• 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].

• Samantha Shih sold her custom clothing company 9Tailors to join LookSky as chief brand officer.
• Shih founded 9Tailors in 2008, growing it through challenges like the financial crisis and pandemic.
• Her C-suite role both doubled her salary and allowed her to balance her work and family life.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Samantha Shih, a 43-year-old chief brand officer from Boston. It's been edited for length and clarity.

After graduating from Brown University in 2003, I worked as a consultant at Deloitte for three years before spending a year in China. There, I started making custom clothing, which inspired me to open a custom suiting and shirting company. I founded 9Tailors in Boston in 2008.

Launching a business was challenging because I had little experience in retail and fashion and had to learn everything from scratch. I had some business strategy knowledge from working at Deloitte but didn't have operational knowledge.

I learned and grew the company for 14 years. In 2022, I sold 9Tailors and jumped ship to work for a startup.

Launching a company in 2008 was tough

I had a lot of friends who were getting laid off, but I was optimistic. You can only go up from the bottom, so I thought it was an excellent time to start a business.

The company started online, keeping no inventory and making everything to order. This allowed us to identify our target customer — young professional males looking to dress up for work or weddings.

We've been profitable since year two, winning awards and garnering press until the pandemic threw everything off track. Running a high-touch custom clothing company that needed in-person contact and relationships was stressful. We pivoted toward making masks and sold out immediately.

Around this time, my brother called me one day out of the blue

My brother told me his former boss was advising LookSky — an Asian direct-to-consumer fashion brand looking to enter the US market — and they wanted to speak to a fashion industry expert. I had no set expectations for these calls — I enjoy helping people and sharing industry and fashion insights.

What started as one call turned into three or four calls. I met with the chairman, CEO, and the rest of the C-suite team. The company's chairman asked if I was interested in joining them.

I had to think about it. 9Tailors was never busier after the pandemic; there was so much pent-up demand for suits, shirts, and dressing up, and our revenue kept growing.

Two things made the decision easy for me

LookSky allowed me six months to transition out of my business and design my dream job description from scratch. Although I suggested the position of creative director, they offered to hire me as the chief brand officer. I was pleasantly surprised they wanted me at the C-suite level.

I loved running my own business but wanted to make more impact, so the opportunity arose at the optimal time. At LookSky, I would have the opportunity to scale a personalized experience to potentially millions of users.

Also, I had my first child in 2017 and wanted to spend more time with him instead of working crazy retail hours. I had started feeling worn down.

I accepted their offer and nearly doubled my salary at 9Tailors.

Balancing both jobs for a while was tough

During the six-month transition, I worked about eight hours daily, six days a week on 9Tailors. Then, after my son went to bed, I dedicated time to LookSky, often for team meetings or marketing and branding projects. I thrive on being busy, so it was manageable.

LookSky asked me to sell my business, but I couldn't talk about it until we signed the papers and closed because it could destabilize my clients and team if it didn't go through.

The final sale was to my CMO. Even though several businesses expressed interest in buying, I preferred to sell to someone who knew the company, our clients, and how we operate.

My last day at 9Tailors was the same day I announced my departure and the sale of the business to the team. To help transition, my husband, who worked at the company for a good chunk of the 14 years that I did, stayed on for another six months.

I work remotely for LookSky, as most of my team is in Asia

Working remotely was initially a shock because I'm an extrovert who loves being around people, but one of the biggest advantages is having more control over my schedule.

Mornings and evenings are typically dedicated to team calls. Afternoons provide a window for productive personal time — I might work out, dive into a business book (I'm reading "Good to Great" by James C. Collins), or listen to a startup or tech podcast like Lenny's Podcast, Hard Fork, or How I Built This. Best of all, I can attend my son's events and activities.

Last summer, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which was a shock

After hearing of my diagnosis, my team could not have been more supportive, telling me to take as much time as needed. I like being busy and productive, and work actually allowed me some reprieve.

I've found a company that nurtures my strengths and encourages and supports me in learning new skills. I'm surrounded by bright people who motivate me to do my best work. I've grown and developed tremendously.

I don't miss running 9Tailors, though I'm incredibly grateful for the experience. While I might consider running another startup in the distant future, I'm genuinely happy with where I've landed.

Have you been poached and want to share your story? Email Lauryn Haas at [email protected].

• Stephen Wu transitioned from tech to finance, starting a hedge fund with $10 million.
• Wu's experience at Amazon and Microsoft taught him efficiency and managing technical debt.
• He said trading is more fun and more money than tech.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Stephen Wu, a 29-year-old hedge fund manager from New York. It's been edited for length and clarity.

If you ask Alexa to play Taylor Swift, my team built the system that recommends similar songs to listen to afterward.

I studied computer science and philosophy at Carnegie Mellon during college and always thought I would work in engineering. I applied to work at Amazon during my senior fall semester in college and started at Amazon Alexa right after graduating. I was hired as a software engineer in Seattle, creating and building the music recommendation system and overseeing a team of three engineers.

It was a good mix of my passion for music and engineering, but eventually, I left Amazon for Microsoft and then left tech to start a hedge fund with about 80 investors.

I raised almost $10 million from friends, family, high-net-worth individuals, influencers, and others in the hedge fund space that first year. I still love engineering, but hedge funds make money, so they're much more fun.

Amazon taught me how to prioritize and be efficient

Working at Amazon, I learned that its ethos differs from other tech companies.

Google and Meta are more engineering-focused. Microsoft aims to build the best tool for the customer, even if it takes extra time. Amazon, on the other hand, seeks to make things fast.

Instead of building it right the first time, Amazon allowed me to create the minimum viable product usable to meet the deadline. While working there, I learned a lot about prioritization and efficiency.

Still, after about three years, I wanted to explore new roles. A Microsoft recruiter reached out to me via LinkedIn. I took the call and was intrigued by their offer of an engineering-heavy business role. I would work directly with engineers to build and plan the machine translation system used by Microsoft Azure.

I liked the opportunity to combine my strengths in engineering and business for this role, so I accepted it in 2020.

I learned a lot in tech and used it to launch my hedge fund career

I loved working at Microsoft and worked there for about three years. In my free time, I dabbled in hedge funds, which are any fund using a non-traditional investment style.

One crucial learning takeaway that helped me in my future endeavors was technical debt — if you build something too quickly and take shortcuts, you may spend twice the time just fixing the bugs.

I can tell if a product wasn't built right or if it might incur additional unforeseen costs that other hedge fund managers may not know about. Also, because I built statistical models and AI algorithms recommending songs to users at Amazon Alexa Music, I understand the statistical behavior of price movements. This allows me to take a more data-driven, probabilistic approach to trading, while most fund managers focus on financials.

After 6 years, I left Big Tech for the finance industry

I specifically invest in options trading after volatile events. I always loved it, but I never thought I could do it full-time.

Along the way, I discovered a very lucrative strategy for trading in a specific niche in the options market. I did this for fun with my portfolio through 2020 and 2022. It was during the pandemic in 2022 that I realized that NASDAQ was down 33%. That year, I proved my strategy in a bear market and felt confident enough to pursue this as a serious career.

For years, my friends and family asked to invest with me, and I was finally comfortable trading with their money. I left Microsoft in April 2023 to work on the hedge fund full-time. I worked extremely hard during my first year of fundraising and trading simultaneously and was very stressed.

Fundraising was difficult initially, but I allowed investors to try with a small amount first and see the returns for themselves. The minimum amount to invest is $100,000.

I love trading and plan to do it forever

Since our trades are weekly, I allowed them to withdraw any week if the performance was poor. This was highly unusual and risky for hedge funds because they could withdraw any week, and my fund would die. However, I was confident I could perform. After several months of good performance, many of my investors doubled or tripled their investments.

And now, more folks continue to invest through word-of-mouth.

I aim to grow this to a $100 to $200 million fund in the next few years. It's just me, so it's a lot of work, although I have part-time analysts helping. Once reaching $100 million, I can hire more analysts and expand the strategy.

I love trading. It's fascinating because it's like solving a puzzle every single day. As an engineer, I was making a solid six figures a year. It depends on how much profit I generate this year, but if my fund is $15 million and I achieve the 30% yearly profit target, I'll make $1.2 million.

I enjoyed solving complex engineering challenges, but trading offers a more dynamic, fast-paced environment and I plan to do this for the rest of my life.

If you left Big Tech for another industry and would like to tell your story, please email Manseen Logan at [email protected].

• Jessika Roso Malic got a job as a stewardess for Emirates in 2010.
• She moved from Phoenix to Dubai and worked there for six years.
• Malic said life in Dubai was glamorous, but she got burned out at work and missed parts of Phoenix.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jessika Ros Malic, a former Emirates stewardess from Phoenix, about living in Dubai. It's been edited for length and clarity.

Moving to Dubai was a whirlwind. In 2010, I heard that Emirates was hiring. After going through the interview process, they notified me of acceptance in April, and I moved to Dubai in August with my life packed up in two and a half suitcases.

It was my first time over the Atlantic.

There were so many international businesses and restaurants that it was almost as if the entire globe was in one city. That's what I loved most about Dubai — the many different cultures in one place.

Living there was a crash course in global interactions. But I moved back home to Phoenix permanently in 2017.

I had a glamorous life in Dubai and loved traveling

Upon arriving, Emirates housed me in an apartment. I had two and a half months of intense training before starting a hectic work schedule. My monthly schedule was only released at the end of each previous month. This meant I could only plan my life for a month at a time, and I was rarely in town.

When I was home, I spent much of my time socializing. Working 11-hour shifts was difficult, and back then, all there was to do in Dubai was party, go to bars, and shop.

You could go anywhere and meet people from, say, 10 countries speaking 15 languages. It's a fascinating city because only about 20% are local nationals, and 80% are a complete mix of expats of other nationalities. Temperature-wise, Dubai is comparable to Phoenix, but Dubai is much more humid because of the ocean.

Once in a while, we'd go out to the desert.

Some things were better in Phoenix

I missed that there was much more to do in Phoenix besides nightlife, such as hiking, visiting nature preserves, camping, museums, festivals, and more.

In Dubai, I found it impossible to get anything done over the phone. There was also no address system back then. I had no idea how their local mail system worked and never learned how to mail something to anyone living there.

We took taxis everywhere as they were affordable, and the lack of addresses meant you had to know exactly where you were going. If it wasn't a well-known location or destination, I often had to tell the driver to head to landmarks or direct them exactly where to go.

We're so spoiled in Phoenix. We live on a grid, so you can easily get from one place to another. In Dubai, it's like someone took some crayons, swirled them on a page, and said, "This is the highway system."

My job gave me perks, but the physical toll was too much

Luckily for me, housing was provided for Emirates crew members. Another perk is the live-out allowance — a stipend for living away from home. Because of Emirates, Dubai was affordable for me.

At the same time, I was sick every month and got food poisoning at least three times a year. The physical toll made me tired of flying, and I just wanted to go home. I met my husband in Dubai and married in 2013. He was also ready to move, so we explored purchasing property in Phoenix.

Moving back to Phoenix made me happy

We bought our first house during a visit back home to Phoenix in 2015, although we didn't move back permanently until early 2017. It was located in South Phoenix in a new development and was a dream find.

Our home was 2,500 square feet, close to the freeways, had a three-car garage, and had four bedrooms. We paid $187,000 cash with my husband's parents' help. I loved that house, but we eventually sold it after we divorced this year.

I miss my glamorous days of traveling and living in Dubai, but I'm happy to be settled and close to friends and family in Phoenix. These days, I'm working as a communications and events manager at a nonprofit, and the work is satisfying.

If you moved out of the US for a dream job and want to tell your story, please email Manseen Logan at [email protected].