Comment by yieldcrv
1 year ago
Out of curiosity, if you’ve been at a FAANG since at least 2009, have you ever retired or taken a “sabbatical” for a year or two, since you would have made enough money to retire and live passively at amounts similar to annual compensation and taxed way better
Just curious how the decisions have formed, its totally fine if FAANG or specifically Apple was fulfilling for you, I also wonder if its financial fear to an irrational extent just because I see that on Blind a lot
I did go to Mozilla Research to work on Servo/Rust for a bit in 2015, which didn’t turn out to be the best decision.
I always assumed that I would stick around at Apple until some singular event that would motivate me to quit, and that would be it. I have been so lucky at Apple to have been in the right place at the right time for several projects: relatively early iPhone team, original iPad team, involved in the GCC -> Clang transition, involved in the 64-bit ARM transition, involved in early Apple Watch development, first engineer working full-time on the Apple silicon transition for the Mac, etc. Obviously I was doing something right if I kept getting these chances, but if I went to another FAANG I wouldn’t have the same history, and I don’t think it would be the same experience.
My projected path to parting ways with Apple didn’t really take place, since I’m now working at a non-profit dedicated to developing an interactive theorem prover and left Apple without any animosity in either direction.
It would be incredible if you could write a book someday about all those experiences. I would very happily buy that book.
Thanks for all that incredible work and your insights here.
Wow that's really a ton of memorable experience. I hope you write a book or some blog posts or do an interview.