Time vs Money Tradeoffs

The dialogue surrounding the tradeoff between time and money highlights a fundamental tension between the pursuit of high-tier luxury and the preservation of one’s personal life and health. While some argue that achieving true financial security requires millions in passive income to "future-proof" a family, others contend that happiness is often found far below peak tech salaries, especially when higher pay requires the "soul-crushing" cost of corporate politics. This debate extends into the professional realm, where several commenters warn that neglecting physical well-being for career advancement is a "high-interest loan" on the body that inevitably leads to burnout. Ultimately, the prevailing sentiment suggests that while money provides comfort and options, time eventually emerges as the more valuable currency, requiring professionals to shift from mindless accumulation to more intentional living.

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This is what I really don’t get about these types of folks. Do they really want to remember their life’s work as “kissing ass and playing politics”? I get the “work to live” and all that, but you’re basically tossing away half your life…for what, money? How much money do you need!?

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Well you can "work to live" in a nice big house, with a nanny, eating steaks, flying business class to ski in the alps or scuba in the Galapagos... I think it takes a lot of money before you feel like you don't need more money.

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Not at all. Most people can be super happy with less than the average tech salary (at a point where they don't feel they need more if it comes at the expense of work life balance, time with family, job satisfaction, etc).

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I’ll never understand this WHY X - BECAUSE Y - WELL Y IS TOO MUCH, Z IS MORE THAN ENOUGH comment trifecta. Obviously a lot of people are not super happy, otherwise they wouldn’t kiss asses and play politics to get more money.

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Other than the big house, which can easily be achieved in much of the country, nothing in the list above incentivizes me to either work harder or kids ass.

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Sure, lots of people don't care about those things and therefore don't shape their careers to get them. But some do, and that's what we're talking about.

Though to be clear I should have said "it can take a lot of money..."

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> …for what, money? How much money do you need!?

"more" seems to be the answer to many.

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Depends where you want to live, but $5M to $10M would help with enough passive income to future proof one’s family and their kids.

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Why not both?

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This is OP's lesson 20: Eventually, time becomes worth more than money. Act accordingly.

I’ve watched senior engineers burn out chasing the next promo level, optimizing for a few more percentage points of compensation. Some of them got it. Most of them wondered, afterward, if it was worth what they gave up.

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I don't disagree with you, except that a career can stagnate. Maybe you are already working in your ideal role, solving cool problems every day. Maybe moving up the ladder nets you more money but less of what you actually want in life.

Less a comment for yourself and more for the reader by the way. It is important to know what you want and strive for that.

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Broad strokes: absolutely. The practical reality gets tricky, though. All programming abstractions are imperfect in some regard, so the question becomes what level of imperfection can you tolerate, and is the benefit worth the cost?

I think a lot of becoming a good programmer is about developing the instincts around when it’s worth it and in what direction. To add to the complexity, there is a meta dimension of how much time you should spend trying to figure it out vs just implement something and correct it later.

As an aside, I’m really curious to see how much coding agents shift this balance.

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The quote "Sorry this letter is so long, I didn't have the time to write a shorter one" (Mark Twain, Blaise Pascal, lots of debate) sticks with me over the years. I appreciated the several points from Addy supporting this idea: when writing code has never been easier and faster, it takes even more time to make sure that the code being written is truly useful and necessary.

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I wish people who ship crappy software didn't ship it and would let someone else ship something better instead.

It really sucks when the first mover / incumbent is some crappy half assed solution.

But unfortunately we live in a world where quality is largely irrelevant and other USPs are more important. For example these little weekend projects that become successful despite their distinct lack of quality

Linux kernel - free Unix.

JavaScript - scripting in browser

Python - sane "perl"

Today on GitHub alone you can probably find 100 more featured and higher quality projects than any of these were when they launched but nobody cares.

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My personal rule is that the new technology stack item needs to either make is possible for me to build something that I couldn't have built without it, or needs to provide a productivity boost significant enough to overcome the productivity lost by straying from the more familiar path - even harder for team projects where multiple people need to learn the new component.

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I've never needed to sell myself. $corp will advertise needing a contractor and you apply as usual. If you have the skills and experience you tend to get hired.

The only difference is you don't get job security, pension or any perks. But you do get a lump sum though. Where you can then decide what's best.

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Lesson 11 (Abstractions move complexity) and Lesson 20 (Time > Money) are two sides of the same coin.
In engineering, we talk about "leaky abstractions" in our code. But the biggest leaky abstraction is often our own health. We treat our bodies as a "boring dependency" that will always work, but burnout and RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) are essentially the ultimate system outages.
Just as "Novelty is a loan" (Lesson 5), neglecting your physical "hardware" early in your career is a high-interest loan that you end up repaying in your 40s. Real seniority isn't just about navigating people and politics—it's about managing your personal energy so you actually have the health to enjoy the "compounding" (Lesson 21) that comes at the end.

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Great post, Years following Addy. I wonder know how he manages his time, in addition to being a leader at Google, and writing such a valuable blog.

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Unsure why this comment appears to be downvoted!

I have followed him for a long time and learned a lot too. I always wonder the same thing about the “tech influencers” and I’d love to know more about how they structure their days.

I find it difficult recently to sit down and complete a meaningful piece of work without being distracted by notifications and questions. In the last year this has been exacerbated by the wait time on LLMs completing.

I would love to know how top performers organise their time.

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I'm sure he made a killing though

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