Comment by cuttothechase
2 days ago
Sergey's challenge looks like is not in retiring early or with non-work.
We had a high performing co-worker who was scared witless after a lay-off episode and this was not because he was worried about lacking money or loss of prestige., but because he could not come to terms with the simple fact of facing the 9 am on a Monday morning with absolutely no expectations. It freaked so much to not feel the hustle and the adrenaline rush of experiencing the blues Monday morning!?
Another colleague used to drive up to the parking lot of their previous employer, post lay-off., so that he could feel normal., and he did this for well over 6 - 8 months. Pack bags, wave to his wife and family, drive up in his Porsche to the parking lot and I guess feel normal !?
I took a four-year break from work (2009–2013) and moved to India. The reasons were simple: some family health issues required downtime (though probably not as much as I ended up taking), and I could afford to do this in India in a way I couldn’t in the US. This happened to coincide with the market bottom, but I wasn’t laid off—it was entirely voluntary.
I didn’t experience an identity crisis for a single day. I didn’t feel insecure or anxious about not working. The only real friction came from my family.
One big difference was social life. In India, I was constantly meeting people—connections were easy and organic. In the US, maintaining a daytime social life felt much harder. Everyone is on a treadmill—insurance, income, careers—often not by choice. I know there are ways to build community here, but in India it just happened naturally.
My extended family struggled more than I did. Once it became clear the break wasn’t temporary, there was a kind of quiet depression around it. I initially framed it as “taking a breather” by doing an executive MBA, but the break never really ended.
What eventually brought me back wasn’t overt pressure, but practical limits: my spouse’s mental health, and the constraints of India’s education system for our partially disabled, special-ed child. Those realities mattered more than any career concern.
> One big difference was social life. In India, I was constantly meeting people—connections were easy and organic. In the US, maintaining a daytime social life felt much harder. Everyone is on a treadmill—insurance, income, careers—often not by choice. I know there are ways to build community here, but in India it just happened naturally.
The primary reason for this is the built environment we live in here in the United States. It's very difficult to organically build connections when you have to drive a car somewhere to have basic social interactions. Even some of the items you mention, like insurance and income are very much informed by the requirement to have a car to participate in society.
I don't know if it is build environment or cultural thing. In US showing up at friends, or neighbors unannounced and spend hour or two would be very odd if not downright impolite. But in India it is something everyone would do or at least used to do a 15-20 yrs back when I was there.
One simple reason I think is overall US is very rich so people just can have anything they need on their own and sharing small things which lead to more interaction is simply not needed.
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I am 1,5 years into a break. Haven’t had time to feel bored yet. But I do look forward to a 9-5 job again, just for the structure it provides.
If you can afford it, why get back? Now after a dozen years I am bored of my 9-5 but running the race to make my FIRE numbers plus provide some cushion for my son with disabilities but if I had a choice I would quit again ( but I am much older now )
I took a career break and was weirded out by the question of "how do I introduce myself?". So used to saying "Hi, I'm Marcus, I'm IT Director of <business>" that suddenly having nothing to say there was strange. When people asked "what do you do?" I had no good answer, and that felt like I had no good identity.
I guess for Sergey Brin it's a little different, he will always be "Founder of Google" even if he leaves Google.
But that "work as identity" may still be a problem. For a lot of us, what we do is who we are, and so not having any work to do is like not having an identity.
You're describing my father. Now that he's retired his lack of hobbies is really catching up to him. His only hobby has been working and I've noted this about him since I was an adolescent and decided then as something I would not emulate.
A few times I've quit a FAANG job with no plan for after other than to wander, and both times the lack of professional competition meant not just coasting horizontally but that I was actually lowering myself somehow. Hard to explain, and I don't fully understand it.
I also noticed most people, especially women, determine your value by your 'right now'. While intentionally unemployed I'd answer truthfully and with a smile, 'I'm unemployed!' which visibly confused people.
life is phase oriented
when i’m working i find retired people boring
when im taking 6+ month break i find the nervous energy of employed people annoying
ultimately, comfort comes from being around like minded people
then again seeking comfort rings hollow to me, even though it’s quite enjoyable in the moment.
This is especially true around NYC, SF, LA. The culture is built around accomplishment and work identity.
Much less true in other places (e.g. Midwest), where community / taking care of others is valued.
The people worth knowing were the ones enthusiastically socializing with me after uttering that phrase.
>While intentionally unemployed I'd answer truthfully and with a smile, 'I'm unemployed!' which visibly confused people.
The proper term is "Funemployed"
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> So used to saying "Hi, I'm Marcus, I'm IT Director of <business>" [..]
Risking a stereotype. In my experience from traveling the world it's a tell-tale sign for being from a culture heavily influenced by the Protestant work ethic. Introduce yourself like that in Spain, Italy, or Brazil and you'll get strange looks.
On the flip side, I've found that people who do not define themselves through their work primarily often do so through family. My younger self is certainly guilty of giving someone a strange look when within the first five minutes of meeting them, they told me whose cousin they were.
In a business/formal context it would be normal to introduce yourself like this in the countries you've mentioned.
Do people introduce themselves like that in informal contexts in the USA? If so that's indeed a bit weird, and more a topic you would start talking about for small talk or if someone asked about it.
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Agree, it's definitely a cultural thing.
I've also lived on a small island where on first meeting, two locals will work out how they're related. I guess similar to the cousin thing.
In the city I currently live in, it's fairly normal for locals to ask where another local went to school within 5 mins of meeting them, because that establishes an identity here.
Not very common as the intro, but pretty common around here (bay area) to get asked that pretty soon after the intro. I don't like it, and I wished people didn't focus so much on it though.
First time I was in San Francisco and someone introduced themselves like that, going even beyond, was indeed a super weird experience being a brazilian.
Correct. If you said your title in Spain, you'll get a strange look and someone might respond with "why would you tell me that?". No one there cares what you do for work.
What is the point of the "I'm Marcus" part of your introduction? Reading your post I get the impression it has zero value, or at least you think so.
> Hi, I'm Marcus
> What do you do Marcus
> I'm on a break now, but I used to be a director of IT
Is this really difficult? Seems really easy, and I was never a director of anything. Maybe that's the problem.
For some people, their work/job is just such a big part of their identity, that for them this is a problem. That is I guess the point the person you were replying to was trying to make.
It's also not really weird for a job to become such a big part of your identity, when people spend most of their time at work or at home thinking about their work.
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Well, the "I'm Marcus" part is saying "I would like you to call me Marcus" I guess.
You're right, it is easy to say. But there's an identity and professional pride and all sorts of stuff wrapped up in the job title that isn't so easy to let go of.
It also leads on to questions like "and what are you doing now?" which get to "I'm lazing around doing nothing because my mental health took a hammering while I was IT Director", and so on. It's all so much easier and tidier with the job title.
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It's like when people say their pronouns, but for nouns.
> When people asked "what do you do?"
I found that outside of CA, this is asked a lot less often. In CA people ask that so they can mentally rank you as worth their time or not. Elsewhere, people ask you how your weekend went, or how your family is. One of the awesome parts of moving to Austin was not hearing that as the first question as much.
It’s so commonly asked in DC that it’s been a meme in dating circles there for decades.
> I found that outside of CA, this is asked a lot less often.
I moved to California a few years ago from the Least Coast (insert shaka, surfer, wave emojis here) and had multiple other out-of-towners in the same situation as me say the exact opposite at a party. They all were adamant that they had yet to hear "what do you do [for a living]?" since they'd moved as they did ad nauseum when they lived on the other side of the country.
I've not noticed either way. My pet theory is that people hear this frequently if their social and professional lives bleed into each other which they do if one lives in a town dominated by a specific industry or profession. Those moving westward during COVID and remote work suddenly had to contend with this much less.
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I’ve found asking “what do you like to do” vs “what do you do” to produce much more interesting conversation.
I really don't like getting asked what I do for a living. I exchange labour for money somewhere out of necessity, what's at all interesting about that? What I do in my free time is who I am, and that's much more interesting to talk about, to me.
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I always ask “What do you do for fun?”
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> When people asked "what do you do?"
"I mostly breathe. It's a bore but you gotta do it"
"I meant for a living"
"Same"
"waste management"
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Who were you before you got a job? No one? Nothing?
I identify more with myself as a child than I ever did with my work.
Why would I identify with someone else’s goals that I’m being paid to help achieve?
If you ever get to talk to people who are more than laborers trading time for dollars, it is great fun. When dollars are just one of the many rewards from their career (where a person spends like 80% of their life energy), you get to hear a lot of passion, learning and growth. It really is a whole different way to live.
After a decade, "founder of X that I no longer work at" is considered a lame answer. People want to know what you are doing now, not your highest claim to status of your entire life.
Make up a name, print some business cards, and be a "director" (or whatever title you like) of your own Potemkin company.
When I lived in the bay area for a few years, everybody would tell you where they worked, and if you didn't tell them, they'd ask. Since moving to Portland, I've definitely noticed that people are much more interested in what you do during your leisure time.
Hoo boy, this is definitely a weird one to navigate, especially if you have a weird set of roles. It takes time to settle various threads and figure out how to address this.
> "what do you do?"
"Whatever I feel like"
> So used to saying "Hi, I'm Marcus, I'm IT Director of <business>"
Tech bros would mock Finance bros who would open a conversation with anyone who would listen with "Hi, I'm Marcus, I work at Goldman Sachs" and yet here we are now ...
"Hi, I'm Marcus, I work at Google"
I don't get this. Just find a coworking space and work on a FOSS project.
Seriously. There are so many opportunities to give back to society. One does not need formal employment to be fulfilled.
I will say in Sergey Brin’s case, he had the unique opportunity to go back to work with the best and brightest without any friction, and nobody could tell him “hey maybe your credentials don’t quite stack up high enough for this department yeah?”
But for the rest of us, there’s FOSS, there’s computer repair, home automation, day trading a small fraction of your wealth, volunteer work at hospitals and libraries, gig work apps like taskrabbit…
If you are bored after being away from work for even a month, I’m not sure I could be friends with you.
I left Google to build an open source project a long time ago. A big part of the appeal was being able to have something to work on that's truly mine. Sergey already has something that's his and it's called Google. So I think he belongs there.
The world thanks you for your work. Which one of yours is your favorite?
I think it's difficult for a normal brain to live with the low impact of another project while you created Google. Also, the speed of a personal developer is nothing compared with the speed of a software engineering area or company. You can easily feel like a turtle even working on an interesting project.
Mental illness. They tied their entire sense of self to some job at some company. Their body belongs in some parking lot on somebody's schedule.
A mentally healthy person wants to be helpful. They want to be seen as helpful and they expect others around them to be helpful as well. This is the foundation of "pro-social" behavior: I benefit the group as much or more than the group benefits me.
Tying your identity to the place where you're helpful and where that help is appreciated and acknowledged isn't mental illness.
But this person was laid off. His help was (apparently) not appreciated, and he's not helping anyone by sitting alone in his car on the parking lot.
Do you think it is healthy behavior to go to a parking lot at 0900 every day and do nothing because you mentally cannot face the idea of not going to an office?
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I hear what you're saying, but routines, especially long-lived, are difficult to break/change. It's normal to have phantom limbs when they are cut off.
These people could have bought a dirt bike or mountain bike and had the time of their life. I don't get it.
I think I’d take directing big things at Google over riding a dirt bike…
I’m not actually sure what you don’t get.
I’m all for not living a lower level grind and riding a dirt bike. Most jobs simply aren’t interesting.
It’s the lack of imagination that’s sad.
If you're a director at Google you can probably afford a pretty damn nice dirt bike if that's your jam
Regretting not being able to create more shareholder value on your deathbed.
So very sad.
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I recently rewatched a Tested Q&A where Adam Savage discussed his post-Mythbusters life; his framing of that duality was very similar: https://youtu.be/2tZ0EGJIgD8?t=322.
It aligns with a common design principle: constraints often make a problem space easier to navigate. I suspect life is similar. Having limited time creates a "specialness" that is easily lost when you suddenly have an infinite amount of time at your disposal.
It's not THAT bad for me, but I really can't take vacation days for "nothing". I struggle if I don't have plans and work really forces one to have some structure. If you need the structure and don't have any plans post lay-off, I can believe the struggle to "let go" and do something better.
That must be what it's like to have a job where you feel like you're doing something interesting and meaningful.
> drive up in his Porsche to the parking lot
I wonder if that'd still be the case should he drive a Ford Focus.
If he drove a Ford Focus and did this everyday, I bet they would have called the police.
he should have carved into the parking lot "Brooks Was Here"
Sounds a bit... Neurodivergent.
I am guessing if you have been doing this daily for a couple decades then the neurodivergence is not going through this. I assume any normal person will find it hard to not do any kind of work and if you spent 20 years of your life doing tech, how useful are in the "real" world. Unless you have been doing handy work on the sides, spoiler alert: not much.
‘You don’t have to be neurodivergent to work here… …but it helps!’
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When you define yourself solely by work, you lose your entire identity when you retire. Most people don't have hobbies, so work is literally the one thing they have in their lives.
This is why people should have an opportunity to semi-retire when they are still young. A year or two. United States safety net does not really allow that unless you are loaded already.
It's very helpful to zoom out and do LIFE for a change. I got laid off three years ago, started my own project. Didn't take off, but also two mini-mes showed up during that time, and I am infinitely grateful that I could punt on work and just be there.
Hashtag blessed and all. That backrent I owe now, well, that's a bitch.
English surnames would seem to indicate being identified by one’s work has a long history (smith, miller, cooper, …)
It's really interesting that my comment here where I said that employment can inflict brain damage got flagged even though previous comment described behavior that would be obviously significant clinical symptom if it was caused by anything else as it is irrational and detrimental.
Wasn't sergey forced out for hitting on employees? It seems pretty reasonable for him to be unhappy with a forced retirement and ultimately unwind it now that meeto is pretty much over.
Human beings tend to enjoy patterns. Being pushed out of a pattern engages a lot of survival instincts.
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That is really not healthy.
What a sad way to live life, for a man to miss the chains he wears in enslavement, for he knows nothing else