re: Work / Life Balance

My brother works those kinds of hours and makes that kind of money. His bonus last year was probably more than any annual salary I'll ever make.

He gets up at about 5 am and works from home till about 7. Helps his wife with their three kids (all 4 and under) in the morning. Then he goes to the office for about 10 hours. Then he comes home and helps with the kids' dinner, baths, and bedtime. Then he hops back on and works from home again till about midnight.

They take several company-sponsored trips a year to Maui, Vail, USVI, etc. He mostly works through the day on those trips, but his family gets to come and do their thing. His boss is a minority investor in several major sport franchises, so (for example) he got to take his son on the field for the MLB home run derby last year. For my nephew's third birthday, the former chief of the (major metro) fire department delivered a real fire truck to their house for the kiddos to play on.

It's not necessarily the life I would want, but I may see it differently when he's retired from corporate work at 50 and passively investing in a bunch of franchises while smoking cigars with the governor, and I'm still paying for college and counting down the days to social security (if it even exists then).

Point being, there are always tradeoffs.