The compensation made it both easier and harder to leave. Easier because I had a giant safety net squirreled away, harder because they kept offering more.

"Four years' worth of GSUs oughta be enough for anybody."

No. Not even close. There's a reason it's called golden handcuffs. It all depends on where you are in life. If you have a mortgage, it won't be enough depending on the house you have. If you don't have a house, you will have a lot of FOMO. Big time.

It's all about pscyhology - you need exactly 0$ if you are dedicated and don't have dependencies. Ok, let's say just couple thousand for a room and food.

I thought "oughta be enough for anybody" was an obvious "640KB" joke, but maybe I'm just old. Anyway, it certainly is enough money to appropriately cushion an attempt at freelancing.

And the best thing to do after leaving a job at Google is to move somewhere cheaper!

> "640KB"

"$640K in GSU over 4 years ought o be enough for anybody"

That's actually the ballpark for a senior engineer.

Yes that's how money works, if you start spending lots of it then you won't have it.

Whenever anybody pays you good salary or even adds stock shares to it, doesn't mean they can wipe their feet on your personal attitude or consider your job efforts as garbage.

If author wanted to express this opinion I completely agree.

What is a "GSU"?

Google Stock Unit, internal term for RSU

I'm guessing RSU stands for Restructured Scientific Umbilical?

Restricted stock unit.

Stock compensation in the form of actual shares (not options) that vest over some time period.

I was way off.

Thanks a lot for the clarification!

Don't blame yourself, spelling mistakes happen.

Google Stock Unit

How is four years of GSUs enough? Four years is in the low six digits. Being financially secure in the Bay Area requires an order of magnitude more than that.

The author is in New York and presumably intends to stay there. I'm fairly certain four years of post-tax GSUs won't last him long.