feel without that safety net.
I am not sure if you are really young, but you definitely sound like either nothing quite earth-shattering has happened in your life, or maybe some stuff has happened, but you have chosen to be very selective about how you digest it.
Sometimes life hits you like a truck, and you get trapped under that truck for a really long time. Then, once you get flung in the ditch and think you just had the most horrible N months/years of your life, a whole colony of fire ants starts crawling on you and pulling you apart.
So, yeah, sometimes certain actions could be a sign of privilege, sometimes, they could be the tiny thread giving a person a lifeline.
Being able to only optimize for proximity to retirement could be a more "privileged" state to be in, than having 80k in Canada in certain contexts.
Any basic financial advice would tell you to have 3-12 months worth of emergency fund ready for unexpected events. Losing your job is just another unexpected event. If you’ve got a 6-12 month runway of money, why wouldn’t you take a little bit to destress? And if you’re laid off in most tech roles, getting some (often substantial) severance is pretty common. You may not even need to tap into an emergency fund.
Even with a wife and kids, all that means is that you have more household expenses. Just means you’d need more money in said emergency fund.
I moved to Silicon Valley in the fallout of the dot com bust, and I had this amazing HR director named Rex who gave me a fantastic intro to tech career life. One thing he told me that has stuck with me is "You need to live your life like you may not have a job tomorrow." The full weight of this didn't register for probably a decade or more, but I take it now to be this:
1. You may have zero income tomorrow. Plan for that, especially if you have a family. Tech companies pay good money, and you need to stash that money away while you have an income because there are pretty good chances that some day you'll wake up and not have a job.
2. You need to foster the professional relationships you make while doing your day job, because almost nobody is going to be working at that company until they die or retire, which means everybody is going to be looking for work. When it comes time to look for work, you will want a network to reach out to. When you find yourself in a position where you have something great and you need to hire great people to help you achieve your vision, you will want a great network to reach out to. Take time to look after the folks you care about. Pay special attention to the humans you have done great work with. Those people are probably going to be more valuable to you personally and professionally than the company you are working for, and the same goes the other way for them looking out for you.
This wisdom was later supplemented by a contractor we had hired at a different company, who came back to meet with us after we hadn't used all our paid hours and said "Look, I know you're upset that (some guy you loved working with) is no longer with us. We're also bummed about that. But we have done great work together as a combined team. Not as companies, but your engineering team and our engineering team. We hope that you will think about that when you need help with anything, at this company or in the future, just like we will think about you individuals when it comes time for us to solve problems that you would be good at solving."
Every time there is a layoff, I think about this nugget that Rex told me, and that supplemental anecdote, and every time they are just as relevant. This wisdom has saved me so much stress, and opened so many doors for me. I admit that it hasn't always let me take my unemployment completely worry free, and that I have made some desperate decisions while unemployed which I later regretted. That being said, I still think this is solid advice, not just for the tech industry, but for everybody everywhere. This is especially so if you are a humanist or are anti-bigcorp. It has helped me find peace with having to walk away from jobs when I needed time for me or my family, or when things just weren't working out. After the blood bath of 2023, I am living this advice more than ever, and the last few times I have wondered if I was on the chopping block, aside from the emotional response of visceral existential fears that come up in such cases, I've found peace in the rational knowledge that having planned for not having a job tomorrow, I can set those fears aside and look for the opportunity in my new circumstance.
It's absolutely wild to see people 1. with the privilege of having $80K in liquid savings to just... chill while unemployed, and 2. with the willingness and mindset that allows them to do that chilling without freaking out. Total Zen Masters you all are. I couldn't do it.
Every $10K I blew through while unemployed, I'd be thinking to myself: Accounting for time value of money, that's just pushed out my retirement date by 3 more months.
EDIT: I guess I should add that I'm married with a kid, since that obviously does affect the math on this one. Still, I don't think I'd change my opinion if I was single.