This month marks five years since I quit Meta. On this blog I mostly write about whatever I’m obsessed with at the moment, whether that’s productivity, game mindset, or something else entirely. So I rarely write about quitting, or about MARU, or about being an indie developer. Those feel like the past, and lately I’ve been too busy writing (books, not code).
But five is a pretty number. And it gave me just enough motivation to look back.
Getting to FIRE and quitting Meta
Five years ago, in April, I quit Meta. Crypto had pumped hard enough to push me past my FIRE number two years early. I decided I didn’t want to work anymore. Early retirement it is. Time to enjoy my freedom.
I’d also just gotten the best performance review of my career. Meta’s performance ratings (PSC: Performance Summary Cycle) work like a school that expects everyone to get a B+ or higher every time:
- A+: Redefines Expectations
- A: Greatly Exceeds Expectations
- A-: Exceeds Expectations
- B+: Meets Expectations
- B: Meets Most Expectations <- two of these in a row and you’re fired
- B-: Meets Some Expectations <- one of these and you’re fired
- C+: Meets No Expectations <- you’re already fired before the review
This rating system is a big part of why Meta became one of the most competitive and draining companies in the Bay Area, and why everyone inside was so obsessed with their ratings. Story for another time.
To my surprise, I got Redefine. The A+. Apparently only about 5% of the tens of thousands of employees get this. I thought I’d get Greatly Exceeds at best.
My manager said I was really close to Staff (one level above Senior), just a hair short. He said I slacked off a bit at the end (guilty).
Since my 4-year stock vesting period was about to expire, which meant my compensation would drop significantly, our Director personally scheduled a meeting with me and gave me Director Equity, a stock grant vesting over four years. This meant I was one of the few people he specifically wanted to keep.
I agonized over whether to stay. On one hand, I was incredibly grateful for my manager and Director’s recognition and didn’t want to let them down. On the other hand, I didn’t want to be a cog in the machine anymore.
I’d just been assigned a project I was too lazy to maintain, so I decided to walk away from the tempting stock bonus and quit while I still had the nerve.
During my last two weeks, everything suddenly felt meaningless. Projects, impact, all of it. I felt like some enlightened sage watching mortals scramble for credit and stress over ratings that didn’t matter.
Everything everyone did was for their performance review. Every decision the team and org made was just a stepping stone for someone above to get promoted. Looking back, it was all just going in circles.
With that review and the Director Equity, I could’ve made a lot of money if I’d stayed a few more years. The stock I received has since gone up 2.5x.
But for freedom, I left without looking back.
Of course hindsight makes you second-guess. Who knew crypto would crash? Who knew I’d have two kids? At Meta, each kid gets you 4 months of parental leave. Two kids would’ve been 8 months of paid vacation!
Including salary, I missed out on at least $2.5 million.
(How could I not regret it!?)
Two years of freedom and confusion
The first year after quitting, my wife and I just played video games and bummed around in Seattle. I remember how, freed from work and responsibilities, we’d stay up until 5 AM playing Final Fantasy XIV together. I occasionally tried being an “indie developer” but didn’t actually build anything. It was chill, but also aimless. I kept wondering: is this really what FIRE is supposed to feel like?
I had this weird feeling that life was actually happier and more fulfilling before FIRE. We were about to travel the world, try the digital nomad thing, and maybe finally find the meaning of FIRE.
Then COVID hit.
Stuck at home. All day every day, it was just games, shows, and… well, having sex.
Then we accidentally got pregnant. Our son was born in 2022.
I say “accidentally,” but we weren’t really trying to prevent it. I used to be a hardcore FIRE, no-marriage, no-kids kind of person. But since I’d already chosen to get married, and my wife said she liked kids, I figured if it happened, it happened. So we didn’t take any precautions.
But honestly, after our son was born, expenses got real. Savings could last a long time, but factoring in future school costs and buying a house, the math started looking less comfortable. Even more so after our daughter was born.
Many times, I thought about giving up my hard-won freedom and going back to interview. I’d been an interviewer myself. I knew Meta’s entire iOS question bank at the time. I’d probably be fine.
And honestly, being a full-time dad is way harder than going to work. When I was at work, I never had to change diapers, do midnight feedings, or make constant hospital runs when someone got sick. Human babies are basically helpless little creatures who just eat and cry. 24/7, no days off. Worse than any 996 (9am-9pm, 6 days a week) or 007 (midnight to midnight, 7 days a week) grind.
But even so, I didn’t want to go back to working at a big company. After all, the kids were already born, so no more parental leave anyway.
I wanted to try making money on my own. No freelancing, no client work. Just money from things I created with my own hands. I knew I wasn’t an influencer. I’d already deleted all my social media. Making money from products was going to be really hard. So I set up progressive milestones for myself, like levels in a game.
My targets looked like this:
- Year 1: $10,000
- Year 2: $20,000
- Year 3: $50,000
- Year 4: $100,000
- Year 5 and beyond: Maintain $100,000
I told myself: if I can’t make $10,000 from my own app in the first year, I’ll give up my freedom and go interview. And so on. I even wrote a YouTube series pitch called “Can an ex-Meta engineer make $10,000 from scratch in one year?” trying to build a personal brand as an indie creator from zero.
While writing this post, I dug up that old script. It said: Treat it like a game. No matter how hard it gets, a game always gives the player a path to beat the level. I must have a path to $10,000 too.
You can probably guess what happened. I tried recording a few times, froze in front of the camera, never invested time into learning to edit, and just gave up. The camera’s been collecting dust ever since.
But on the app side, things actually went pretty well.
MARU Kana Drill
When I joined Meta (still Facebook back then) in 2017, I wanted to be able to say in my interview that “I’m someone who likes building apps.” So I forced myself to make one. Combining my love for Japanese and two years of working in Japan, I built a kana practice app called “Kana Drill”.
After getting into Meta, I barely touched it aside from one update in 2018. I hated ads but loved money, so I set it up so users only see an ad after making 5 mistakes. I even framed it as: “Practice hard, see fewer ad punishments, and let me earn less ad money.” It made the ads feel reasonable.
This was a stark contrast to most other apps that shoved ads in your face constantly. Users loved how chill it was.
By the time I quit Meta, the app had quietly become the #1 Japanese learning app in Taiwan and was doing well in many other countries too. All without any marketing. I received a little ad revenue each year. Pocket money to buy some gadgets.
Users kept emailing me or leaving App Store reviews saying I’d started their Japanese learning journey and wanted to pay me but didn’t know how. (Or maybe it’s just nice words.)
Since I already had an app with a solid user base, it was time to put it to work.
In 2023, with 800,000 downloads, I finally decided to come back to this app I hadn’t touched in 5 years. With my in-laws helping with the kids, I juggled welcoming our second child while working on a 2.0 release with premium features, renaming the app to MARU.
To protect the existing user experience, every premium feature was something new that I built, and something users had been requesting for years.
That year, I kept adding features while the momentum was there. I received my first ever user payment after 10 years as an iOS developer. I experienced the joy of being a one-person company. Because MARU already had a large user base, I hit the $10,000 target pretty easily. (Honestly, I had a feeling it would work out. All I was missing was the motivation and follow-through.)
In 2024, I only shipped 4 small updates, but I was mainly focused on expanding into new markets. I successfully built up South Korea as my second-largest market from scratch. I kept hitting my targets after that.
The income obviously doesn’t compare to what Meta used to pay. But it’s enough to cover my expenses.
In 2025, I developed some powerful new features with AI and made the big decision to remove all ads. But I still haven’t shipped the update.
Part of it is that the changes are too big and I’m worried about disrupting an experience that currently works fine. But the bigger reason is that the premium version’s main selling point is removing ads. I’m scared that if I remove ads for everyone, nobody will buy premium anymore.
I’m afraid I’ll lose my freedom because of it.
I realized that before removing ads, I need to find another revenue stream. Having all my eggs in one app is too risky.
Ever since MARU helped me hit my revenue targets, I haven’t thought about going back. The downside is that once I hit my goals, I got lazy again.
There are so many cool ideas in my head, half-finished projects sitting on my computer, and I still want to get rid of those ads. But the reality is, I haven’t updated MARU in almost two years.
Where I am now
The fact that I can write books and blog posts instead of apps right now is entirely thanks to MARU’s paying users.
Here’s a funny thing: every year for the past five years, my New Year’s resolution has included “build a second app.” And yet, I still only have one.
Since I started writing a book last October, I discovered I really love it. Outlining, structuring, rearranging the pieces.
After getting diagnosed with ADHD last month, I decided to embrace my tendency to jump between interests. So now I’m writing four books simultaneously (lol), which means I have zero time for app development.
If money weren’t an issue, I’d probably just keep writing instead of thinking about getting back to building apps.
But this year will undoubtedly be the most productive year of my life. And this version of me is the strongest version yet. After all, if everything goes well, you will be able to find my book on Amazon later this year!
The dream of going back to Meta
Looking back at my working days, life at Meta was comfortable and happy. I honestly can’t think of a company with a better work environment. Sure, there were stressful projects and those annoying late-night oncall shifts. But overall, I miss the time there and playing Avalon with my teammates.
I’d occasionally question capitalism and the company’s decisions, but while employed, I adopted a “not my problem” attitude.
Now I sometimes see former teammates climbing the ladder, making over a million dollars a year. I’m a little jealous, but I also know how much effort and office politics it takes to get there. The reward is tempting, but the process isn’t what I want to pursue.
Five years later, I’d rather earn a lot less than go back to running on a hamster wheel for someone else. Since I managed to escape the rat race, I don’t want to go back. With all the AI layoff news lately, I’m glad I’ve already built my own little castle and don’t have to let a boss or a company decide my fate.
Sure, I missed out on a lot of money. But I also avoided a lot of the anxiety that comes with it. As they say, “With great money comes great responsibility.” I don’t want that kind of exhaustion.
And I’ve gained so many valuable experiences I never would have had inside a company.
Can an ex-Meta engineer make enough from scratch to support a family? (Yes!)
For the first few years, I kept having this dream where I’d go back to Meta, meet old and new teammates, work for a few months, then quit again because I missed my freedom. A few times I even dreamed that I’d quit twice and still ended up back at Meta, like a reluctant miner who keeps having to return to a mine he never wants to see again just to put food on the table.
Lately, I haven’t had that dream anymore.
P.S. This post is a nod to two books I’ve been loving recently: Paul Millerd’s The Pathless Path and his wife Angie’s Made in Taiwan.
