Meredith Schneider

If you’re a tech executive, engineer, or AI professional, your company may be both the source of your income and a significant portion of your wealth. RSUs, stock options, and other equity compensation can build wealth quickly, but they can also create significant concentration risk. Develop a deliberate strategy for company stock that considers diversification, taxes, and your long-term goals. The company that created your wealth doesn’t necessarily need to remain the company that holds it.

Gen X may be funding young adult children, helping aging parents, and planning for their own financial independence—all at the same time. Don’t let everyone else’s needs crowd out planning for your own future. This is a good time to understand what your wealth already makes possible—whether that means retiring early, changing careers, working less, helping family, or simply having more freedom to choose what comes next.

Take ownership of your financial life, even if you share financial responsibilities with a spouse or partner. Know what you own, how it is invested, what you are saving, and what your financial future looks like independently. Relationships and circumstances can change, and financial security is too important to outsource entirely to someone else.

An IPO or significant increase in your company stock can suddenly make work optional much earlier than you expected. Before making a major career or stock decision, understand what your new wealth actually makes possible. Model different choices—retiring, taking time off, changing careers, or continuing to work because you want to rather than because you need to. Financial independence is ultimately about having choices, not simply about retiring.

For tech executives and engineers, retirement often means unwinding years of concentrated stock, RSUs, and high earnings—not simply choosing a retirement date. Before you stop working, understand how you’ll diversify company stock, replace your paycheck, manage taxes, and fund the lifestyle you want. The strategies that helped you build significant wealth may not be the same ones you need to live from it.

An IPO can transform years of stock options or equity compensation into significant wealth almost overnight. Resist the temptation to treat the stock that created your wealth as your long-term investment strategy. Before making large decisions, understand the tax consequences, develop a thoughtful diversification plan, and determine what this new wealth can make possible for you and your family. Creating wealth and managing wealth are two different skills.