I can't speak for the parent commenter, but I can say that in my case, I just found out that my blood pressure is through the roof because of bad exercise/snacking habits during the lockdown. If I die while I'm working for BigCo, my wife and kid will get something like $2.5M from life insurance and immediately-vested RSUs

I'm very confident that I could buy a nice house in a low cost of living area, throw together a SaaS that pulls in a few grand a month, and then work on a more ambitious business while living comfortably. BUT if that ticking time bomb in my chest goes off while I'm doing that, my family will be relatively fucked. (~$250k life insurance payout plus our ~$500k net worth, so the wife will suddenly have to become a working mother with out of date skills in a relatively crappy locale..)

So in my case, it's worth sticking around at BigCo for another year or two and getting in shape while I'm still under the benevolent gaze of Master Faang

EDIT: Dang, I've been a fool.. looks like it's only about $100 a month for $1M in life insurance actually, haha. Maybe I should sneak out of here sooner rather than later

My tip on life insurance: don't buy it from your existing auto/home insurance company. In my recent experience it's far cheaper from a dedicated life insurance company. I also got a discount going through Costco.