I Quit Apple after 13 Years – Here’s Why

Before We Get Started

I just want to mention that this is my final post on nomoreharvarddebt.com. I’m starting a venture called The Drive Away Debt Plan, or The DAD Plan for short. I’m going to be helping dads and families get their finances under control so they spend more time on things that actually matter. 

I sincerely hope my loyal readers will join me at driveawaydebt.com, where I’ll be hosting the next part of my journey. Let’s keep sharing stories and inspiring each other as we pursue freedom. It would be really fun to reconnect after all these years. 

So, I’m Back.

When I last posted, I was 29, single, and had recently paid off $90k of student debt in seven months. Fast-forward 13 years and I have a beautiful wife, Mia, 3-year-old daughter Olivia, and a 9-month-old son Dean, and I just quit my job. Yep, today was my last day at Apple after 13 years. I made the decision to spend more time with my family and help dads get a handle on their finances so they can enjoy a life of freedom. 

This being a financial blog, I’ll share our freedom stats with you: 

• Today, Mia and I are CoastFIRE: In its current state, our retirement account will take care of us after age 65, assuming a reasonable 7% interest rate does its magic over the next 23 years.
• Our house, cars, and credit cards are fully paid off. We carry no debt. 
• My wife is gainfully employed and was recently promoted to an AE role with great benefits.
• I am now self-employed and on another mission—this one aimed at helping people.

This was all made possible not only by God, luck, and hard work, but also by budgeting: I have continued to individually categorize every. Single. Expense since 2011 so that I can establish and follow a budget. I literally have one Excel file for every month since 2011 sitting on iCloud. That’s over 150 files x at least 150 line items per file, or 23k line items. 

My savings rate was 80%+ while I was paying down debt and it has been at around 50% pretty consistently since paying off the debt. Much of the fiscal discipline I harnessed during my No More Harvard Debt (NMHD) days has remained. 

Note: There have been some financial missteps along the way, and I’ll definitely share them at some point soon so you can learn from my mistakes.

Now or Never

So, now feels like as good a time as any to quit Corporate America to spend more time with my family and to help dads and families get a handle on their finances so they can live life on their own terms. 

Am I scared? 100%. I now contribute 0% to our household income versus 75% when I was at Apple—in fact, this venture actually requires a little seed capital to get started, so now I’m just a drag on our finances. I never thought I would have a sugar mama, and I’m so happy I do. 

The idea of being self-employed and diving into this without a back-up plan does give me pause. However, the site build-out (driveawaydebt.com) convinced me I had made the right decision. I started building the site last Friday and even though I worked until 1 to 3 AM most nights, I wasn’t tired and it didn’t feel like work. It felt like a calling. 

Perhaps the thing I love most about this new venture is that it so clearly demonstrates the fundamental truth upon which my entire philosophy rests: when you are debt-free, you create the space for better things—be it health, relationships, hobbies, career, impact on others, travel, etc.

When I Paid Off My Debt, I Took a Pay Cut

Four months after I paid off my debt, I quit my job and went to Apple. Better pay? Nope, worse! I took an $18k pay cut: from $113k base at my old company to $95k at Apple. Furthermore, Old Company’s bonus was 2x that of Apple at $20k vs $10k. Sure, there was a modest signing bonus, but apples to apples (no pun intended), I was financially worse off for this decision. 

I went to Apple because I took my close friend at his word. He had left Old Company a year prior and encouraged me to join him at Apple after he had kicked the tires for long enough that he knew they wouldn’t explode. He praised the company for its strong leadership from top to bottom, a really strong culture where close collaboration was the norm, an incredible product line-up, and an amazing growth streak. He cautioned me that the supply chain role would be no walk in the park, but I’d learn a lot and get to make an impact. 

So, I went for it and I took the pay cut. My logic was simple: I had been making $1100 monthly loan payments, and now I wasn’t, so I didn’t really have to optimize for money. I could take a risk.

My Life Immediately Improved

The Apple culture was so incrediblystrong. We were growing by leaps and bounds, and there was an energy, a sense of pride, and a deep appreciation for the work we were doing to propel our growth even further. And more importantly, the collaboration was like nothing I had ever seen before. I can still remember the day this became crystal clear: my trainer and I were trying to figure something out and he needed data from another team, so he walked over to a teammate—who appeared to be very busy—and asked him to pull it together on the spot after providing some context. I naively asked, “Ok, that’s a lot of work. What do we owe him for all of this?” The reply: “What are you talking about? Nothing. That’s not how things work around here.”

A lightbulb flashed on in my head: Aha, I am somewhere different.

I remember going home from work pre-Apple with a cloud hanging over my head—I seemed to be surrounded by so many folks who didn’t seem to care, were territorial, confrontational, and mostly non-collaborative. At Apple, however, I was surrounded by a bunch of really smart, diligent, collaborative, and hardworking individuals.  Fridays were basically optional at Old Company, but at Apple, we regularly worked until 6 or later. We were building something great, and it was energizing.

Want to know what else happened after I paid down debt and changed companies? I got promoted to manager within two years, and a couple years after that, I got promoted again, and very quickly after joining Apple, my pay dwarfed Old Company’s pay. Because I loved whom I was working with and what I was doing and I believed in the products and the company, I became good at it, and it was rewarding both emotionally and financially.

Key Takeaway: No Debt = More Choices

Because I had paid down debt, I was able to take a risk that ended up paying off in many more ways than one. 

The debt payoff and resulting career change confirmed for me what I hoped it would when I initially set out on a mission to pay off $90k of debt in ten months: when you’re debt-free, you create the space for better things.

After four months of becoming debt-free, my entire life changed.

So, leaving Apple today was just a function of practicing what I preach.

Why I Left Apple

The funny thing about values is that they can shift. The shift might happen very gradually through a slowly-dawning realization, or it might hit you like a slap in the face. In my case, it was more like a punch to my gut. 

The Red Flag

Last year, Olivia and I couldn’t be left alone in the same room together without her crying because I was a stranger to her five days a week: No bedtimes or wake-ups, and no daycare pick-ups or drop-offs. Literally. Never. None. I was always too busy with work. So for five days a week, my daughter didn’t even know she had a daddy. 

I can still remember the frustration and loneliness I felt from my daughter’s detachment from me and that painful question from Mia like it was yesterday—the room we were in the, the lighting, time of day, and where we three were positioned. Sadly, it has become a core memory.

When I made this difficult admission to myself, something clicked—albeit softly—and I vowed to change—somewhat. I committed to participating in one bedtime and two daycare drop-offs per week. Olivia and I did get a bit closer—at least, she stopped automatically crying when we were alone.

Then we had our little boy and Apple gave me three months for paternity leave. Mia took care of Dean and I took care of Olivia. I did every single wake-up, bedtime, pick-up, and drop-off. In the evening and on weekends, we went to the park, explored, and rode scooters together. I took her to her gymnastics class. We became completely inseparable, to the point where Olivia requested me for bedtime when Mia started spreading her time between the two kids.

I’ve included some pictures we took during what were some of the most beautiful months of my life (and also the hardest, as any parents of a newborn can attest).

A Values Shift

In May, I went back to work full-time and quickly realized during my very first week that I could never work another 60-hour week again. It’s not that I no longer valued professional achievement, it’s just that I no longer valued it nearly as much as the tenuous bond I had formed with my daughter. I knew that this bond would quickly disintegrate if I didn’t take aggressive measures right away. Perhaps even more heartbreaking was the realization that I would never even get the chance to form such a bond with my son in the first place if I didn’t make a change.

I immediately started looking around for a less demanding role, but nothing seemed interesting—literally every role seemed so bland and meaningless. I couldn’t get excited for any of it. Whereas I had once been able to get myself really pumped up about even the most mundane roles because they would pay $$, I could no longer feign enthusiasm for something I truly didn’t give a damn about. Coming to terms with this realization was actually really wild and unsettling for me because I didn’t see a way to foster the bond I had created with my daughter, build one with my son, and do work that I truly cared about all at the same time.

For some reason, I kept coming back to the emails I had saved from readers of this blog so many years ago. I kept them all. Many readers shared their own debt journey with me and thanked me for being an inspiration that helped them pay down their debt. If you’re so inclined, check some of them out on the homepage. Here’s one of my favorites in case you don’t want to click: 

The funny thing is that while the press coverage was cool, the enduring and unforgettable emotion from the blog going viral was the overwhelming gratitude I felt reading all of these notes. 

What if, in the next chapter, I’m not just a person who sets a good example and inspires others, but actually provide one-on-one coaching? How much more of a contribution could I make? After one of these reading sessions, I took a step back and considered the impact I was having on people in my role at Apple and the opportunity cost of the 60-hour work-weeks. I loved my team and colleagues at Apple, but I realized I could potentially help more people and spend more time with my family if I were to do personal finance coaching.

Why I’m Doing This

What I’m about to share is heavier, but it’s part of why this mission matters so much to me. While I was trying to determine if the world even needs yet another personal finance blogger/coach, I came across a stat that stopped me cold: Men are 16x more likely to have suicidal ideations if they’re under financial stress.

That is staggering. It’s difficult for me to admit this so publicly, especially since so few people who know me are aware, but I went to therapy during my adolescence because I had recurring thoughts of suicide. This stat hits particularly close to home because I know how badly things have to feel to think that suicide is a good option. (If you’ve been experiencing suicidal ideation, don’t face it alone. You can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or chat online at 988lifeline.org for free, 24/7 support.)

It bears repeating: when you are free from debt and financial stress, you create the space for better things—be it health, relationships, hobbies, career, helping others, travel, etc. 

When I made the decision to walk away from Apple, I recognized that I didn’t have all the answers to this situation, but I knew I could help, so on 10/2, I gave my two weeks’ notice. 

I have a lot of ideas (articles, videos, tools) for helping dads and families get on solid financial footing, and I’ll be sharing them all at driveawaydebt.com.  

Thirteen years ago, I started No More Harvard Debt to dig myself out of a hole. Today, I’m starting The DAD Plan to help others do the same, and this time, we’re driving toward freedom together. To my loyal readers of No More Harvard Debt, thank you so much for being part of this community. I hope you’ll join me at the new site so we can continue this adventure together.