I painstakingly worked through the ranks at many different companies through very junior roles, to mid-level management, to director/VP level, and now to the top over a 20 year career starting in my late teens. So it's essentially on autopilot and honestly doesn't even feel much like work since the industry is and has been a personal passion of mine as well. Being that I have decades of relevant industry experience in a continuously growing field, I find myself wanting to continue applying these skills and passion/desire to a company or team and that's why I haven't pulled the ripcord just yet.
However… Almost suddenly it seems (last 6-12 months perhaps?), I am suddenly appalled and almost disgusted by the amount of corporate bullshittery that exists in today's world and corporate environment. It's just mind blowing to me that people are willing to work under these conditions. The push for clueless CEOs to get everyone back into a clunky old office, the constant desire to micromanage and check-in on every single little thing everyone is doing, the endless financial engineering and hacking away to save $0.07 cents per unit sold, numerous blatant HR violations and slandering of employees and staff, the constant talk and actively performing layoffs (while giving others raises at the same time), general mis-management of teams and performance, a lack of understanding and just flat out bad ideas coming from around the table (i.e. investors, partners, other leadership, etc.). I am financially independent from re-investing all my earnings into real estate, investments, bonds, and such; and of course always saving more than I spend so I have no problem up and leaving but it just feels like every company these days has reached peak corporate slavery where the nonstop back to back meetings all day and all week are constant. I don't attend 3/4 of them but watching people become so frustrating over continually attending these force-fed meetings is tough to observe.
I am trying to decide which direction to take, whether it's to find a more relaxed company with less exposure to some of these factors (smaller company, perhaps?) but I am not convinced that it's possible; I think every org will have some collection of these negative factors that make working for them disheartening. Maybe taking a step back and going more mom & pop or family ownership is a good direction? Of course the obvious answer is to start my own company; but also requires quite a bit of sweat equity to get involved with something intelligent and to run it in a passionate + profitable way.