• Nicole Chan Loeb is a 38-year-old photographer, videographer, and a mother-of-two.
• She and her husband prioritize experiences over gifts, so they invest for their kids in lieu of toys.
• They want to teach their children financial literacy and set them up for a secure financial future.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nicole Chan Loeb, a photographer and videographer from Boston. It's been edited for length and clarity.

My kids are 1.5 and 4 years old, and I've never bought them any physical presents for birthdays and holidays.

For birthdays, I'll make a cake, and instead of buying toys and clothing, I invest money for them to set them up for a more secure financial future. Plastic toys and knickknacks are temporary fun, but they cause clutter and landfill waste.

My mom taught me about stocks when I was growing up

Growing up, my mom used to tell me about the stocks or funds she invested in for me. Every week, we'd take the figures in the newspaper, chart them on graph paper, and stick them on the fridge. We mostly invested in mutual funds. That was fun, and I especially loved the special time my mom and I spent together. I similarly want to teach my kids financial responsibility and literacy.

My husband and I met in college in 2004. We both worked in the finance and accounting industry — I was in management consulting, and he was in internal audits — before deciding it wasn't for us. I quit in 2010, and he quit shortly afterward, and we both became entrepreneurs. I'm a photographer and videographer, and he owns an escape room company.

It was a considerable risk and I was absolutely terrified. But since my parents taught me financial literacy, I've learned how to save to be comfortable no matter what. Plus, the flexibility and fulfillment this lifestyle provides is very worth it.

We gift our kids investments instead of physical gifts

My husband and I don't exchange gifts in general. If we want something, we'll just purchase it for ourselves — after all, our money is pooled — so I find gift-giving challenging. Instead, we share and enjoy dinners, experiences, shows, and vacations. We give each other cards — it's more about the sentiment.

This year, my husband and I maxed out our kids' custodial Roth IRAs and deposited $7,000 each. My kids have been models for children's clothing lines, toy companies, and hospitality campaigns in my work as a commercial and advertising photographer, so the money is considered their earned income.

We decided to start investing for the kids last year because, from conversations with friends, we realized that we all wished topics like taxes, saving for retirement, and smart investing were taught in high school or earlier. We decided not to wait and agreed to start teaching these concepts as soon as our kids could grasp the basics.

Also, both my husband and I were lucky to leave school without a massive amount of debt because of our parents. These investments will allow our kids to graduate from college without an insurmountable amount of debt.

We're focused on Roth IRAs for now, but we plan to open investment accounts for them within the following year. If they don't have earned income in future years, we will set up a custodial brokerage account and invest for them that way. Because we both own our businesses, our salaries and incomes fluctuate, so we look at our finances each year and decide how much to invest.

Our kids are happy with spending time together

My kids are young, so the concept of expecting gifts has yet to solidify. And they don't really need anything. We're lucky to live in a great neighborhood where the parents pass on toys when their kids have outgrown them. I rarely purchase large toys or gifts, but I don't hold back from ad hoc purchases of crayons, markers, kids' card games, and board games.

Our children are happiest when we spend time together, doing things like lunch dates, playing board games, and baking. Happiness comes from experiences and relationships, and fewer material things promote creativity.

They spend a lot of time outside making up their own games, and we often play with things like sticks, stones, water, acorns, and pinecones. We want contented, balanced kids who aren't overwhelmed with things and toys and chasing the next new shiny object.

My husband and I find a lot of interest and joy in investments, and we hope our kids will as well. My four-year-old is very bright, and in the next year or so, he'll understand that you can put money in specific vehicles to grow, learning the concept of delayed gratification.

I'm hopeful that our kids will start making their own side income in high school and start to learn to invest for themselves as teenagers, just as I did while growing up.

If you have a unique way of teaching your children financial literacy and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].

• In October, Meta fired around two dozen employees found to be misusing a Grubhub meal perk.
• An employee perk management expert shares four ways employees may not realize they're abusing perks.
• She says that abusing perks could come at a cost for the company and negatively impact employees.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sarah-Jayne Martin, a Chicago-based expert in financial operations and employee perk management at Quadient. The firm provides companies with financial automation software, including payments- and expense-related tools. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Many companies offer perks to their employees to improve their working environment or build morale, often offered on the honor system. Instead of putting hard-line policies in place, many companies hope that people will be reasonable with perk usage.

But there's a gray area around what's considered "abuse," which happens when the perks aren't being used for their intended purposes.

Many times, employees don't necessarily feel like they're doing anything wrong. If they were manipulating their expense report, they'd know that that's wrong — but grabbing a six-pack of Coke to bring home to a party they're hosting that night might not feel that bad.

In the case of Meta, the intended purpose of offering GrubHub credits to employees is so that those who are remote or working late can eat. Where I think it crossed the line into taking advantage of the perk was when employees pooled their credits and purchased things besides food.

The abuse of perks is the kind of thing where if one person's doing it, maybe it's not that big of a deal — but if it becomes the culture, it really can negatively impact the company and employees in multiple ways.

Here are 4 ways employees may not realize they could be seen as abusing perks

1. Food

I've seen cases where people in charge of ordering food for a monthly team lunch order an extra pizza so that they can take it home for their family. It doesn't seem like that big of a misuse, but they're definitely intentionally buying something with the company resources that they plan to use not for its intended purpose.

That can also happen with office snacks. Especially in the tech world, a lot of offices have snack bars and fridges where you can just help yourself to whatever's in there. The intended purpose is for people who are in-office to be able to grab a drink or a snack as needed throughout the day.

But then there are cases of people who pack up a cooler and take a bunch of those things home. Maybe they feel like it's there for them to take, but they're taking advantage of that situation.

Grabbing something to eat on your way home is, in my opinion, totally fine. But if you're taking a whole case of trail mix home with you, that's clearly not what it was intended for.

2. Parking

If you're working in a downtown office in a big city like New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, one of the company perks that some companies provide to come into the office is to provide parking passes or discounted parking so you can drive to the office. An abuse of that might be giving your parking pass to someone who's visiting from out of town, or taking a parking pass that's meant for on-site clients to use and using that for your own personal use.

3. Travel

A lot of organizations have negotiated contracts with travel companies that provide employees with a code for discounted pricing on hotels, flights, or car rentals. While it may be considered OK for an employee to use it to book personal travel, sharing that code with people outside the organization isn't using it for its intended purpose.

4. Gym memberships

Some companies might offer gym memberships in the office building because they want employees to be able to exercise, be healthy, and have a break from their work. In that case, it wouldn't be appropriate for an employee to give their gym pass to their spouse to come in and use the gym.

It's the company's responsibility to draw the line between OK and abuse

I think the organization ultimately has the responsibility for drawing the boundaries of what's OK and what's a fireable offense.

That can be something as simple as, when rolling out a perk, saying something like, "The snack bar is here for employees who are in the office for meal times or for snacks. Be reasonable with what you take; taking large amounts of those supplies home isn't condoned."

If it's not clearly stated, employees may not feel like what they're doing is off-limits.

My advice for employees is to think about the intended purpose of the perks they're offered: Why am I being given this perk? And are my actions in line with that intention? Thinking from that perspective will probably make you realize when you're nearing an abuse of a perk.

Why misusing perks matters

Abusing perks could damage the relationships that the organization has created with other vendors.

In the example of gym memberships, the organization has probably negotiated discounted rates for company employees. If that gets abused and the gym finds out, it may retract the deal or the relationship between the company and the gym owner would sour. All of the people who've been using it appropriately could be impacted.

Misuse of resources also becomes a cost for the company. For example, if you're abusing the snack bar or using the photocopier to print your wedding invitations, it's a larger cost that the company has to bear.

It probably won't be so catastrophic that it impacts things like bonuses, but if enough people are abusing resources, it could put the financial stability of the company at risk — and impact whether the company is willing to spend money on perks in the future.

If you were reprimanded for abusing company perks and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].

After you're laid off, what comes next? For many tech workers, there's no easy answer. Following historic mass layoffs in 2023 and 2024, tech hiring has slowed and the job market looks increasingly bleak. Laid-off employees face an uncertain future.

For a road map on how to move on post-layoff, we spoke to former employees at Google, which cut 6% of its workforce nearly two years ago and has continued making cuts in 2024. Eight ex-Googlers impacted by those layoffs — including one who has since returned to the company — shared what it was like to lose what some considered their "dream job," how they found their footing in the aftermath, and their advice for others facing similar circumstances.

Many of the employees Business Insider spoke with said they were caught off guard by their layoff or that they expected only low performers to be impacted. Google said it provided impacted employees with outplacement support and invited them to apply for open roles across the company. Some interviewees told BI they found few openings.

Since their layoffs, these former Googlers' paths have varied. One ran for city council; another took a job at Trader Joe's. Some landed jobs at other Big Tech companies, and others launched their own ventures. While many reflected fondly on their time at Google and felt their layoff was a blessing in disguise, others expressed frustration toward Google's leadership.

Here are their stories, in their own words. Their quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

Jonea Gordon, 36, Philadelphia

Gordon is a lawyer by trade who worked at Meta prior to joining Google as a privacy program manager eight months before the 2023 layoffs.

I was at a coffee shop with my husband when a news alert popped up on his phone saying that Google was laying off 12,000 people that day. We'd both survived layoffs before — my husband works at Amazon and I'd been at Facebook prior to Google — so layoff news generally didn't startle us; we were used to it. I'm sure it's not me, I thought. But then I tried to log into my computer, and my password was rejected.

I very quickly recognized the silver lining of the opportunity. I had six months' severance. I'd never taken a break before — I'd been working like crazy since graduating from law school in 2012. I rested and spent more time with my kids. We took a family vacation. I started doing Pilates and got back into therapy. I used the time as a true sabbatical to reenergize myself for the next phase of my career.

After three months, I started applying for jobs. I turned down an offer from a consulting firm because that world didn't feel like the right fit for me. Some big law firms approached me, and I took a contract role at a firm while continuing my job search. I started a new role in data privacy at Cruise, a self-driving car company, the same week my Google severance ended, but a few months later I was laid off again.

I dove right back into the job search and have been at Amazon since December. So far, everything is good. People are very nice and welcoming here, and I love my team. I'm eight months pregnant and plan to take maternity leave, but I'll be back to work after that. I also launched a coaching business recently and will be producing a new podcast next year.

I have peace around how everything ended up. My advice to people is that if you are going into tech right now, you can't be someone who takes yourself extremely seriously. I have a huge sense of humor, and that gets me through a lot of things. Because my husband and I both work in tech, people assume that we must live large, but we don't. We share a Toyota and live with the knowledge that we are very fortunate to be in jobs we love, but it could all be gone tomorrow.

Lois (Kyongsook) Kim, 55, Seoul

Kim led Google's communications team in Korea for 12 years before moving to its Mountain View headquarters in 2019 to establish its international media team. She was the director of global communications prior to her 2023 layoff.

As a longtime Googler who'd been with the company through the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, I felt like I was safe. At first, I thought the layoff email I received was a scam. As reality began to set in, I got really angry; I'd been so loyal to Google. I loved working there and felt so proud to be there. I went through the five stages of grief and wondered, Why me? I got depressed. I'd look at my empty calendar and feel rejected, like nobody wanted me.

I began to see how I could use my severance package as an opportunity. I decided to do a "gap year" and wrote out a list of things I'd always wanted to do: work at Trader Joe's, be a barista, work at In-N-Out Burger, drive for Lyft or Uber, pet sit, work as a bartender. It made me feel really rejuvenated.

That first weekend, I applied to Trader Joe's. But on my first day, I had trouble walking in the door. I'd been the director at a big company, was a two-time published author, and had been featured on a top Korean talk show; I thought people would look down on me because of the Asian cultural concept of "saving face." It was an internal barrier I had to break through, and I did. By May, I was working three jobs at the same time for up to 70 hours a week — Trader Joe's, Starbucks, and Lyft whenever I had time — plus pet-sitting on an ad hoc basis.

I decided to write a book about my experience to motivate other people in the same situation as me. Being laid off is painful — even more so in Korean culture because people don't talk about it. I wanted to be an example and say, "It's not your fault, and you can make full use of your time and then move on."

After 18 months, I ended up moving back to Korea to be the chief brand officer at Hanmi Group, a pharmaceutical company. Things have changed a lot in the five years I was away, but I'm using my experience from 30 years in international companies and learning a lot from local companies. I've also found my customer support and marketing experience at Trader Joe's and Starbucks to be helpful. I hope to retire in the US. Trader Joe's has a really good internal transfer system, so I'd love to work for two years in San Francisco, then in Idaho, then in Florida, and so on, so that I can explore the States while making money.

I miss a lot about Google, but more about the early days when it felt like a family. The company grew and grew, and we had to lose some parts and focus on efficiency.

I did a good job of quickly processing and moving on after my layoff. In hindsight, I wonder why I didn't take a break to travel, but I know I would've been too worried to enjoy it. If I were to share advice with friends going through the same thing, I'd tell them not to feel too anxious, especially about things they can't control. Maybe the future is already ready, even though you don't know it.

Anonymous Google employee

A senior software engineer who was laid off in January 2024 secured another job at Google a few weeks later. They asked to be kept anonymous to protect their job security.

I was really happy at Google. For the most part, I think it strikes the right balance between productivity and work-life balance. I had to take medical leave for depression at another fast-paced Big Tech job I'd worked; at another job, things felt like they moved at a glacial pace. At Google, I didn't feel overwhelmed, yet also felt like I was delivering. It was definitely my favorite place I've worked.

Because of my history of depression, I was afraid that I'd go to suicidality if I was laid off, so I worked with my counselor to set up a well-defined game plan. When the layoff actually happened, it felt horrible — my worst fear coming true. If I were early in my career or if my child and wife didn't depend on me as the breadwinner, I probably would've thought, Nice! Good vacation and generous severance. But I was super anxious about what might happen if I didn't find a comparable job in the next four or five months before our cost of living exceeded the severance.

I had my résumé already prepped and a contact list of people to reach out to immediately, and I went into cortisol-fueled search mode. I reached out to a lot of connections for referrals and applied everywhere, both internally and externally. I checked the Google internal job posting site every day, but there weren't many open positions. I also applied to every relevant LinkedIn EasyApply position. I spent the rest of my time practicing LeetCode problems and reviewing past projects.

A few weeks later I got a response from one of my Google applications and set up a video call. A couple of days later, the manager told me they wanted to bring me on. My biggest priority was securing a job so I accepted, despite having advanced in the interview process at some other companies. The Google role also had some advantages, like maintaining my competitive compensation and giving me an opportunity to develop relevant skills and future-proof my qualifications.

Returning to Google, I feel more anxious and find it harder to focus. Before the layoffs, I had a sense of security, like I was in a really good industry that paid well and had lots of mobility. Now, I have this ever-present fear that the industry will shrink and become too competitive, or companies will choose to take efficiency gains from AI to cut costs. And I've lost trust in Google's leadership. The real responsibility for layoffs lies with upper middle management up to leadership, and I feel there's been essentially no accountability.

Still, I think coming back to Google was the best risk-averse decision. My plan worked well, and I think I went about things the best I could.

Sylvia Duran, 40, San Diego

Duran worked at Google for almost nine years in various roles, including as the first chief of staff to the VP of operations. She also headed YouTube Mexico during the pandemic. Prior to the 2023 layoff, she was the head of strategy and operations for YouTube's Latin American and Canadian markets.

The night before the layoff, I missed dinner with my family to take a strategy call with the creator marketing team based in Singapore. The next morning, I tried to check my work calendar before breakfast and it wouldn't load. People had been nervous about layoffs but thought low performers would be the only ones impacted. That's not what happened.

Once I realized my role had been eliminated, I started bawling. I'd given everything to the company, like so many of us, and it wasn't a possibility in my head that I would be laid off.

I gave myself the weekend to grieve. One of my best friends visited from Seattle to support me. Three days later, I started a podcast, an idea I'd been playing with for a while. I put my head down and worked on it as if it was a full-time job; I loved it. It was therapeutic. I talked a lot with guests about childhood circumstances and how they influence our careers and decision-making. I came from a working-class background, and after getting an Ivy League education, I saw how easy it was to get sucked into thinking, I can't take this other kind of job because what is it going to say about me? I was fortunate that I had enough severance that it took me pretty much through the end of the year.

I became more active on LinkedIn and told people I was looking for a job; before, I'd been a very private person who didn't like asking for help. A friend of a friend, despite not really knowing me, helped pass my résumé on to different leaders at Intuit. I had an informational call with one, and when an opportunity arose within his team, I was able to land the job. I've been really happy here — my manager is really supportive, and we're working on tough, interesting problems.

After working at Google for so long and seeing how it ended, I've been thinking about how I spend my time. Even though I love my job now, I haven't let it interfere with my other priorities, like carving out dedicated time for my two kids. I'm also still regularly publishing podcast episodes, and I recently joined a nonprofit board.

There were a couple of times when I considered leaving Google but didn't because of fear. My advice for people is to not make career decisions from a place of fear. Stay somewhere because you're passionate, not because you're afraid to try something else.

I don't regret that night before I was laid off when I missed dinner with my family to work; I was excited about the project and was trying to be mindful of people in other time zones. But now I know that my layoff decision had already been made at that point, and the company was comfortable having me work really late the night before they were going to lay me off. My advice to people is to make sure that when you're making these trade-offs, you're doing it with clear eyes.

Aaron Gabriel Neyer, 32, Boulder, Colorado

Neyer interned at Google during college and returned seven years later as a developer relations engineer, before being laid off in January 2023.

When I found out I was laid off, I felt almost a relief and a sense of openness. I suddenly had this blessing of a healthy severance to use to build what I wanted outside of Google.

I intermittently job-searched for a few months and almost joined an early-stage startup, but nothing quite landed. I also traveled a bit around the US, did a lot of reading and writing, and participated in a lot of community engagement. I have a thriving community here in Boulder and enjoy being in nature. I also became the executive director of a nonprofit I joined in 2022 called Consciousness Hacking Colorado — now relaunched as Woven Web — focused on facilitating harmony between technology, society, consciousness, and nature.

I've begun a second master's degree, this time in creative technology and design at the University of Colorado Boulder's Atlas Institute. I also ran for Boulder City Council. I didn't win, but the city council appointed me to the Human Relations Commission which has been great. We're working on issues of how to address tensions in our community, especially in relation to the Middle East conflict, and how we can bring about better dialogue to address these tensions.

I bike past the Google office a lot here in Boulder and often feel a tenderness in my heart. For all of the company's faults, there are many things that it does well, like the beautiful community of people who work there.

I don't have too many regrets in life. There are so many pathways, but the one that I'm on feels really beautiful. I'll go back into some form of full-time work at some point, but I'm not rushing to any decisions. For now, I feel stable enough to keep prioritizing learning and creating community, putting a lot of the gifts I received at Google to good use.

Eric Wages, 46, Massachusetts

Eric Wages worked at Google for 15 years in various roles and spent over a decade leading its third-largest data center campus. Before his 2023 layoff, he was the global program manager of the corporate real estate team.

I wasn't surprised by the layoff. I could see the tide turning a year in advance; people weren't working in the office, and yet we had many billions of dollars of office construction ongoing. I spent a lot of effort trying to convince leadership to pause construction, but my attempts weren't well-received.

I'd been laid off before and knew that layoffs aren't personal. Still, I went through the traditional stages of grief. I'm someone who has to live with a purpose, and my purpose evaporated when I received an impersonal layoff email that Friday morning.

I bought a whiteboard, put it behind my desk, and started trying to figure out what my purpose was now: What am I good at? Do I want to ever work for a large company again? I knew I never wanted to work with jerks again — I'm not saying I worked for many of them at Google, but there are many folks who are just a pain. I wanted the flexibility to work with people I enjoyed working with and help them solve problems — that's what I had always enjoyed as a leader.

Three months later, I started my own firm, Idealum Solutions. It's a mix of technical consulting, coaching, and understanding how people work, focused on data centers.

I'm thankful for the layoff, because I'd been in the golden handcuffs. I think I'd be miserable if I were still there today. And as much as I bemoan the golden handcuffs, they've served me well. My 15 years at Google set me up with a wonderful financial backstop, which has allowed me to be picky about how I work and what I charge.

Being an independent consultant and business owner is rewarding. When I couldn't find a contractor this summer to fix some things around the house, I was able to not actively seek new clients for a couple of months and just do it myself. It also allowes me to have a better relationship with my wife.

While I think Google could have done better with the layoff, there's no good way to lay off 12,000 people. Any manager who's had to terminate someone knows to expect the absolute worst. Multiply that by 12,000 — locking the doors and turning off the badge was, dare I say it, the best way.

But one way they could've done better was to ask for volunteers; I would've strongly considered leaving if an offer had been tendered. It was extremely frustrating to see the culture changing after being there for so long.

Shao Chun Chen, 38, Singapore

Chen joined Google in 2016 as an account manager for the company's Singapore advertisers and did a three-month rotation with Google's strategy and operations team in Silicon Valley in 2019. Prior to the 2024 layoffs, he was the head of small business ad sales for the Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan markets.

My last day at Google — my dream job — was on Valentine's Day this year, the day before my 38th birthday. Logically, I knew that industry ups and downs and turnover were pretty normal. Emotionally, though, it was tough. I had been there eight years; that's like an eight-year relationship. My initial reaction was pain and anger, driven by ego. I also compared myself to those who weren't laid off, feeling like I was better or more experienced or more loyal than they were.

I had a lot of sleepless nights and went through the grieving process. My wife was extremely supportive. The toughest part was knowing that the next day, the company just moved on. That was sort of a rude awakening.

I was given two months to look for other roles internally. I panicked and applied for every job available, hanging on for dear life to the possibility of still being able to call myself a Googler — a huge part of my identity. A couple of senior Google leaders graciously reached out about joining their teams, but I knew I wouldn't enjoy the roles and didn't want to do a bad job. When I turned them down, every part of my body was shaking.

I splurged on a solo snowboarding trip to Japan and spent time alone in the mountains. I'd wake up at night crying. There had been so much going on that once I gave my body and mind a bit of peace and space, it automatically went into recovery mode, which was very therapeutic.

I posted my first YouTube video in April. I wanted to share my layoff story to bring comfort and courage to others. Many people reached out to me saying things like, "I felt the same way," and "Even my therapist couldn't articulate how I'm feeling as well as you did." It feels like my calling is to help people have a healthier relationship with their careers and money, and my YouTube channel has grown since then. I've also launched a coaching and consulting business and teach at the National University of Singapore.

While I don't earn as much as I did working full-time, I make more per hour and have much more flexibility. I also achieved financial freedom several years ago, by growing my income from $80,000 to close to $300,000 at Google, saving and investing at least half of my paycheck, and being very conscious of my spending.

I wish I'd been more supportive of people that I used to work with who were laid off before me. While Google was and still is a huge part of my identity, I learned that there are really other parts of my life that I should nurture. Looking back, I'm grateful — I wouldn't have discovered this life was possible if not for the layoff.

Camila Ferraz, 34, San Francisco/Miami/Zurich

Ferraz started in sales at Google in São Paolo, Brazil, in 2011 after college, briefly left for another opportunity, and returned as an analytical lead in Google's San Francisco office. Prior to the 2023 layoffs, she was a senior product manager in Google's internal incubator, Area 120.

When I woke up that morning and saw the layoff email, I was so out of touch with reality that my first concern was that my team wouldn't be able to access a document I'd been up late working on the night before. It took a bit of time for me to realize, "Wait, I lost my job."

I jumped straight into practical things. A friend and former coworker who'd read about the layoffs told me she was hiring, so I jumped out of bed and did an interview, but I could hardly pay attention. I went back to Brazil for a week to be close to my childhood friends. For those of us in tech, it felt like the world was falling apart, but I'm from an island in the south of Brazil, and being there helped me keep that in perspective.

I ended up moving to Miami, where a lot of my friends had moved during the pandemic. Climate tech is one of my personal passions, and I took a remote consulting job with a nonprofit biodiversity lab based in Zurich for a few months.

On one of my trips to Zurich, I met my now-cofounder. Looking for a cofounder in the months prior was almost like dating — finding the right one was the most challenging part, and now that I have, it feels so right. Together, we incorporated biodiversityX, an AI-powered tech company providing real-time forest analytics, in Zurich.

Losing a job is traumatic, but it's humbling to think about how much Google transformed my life. It was such a good place to grow and develop as a leader, and I miss the culture, the food, and the people.

Before, I thought a career had to be very linear — one promotion after another; tomorrow needs to be bigger than yesterday. Today, I see things as a bit more fluid and view the layoff as a blessing in disguise. Being an entrepreneur — the degree of responsibility and the speed at which we can move — is so freeing and rewarding. The pieces are coming together, and I'm grateful to Google for being such a great school.

• Aaron Neyer joined Google in 2021 as an engineer after several years of self-discovery and nomadic living.
• In January 2023, he was one of over 12,000 employees laid off. He felt a sense of relief and openness.
• Neyer now leads a nonprofit, is involved with local government, and is pursuing a second master's degree.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Aaron Neyer, executive director of the nonprofit Woven Web and a former developer relations engineer at Google based in Boulder, Colorado. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I studied computer science in college and interned at Google after my junior year. I received a full-time return offer, but I wanted to travel and felt like going the startup route would give me a lot more flexibility.

My dad passed away around the time I graduated. I moved to San Francisco for a job, but a couple of months later, I realized I didn't want to confine myself full-time and quit.

I spent the next four years being basically nomadic — doing the free-spirited hippie thing. During that time, I lived off savings from my time working in tech, life insurance that I received when my dad passed, and a few wise crypto investments that I made.

I attended a lot of different gatherings such as music festivals, dance retreats, and meditation retreats, connecting with all kinds of people. It was a period of self-discovery as well as a time of finding healing around the grief from losing both of my parents, as my mom had died when I was younger.

I wanted to participate in the world more effectively

After a while, I decided I wanted to go back to participating in the world in a way that I felt to be more effective. I got a master's degree from Naropa University in ecopsychology to ground my philosophy around how change can happen and how we can create more connection in the world.

I missed the intellectual rigor, creativity, and financial stability of the tech world, so I applied to rejoin Google and started working there in May 2021 as a developer relations engineer. My work was 60% about coding and 40% about community relationships.

At Google, we were all able to use our "20% time" to work on something outside our main roles, and I spent mine doing work having to do with connecting people and climate. I was part of a grassroots climate community within Google called Anthropocene working on how we could focus more on climate solutions inside Google. I also worked on a little project called Project Nature, trying to bring ecopsychology ideas into Google's processes and products, as well as Flourish, a project in Google's startup incubator Area 120 aimed at helping people stay connected to one another.

After Flourish was cut from Area 120, I tried to find a way to get a head count and work on it full-time as an internal project, but it became clear to me that the tightening budget and constructs of Google weren't going to support that.

Just two weeks later, in January 2023, I was laid off. I felt almost a relief and a sense of openness. I suddenly had this blessing of a healthy severance to use to build what I wanted outside of Google.

I've been working on building community and strengthening connection

From March through May, I intermittently job-searched and almost joined an early-stage startup, but nothing quite landed. I wanted to do something meaningful and satisfying. I also traveled a bit around the US, did a lot of reading and writing, and participated in a lot of community engagement. I have a thriving community here in Boulder and enjoy being in nature, learning, and growing.

I became the executive director of a nonprofit I joined in 2022 called Consciousness Hacking Colorado and led its relaunch as Woven Web. We're an organization about facilitating harmony between technology, society, consciousness, and nature, and we place a lot of emphasis on helping people communicate and collaborate more effectively.

I also started exploring political engagement and ran for Boulder City Council. While I didn't win my race, the city council appointed me to the Human Relations Commission. It's been going great. I've been starting some conversations about how we address tensions in our community, especially in relation to the Middle East conflict, and we're beginning to make proposals about how we can bring about better dialogue in our city.

I'm also pursuing a second master's degree, this time in creative technology and design at the University of Colorado Boulder's Atlas Institute. It's been really fun growing my tech skills again in a creative way, with coding and generative art.

In October, Woven Web coordinated a 10-day event to connect people across different communities and ultimately create more coherence in Boulder. This also served as a launching point for us to raise some serious philanthropy and grant funding so that I can pay myself to be full-time executive director.

The path I'm on is beautiful

I don't have too many regrets in life. There are so many pathways, but the one that I'm on feels really beautiful. I feel I've lived a pretty full life since being laid off. I've been really excited to have plenty of space away from a core working environment, and now I'm really happy to be back to having a lot of structure in terms of Woven Web and school.

I'll go back into some form of full-time work at some point, but I'm not rushing to any decisions. For now, I feel stable enough to keep prioritizing learning and creating community, putting a lot of the gifts I received at Google to good use.

I bike past the Google office a lot here in Boulder and often feel a tenderness in my heart. I've even had tears well up before. For all of the company's faults, there are many things that it does well, like the beautiful community of people who work there. I have so much love for many of the people.

If you took an unconventional career path before or after Big Tech and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].

Adam Scott always knew he wanted to become an actor. He grew up in the '70s and '80s, the era of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, hooked by movies like "Star Wars," "Indiana Jones," and "E.T." As a kid, he gravitated toward watching or reading about movies and TV shows. "As I've become an adult and gotten older, I've developed other interests," he told me in an interview.

A few decades later, Scott, 51, is doing the work his childhood self dreamed of. As a sitcom fanatic myself, I know him best as the state auditor Ben Wyatt in "Parks and Recreation" and the demon Trevor in "The Good Place," but others may know him from his roles in Will Ferrell's comedy "Step Brothers," the cult phenomenon "Party Down," and the dark comedy series "Big Little Lies."

Most recently, Scott starred as Mark Scout in the critically acclaimed Apple TV+ drama "Severance," a role for which Scott received an Emmy nomination for outstanding lead actor in a drama series in 2022. The season-two return of "Severance" has been eagerly anticipated by fans and is set to begin January 17.

When he's not shooting scenes, Scott still has a full plate. He's hosted multiple band-themed podcast series with his fellow actor Scott Aukerman; campaigned for Kamala Harris in her 2024 presidential bid, which he shared on Instagram with his 1 million followers; hosted Ryan Reynolds' physical game show, "Don't"; started a production company called Gettin' Rad Productions with his wife, Naomi; and this year became the face of Philips Norelco.

I chatted with Scott about feeling as if he's never had an "I made it" moment, working with his wife on their production company, advice for his younger self, and his hopes for his kids' future.

Business Insider: You've previously mentioned that you spent the first 15 years of your career "hanging on by a piece of floss." Was there an "I made it" moment in your career when you finally realized you were floss-free?

Adam Scott: I don't have an "I made it" moment. I don't know if anyone ever does in show business. There's the constant fear in the back of your mind at the end of every job that you're never going to work again, and I think that's something that stays with you no matter what level you're at.

Getting "Parks and Rec" gave me some stability that I had never really experienced in my 15 years in the industry prior, but that stability still felt temporary, and I was ready for it to be snatched away at any moment.

I've had too many experiences over the years where things don't work out, and I think any actor has that feeling. Entertainment is so high stakes, but it's also low odds. It's a tough business; if you can make a living in entertainment, then you're lucky, but you're always kind of worried about what's around the next corner.

You're a real Renaissance man — hosting your podcast, doing brand partnerships, being politically involved, hosting a game show, and running your production company with your wife, Naomi. Does your decision to expand beyond acting stem from this search for stability or something else?

That's interesting — maybe that's part of it. I'd never really thought of it like that before, but you may be onto something.

I find producing satisfying because it relates directly to my and Naomi's interests. We love watching movies and shows — we have some differing tastes and also share certain tastes. Producing feeds directly into that because you get to shepherd projects along from something that may just be an idea and watch it grow and then be something that's actually out there in the world for people to hopefully enjoy. That's really satisfying.

Also, I find making the thing, and doing everything you can to try to make it better, satisfying and incredibly challenging.

It strikes me how different your "Severance" character Mark's life is from your own. Mark's personal and work lives are so separate, whereas yours are quite intertwined. Do you and Naomi have any rules you follow around mixing personal and work lives, or advice for other couples who work together?

My advice is to try it out before you dive in headfirst. Our first project together was a series of specials for Adult Swim. I directed them with a friend of mine, Lance Bangs, and Naomi and I produced it together. We ended up working really well together.

But you never know. You can have a perfectly healthy, strong marriage and not work together particularly well. We were ready for that, but it just turned out that we do work together really well and enjoy working together and getting to spend that time together.

That would be my advice: Try it out first — give it a maiden voyage and be ready to jump ship for the sake of your relationship.

Can you share the best and worst business decisions you've made in your time in Hollywood?

My partnership with Philips Norelco is something I'm proud of. They're lovely people, and believing in the product is also incredibly important. I was already an enthusiastic customer when this opportunity came together, so it felt like a natural fit.

As far as bad business decisions go, I'm always trying to avoid those. Sometimes you just have to take a flier and invest in something that you believe in, and it doesn't always work out. What people might think of as bad business decisions are sometimes just the cost of doing business.

If you could go back in time to the Adam who was hanging mid-floss, what advice would you give to your younger self?

I would advise young Adam to go out and live life a bit and not worry quite so much about his career, what's coming next, or what happened. I would advise him to get out into the world and experience it.

Looking forward 10 or 20 years from now, is there anything you definitely want to add to your list of accomplishments?

I'm watching my kids get older — they're teenagers now and my son's getting ready to go to college. When I look to the future, I think about them more than anything — what they're going to do and the world they're going to live in.

That's a large reason I get active politically whenever and wherever I do — thinking about what they will be living in. As far as the future goes, I'd like to maintain a living in entertainment, but mostly I'm concerned with my kids and their future.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

• Brennan Schlagbaum and his wife became millionaires in 2022 after paying off debt and investing.
• They set up 529, brokerage, and Roth IRA accounts for each daughter, which they contribute to monthly.
• Their goal is to leave each daughter with over $1 million by the time they are 30.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brennan Schlagbaum, a 32-year-old CPA and founder of Budgetdog, who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

My wife and I reached our goal of becoming millionaires in 2022, after five years of paying off over $330,000 in debt — including our house, cars, engagement rings, and student loans — and investing our money, largely in index funds.

We have two daughters — Logan is 3 years old, and Ellie is 1 — and when each of them was born, we set up three accounts which we put money into each month. Assuming 8% interest, their accounts should leave them each with $1,000,000 by the time they're 30. Compound interest is honestly the eighth wonder of the world; time is money.

Our goal with our investments for our daughters is to position them for success and give them opportunities that we may not have had growing up.

I don't want my kids to have a scarcity mindset

My wife and I both grew up middle class. In 2008, my family lost our house and cars, and I saw my parents change mentally. We still had food on the table and access to education, but I could tell things were tight and I felt a sense of scarcity that has stuck with me.

I don't want my kids to feel that way about money. I grew up being told that if I did a chore, I'd make X dollars. Then, I'd have to put, say, $2 toward saving, $1 toward charity, and could have $2 for spending. It was a good lesson, but it also fed into my scarcity mindset.

I want my daughters to realize that value creation is more important than trading time for money — I learned this when I moved from my 9-to-5 at Deloitte to being an entrepreneur — so I try to get away from the hourly or shift work structure with them and think about how I can help them have an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity mindset.

I want my kids to be trust fund babies who see money as a tool

I'm not of the belief that you should just hand your kids money. I think that creates what most people view as a "trust fund baby" who wastes their family's money, and that's not what I want.

But I do want a trust fund baby in a different way — in the sense that they understand the principles and responsibility that come with money and what they can do with it, treating it as a tool rather than as a god. How someone chooses to use money shows who they are as a person, so we feel that grounding our daughters' characters is essential. We think charity is really important, for example, and we want that to all be included in our daughters' understanding of money.

I think it's a really good idea for my kids to understand how much I make and how much we spend. They're young right now, so they don't understand the technical elements, but I think it's worth explaining things to them so they can adopt our culture around money.

If Logan came to me and said, "Hey, my friends are going to the park. Can I have 10 bucks?", I'd have a conversation with her about what she needs the money for and teach her not to spend it recklessly. I'd ask her to think about whether she values what she's spending it on.

Here are the three accounts we have for our daughters

We typically put a total of around $500 a month into each child's accounts and plan to increase our monthly contributions to $1,333 a month for each child when they turn 7 as we pay them more for helping with my business.

529 plan

The 529 plan is for their education. My wife and I want to contribute 60% of the cost of a four-year public in-state college and to have them take accountability and cover the other 40%, whether it be through scholarships, working, or other methods. Using Vanguard's college cost calculator, we decided to put $250 a month into each of the girls' 529 accounts.

But we also don't want them to get a college degree just because we saved up money for them. I went to college totally clueless because my parents told me to, and I don't want my children to repeat that same cycle. We want them to ask themselves, What do I want to get out of life?

Also, our older daughter was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome when she was five months old, so we don't know whether college will be on the table for her. Because of that, we decided to switch to putting all $500 a month into her brokerage account until we better understand what her future will look like.

Taxable brokerage account

The second type of account we have for both of our daughters is a taxable brokerage account. They're both in my wife's and my names, but we'll be able to give the money to our kids when the opportunities arise.

According to the IRS's gift tax law for 2025, we're allowed to gift up to $19,000 per spouse per kid without paying taxes, so we could technically give them each $38,000 a year from this investment account. Currently, we put $250 a month for Ellie and $500 for Logan. If they receive money from grandparents or family for holidays, I typically deposit that amount as a lump sum into their brokerage accounts as well.

We want to let the money that's being invested for them grow for quite some time, so they probably won't touch the brokerage account money until they're 22 and fully in the adult world.

Roth IRA

The Roth IRA is for retirement purposes and requires earned income. Our daughters are young and don't have much income, but I pay them for the photoshoots they do for my business. It's nothing crazy — maybe $200 to $400 a year. Logan has $1,200 in her Roth IRA at the age of three and Ellie has $200.

Many parents think, "Well, my kids are too young to work, and they don't have earned income, so we can't set up a Roth IRA for them." The only requirement is to have earned income, and there are a number of ways they can do so.

I'd rather give my kids now than wait until I die

I think it's silly to wait to give our kids money. If someone gets a big lump sum when their mom or dad passes away, they often look at it as this big gift, almost like winning the lottery. They often don't treat it as a tool and instead live on a yacht and party and do nothing.

Instead, I think it's better to give it to our kids now, so that we can teach them how to treat money and how saving and investing has given them opportunities.

If you'd like to share the steps you're taking to prepare for your children's financial futures, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].

• Mike Manalac has worked in the tech hubs of San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Chicago since 2016.
• He says each place has its strengths, but Chicago is the best place for raising a family.
• Chicago offers Manalac and his family the perfect balance career, affordability, and family life.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mike Manalac, a 39-year-old accounting manager at Google. It's been edited for length and clarity.

Over the past eight years, I've worked in the tech scenes of San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Chicago. The three places couldn't be more different in terms of lifestyle, and they've each appealed to me for different reasons.

Here's how the three places compare:

San Francisco is fun but not for the faint of heart

I moved to San Francisco in 2016 to pursue world-class career opportunities and adventure. I'd spent the past eight years as an audit manager in Baltimore and the cross-country move was a big change for me.

As someone with ambitious career goals, San Francisco was the mecca of opportunity, so I joined PwC to get closer to Bay Area tech jobs. Some of the world's most innovative companies were basically next door, and their corporate headquarters lined the city's blocks like Lego bricks.

I once interviewed at Salesforce's headquarters while on my lunch break since it was only a few blocks away from PwC. When doing phone screens for Uber, Twitter, and Dolby, I knew I'd be able to walk over to their offices for an on-site interview at a moment's notice.

As a young professional with limited life responsibilities, San Francisco turned out to be the perfect place to live fast and loose. The social scene was amazing — a night out for drinks could mean stopping by a speakeasy with no sign, sipping a mai tai on a floating tiki bar, or drinks served from a bathtub at a bar the size of a walk-in closet.

San Francisco also has the best park scene in the country; I've yet to find a better party than a regular Saturday afternoon at Dolores Park.

It's also a walkable city. For the first time in my adult life, I was car-free. The city was full of trendy coffee shops, unique bars and restaurants, and charming neighborhoods to explore.

But living in San Francisco also isn't for the faint of heart. Outside of coworkers, my then-fiancée (and now wife) and I found it incredibly challenging to make friends; everyone seemed to assign others a level of importance based on where they lived and worked. I also would've needed an absurd amount of wealth to purchase a home and raise a family there.

I felt that the city's biggest blemish, though, was the seedy Tenderloin district, which sits smack dab in the middle of downtown. I had to walk through the neighborhood to catch a corporate shuttle bus to work, and I saw my fair share of sketchy characters and shady dealings at the time.

Silicon Valley's career opportunities were unmatched

Later that year, I started working in Silicon Valley after I joined Walmart's eCommerce division in San Bruno. And the following year, I landed a job as an accounting manager at Google's Sunnyvale campus.

Silicon Valley offers the coolest places to work and its career opportunities are unmatched. I was amazed by the sprawling corporate campuses. Walking through Facebook's invite-only campus, which is like a walled garden city, and down its main street, Hacker Way, I was in awe. In nearby Mountain View, I couldn't believe how nearly every building in the city was branded with Google's logo.

I saw corporate buses and colorful bikes whizzing around and young professionals with corporate badges on their hips and branded backpacks on their backs.

While Silicon Valley may be the tech capital of the world, I'd never live there. For one thing, I couldn't afford it; the cookie-cutter neighborhoods of Silicon Valley are reserved for millionaires and the hillside mansions for billionaires. I, on the other hand, commuted from San Francisco via corporate shuttle bus.

But I wouldn't have wanted to live there anyway. The social scene was dead, the city wasn't walkable, and the nightlife was nonexistent. Nobody I knew went to happy hour after work, restaurants closed early, and most people only lived there because of the proximity to work.

Chicago has a down-to-earth social scene and affordable, family-friendly neighborhoods

I moved to Chicago with my wife in 2019, transferring to Google's Chicago office. The cost of living in Chicago was much cheaper, my commute would be shorter, and we'd be closer to her family in Michigan and mine in Maryland.

Chicago doesn't have the buzzy tech scene or beautiful weather of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, but it's no slouch when it comes to career opportunities. More Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Chicago than in almost every other city in the US, and the job opportunities are much more diverse than what you'll find in the tech-centric San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

From Google's office in Chicago's West Loop, I can see McDonald's global headquarters down the street and a number of other premier employers dotting the city skyline.

Chicago is a city that likes to party, making San Francisco look sleepy by comparison. Bars don't close until 2 a.m., with some staying open until 4 a.m. Chicago's Lake Michigan beach scene is much livelier than that of San Francisco. But the social scene also has a down-to-earth vibe; people are Midwest nice and seem to live at a more casual pace.

The best part about Chicago is the moderate cost of living. I was able to afford a three-unit home with rental potential in Chicago for $830,000 — a price I'd never find in San Francisco — that's in a walkable neighborhood. It's the perfect blend of family-friendly city life. Our three-year-old son loves taking the train home from daycare and running wild at one of the city's many playgrounds.

I think Chicago is the best of the three places to start a family

After working in these three awesome places, I've realized that even the best cities have their flaws.

San Francisco has the coolest social scene and overall vibe, but it's one of the worst cities for settling down because of its high costs.

Silicon Valley offers the best career opportunities, but its social scene is lacking since everything there is about work, work, work.

Chicago is the best of the three locations to start a family due to its affordability and comfortable pace of life, but it's not quite as cool as San Francisco and can't match the career opportunities offered in Silicon Valley.

Overall, though, it's hard to beat Chicago's mix of career opportunities, vibrant social scene, and opportunities to start a family.

If you've moved around for work and would like to share your experiences of different cities, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].

• Swami Sivasubramanian is the VP of AI and Data at Amazon Web Services.
• He shares how while AI may cause short-term job displacement, it offers long-term productivity gains.
• He suggests that workers use AI to take over mundane tasks so they can do more valuable work.

The era of generative AI has arrived, bringing both promise and caution. Many people are wondering if AI can coexist peacefully and productively alongside a broad human workforce with diverse talents, skills, and abilities.

I believe that AI isn't coming to take away jobs — it's coming to take away tasks. 80% of employees' time is consumed by low-value, repetitive, time-intensive, uninteresting tasks, while only 20% gets devoted to the more interesting activities that generate higher value for the organization.

What if we could flip that ratio? What if we could free humans to solve, build, and create? That's what I believe AI can do. In the process, this new AI paradigm can unlock the value of an accelerated and more fulfilling career. I strongly believe that what we invent today can lead to a profound impact on the world — changing industries and people's lives.

Marie Kondo-ing with AI

Thoughtfully deployed, generative AI can remove drudgery and help people find more meaning in their work. It can free you to work on the parts of your job that are more interesting and more valuable — the reasons you got into your profession in the first place.

I think the Marie Kondo principle applies: If the task doesn't spark joy, let AI take it from you. Our goal must be to kindle (or rekindle) our joy, to bring out curiosity and creativity, and to reimagine what's possible, now that we're no longer burdened with an assortment of mundane tasks. In a sense, AI can give each of us a job promotion, not be a job replacement.

There will be short-term displacement but it will self-correct

Of course, the widescale adoption of Gen AI will have impacts and implications, and it would be foolhardy to ignore them. Increased productivity and greater cost efficiencies will inevitably lead to short-term workforce displacement — for example, contact centers with faster resolution times need fewer workers.

However, I believe that AI will also play a self-correcting role in such a macroeconomic picture. Efforts must be made to close wage disparities and potential economic or opportunity gaps. Community colleges should offer guided and hands-on training to ensure AI is accessible to the broadest areas of our workforce. Similarly, technology companies must offer low-cost or free training and certification programs to promote AI's widespread adoption and use.

I believe AI can cut the time for this upskilling process in half and foresee a world where nearly anyone can be an app builder and creator or where a junior technician can do senior-level repairs.

Decisions should still be made by humans

Whether it's conversational search, agent assistants, image creation, or other forms of intelligent automation, AI becomes a supportive foundation that translates into time — time to evaluate, investigate, strategize — and solves problems.

AI will give us access to a nearly limitless set of highly accurate, data-driven predictions. Nonetheless, decisions shouldn't be automated. They should remain the sole province of humans, who have a better understanding of tradeoffs, nuances, and strategies.

Here are some examples of how humans can work alongside AI:

• Customer Care: Gen AI can provide agents with personalized, real-time responses and prompts based on customer questions and interactions. Agents then exercise their judgment to use them.
• Manufacturing Design: Engineers can use AI to create digital twins to simulate interactions and their effects with far greater speed and far less expense before they decide on a design.
• Consumer Behavior: Gen AI can predict the preferences and responses of groups or individual buyers. This will allow marketers to focus on how to optimize campaigns and offers.
• Drug Discovery: With Gen AI, scientists can slash the time required for drug discovery, accelerate therapy development, and find vaccines that are cheaper and more accessible.
• Media: By automating the difficult art and production aspects of games and entertainment, Gen AI frees designers to create and ideate more. It can even create personalized gaming experiences.
• Financial Services: Gen AI can strengthen fraud detection and compliance while increasing the efficiency of loan officers making lending decisions.

By being able to focus on decisions and outcomes, we unlock new creativity that we can channel to solving bigger and harder problems. With this new era of generative AI discovery, there has never been a better time to transform businesses and work as we know it.

Dr. Swami Sivasubramanian is the Vice President of AI & Data at AWS. His team's mission is to help organizations leverage the power of AI and data to solve their most urgent business needs.

If you're an AI expert and would like to share your opinions on the impact of AI on the future of work, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].

• Alex Li lives in Dover, Delaware, which is 55 miles from where his wife and daughter reside.
• Spending time away from his family so that he could work on his startup has led to guilt and regret.
• Rather than fixating on those feelings, Li focuses on what he can do to be there for his family.

As a 34-year-old founder, husband, and dad, Alex Li is away from his family more than he'd like to be. He lives in Dover, Delaware, where his AI education company is based, while his nine-year-old daughter and his wife live 55 miles away in Wilmington, Delaware with his wife's parents.

Li decided to live in Dover because the daily commute between the two cities would be over two hours, which isn't feasible given his workload.

"Although my family is very supportive of my work and understands the fact that I have to leave home for work, I still often feel very sorry and guilty," Li said.

He was only able to return home occasionally in the launch years

Li launched his company StudyX in 2021. "It was a very hard time," he said, as he worked until 2 or 3 a.m. every day while trying to find investors and grow his team. "Apart from sleeping and eating, almost all of my time was devoted to this project," Li said. "Even though Wilmington and Dover aren't far apart, it was still hard for me to make time for my family."

At the time, his daughter was in kindergarten. His wife, who worked remotely for around 20 hours a week and had more flexibility, shouldered the childcare with the help of her parents.

During those launch years, Li was only able to make the hourlong drive home once every week or two for about half a day and on holidays.

"I could only work harder to complete the project as soon as possible, while also ensuring that my family didn't have to worry too much about the finances," he said.

Video updates helped, but guilt would still flare up

To help bridge the gap, his wife sent him daily video updates of their daughter. "My daughter was really cute, and she sometimes sang me her newly learned nursery rhymes," Li said. He would squeeze in time during lunch or dinner to reply and sometimes send short videos or pictures back to them.

But when Li's daughter asked him when he'd be coming home, when he could pick her up from school, or if he could stay at home for a few more days on his next visit, his feelings of guilt flared up.

"Every time my wife sent me messages telling me our kid had made a new friend at kindergarten or learned some new words, I got a complex feeling of happiness, guilt, and regret," Li said.

Men should take on more family responsibilities, Li said

Some of Li's male friends didn't understand why he felt guilty. "The traditional idea that men leave home for work to earn money and women stay at home and take care of children is still deeply rooted in some Asian cultural backgrounds," Li said.

Once, when Li told a friend how he felt terrible for being unable to do something with his daughter, his friend said she would understand and be grateful once she was older.

Although Li appreciated the friend's attempt at comfort, "it sounded like an excuse to avoid facing the situation," Li said.

Li feels that men should take on more family and childcare responsibilities. When he's home, he helps tackle household chores and prioritizes quality time with his daughter.

If his wife needs a break, Li's daughter stays with him in Dover while his wife takes a vacation. "I'll bring my daughter to the office and spend all day together," Li said. "All of our team members know that we're 24/7 inseparable best friends."

Actions speak louder than guilt

Rather than being caught up in guilt and the mental whiplash of his situation's shortcomings, Li focuses on what he can do.

For example, he made good on a promise to bring his daughter to Universal Studios Singapore on his first day after finishing a big project. "My daughter was incredibly excited since it had been years since we traveled together as a family," Li recalled.

His favorite memory was watching the sunset at the beach after their day at Universal. "There's something special about those quiet, uninterrupted moments together as a family," he said. "We could just be present with each other."

While Li still feels bad about the time he's missed with his family, he's committed to making more time for them and has promised his daughter that they'll travel abroad together every year. This year, they took a trip to Spain.

"I make sure to write down promises to my daughter to keep track, so I don't forget in the midst of a busy schedule," Li said.

He now has more time to spend with his family

After three years of around-the-clock work, Li's startup has grown and his team has expanded, giving him a lighter workload and more flexibility. While he's still based in Dover, he's been spending more time with his family over the past two months, working remotely from home in Wilmington several days a week.

"While I still need to work regularly with my team in Dover, I can now guarantee two or three days a week to go home to Wilmington and spend time with my family," Li said. "There, I can take on the responsibilities of being a son, husband, and father."

He's been able to be more involved in responsibilities like picking his daughter up from school, helping with homework, and looking after his wife's parents. He also has more quality time to spend with his wife. "If she faces any challenges, she no longer has to handle them on her own," Li said. "We can share the load and support each other."

Li isn't certain how well this ideal schedule will work, as he still needs to have some in-person meetings, has to travel to meet with team members and users based globally, and knows he'll have busy work periods in the future.

"All in all, no matter what changes my career will have, I'll try to squeeze more time to be with my family," he said.

For others in his situation, Li's advice is to focus on actions rather than thoughts. "We all feel guilty or sorry for not spending time with our families, but more importantly, we need to take action to make up for it," Li said.

If you struggle with parental guilt as you balance family with career and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].