I think it's also important to take into account the diminishing marginal utility of money. It's one thing to leave a FAANG job making 300k a year to work at a non-profit for 50k a year. But going to a startup making 150-200k a year can be a great trade if it genuinely brings more satisfaction. After all it's not like your family is going to starve making only 4x the median salary in the US. If you also get a lottery ticket in the form of startup equity then great, but it could still make total sense to make the move even if you assume (probably correctly) that your equity will be approximately worthless.
$200K/yr and a family of 3 like the author, assuming he takes advantage of public school and lives relatively frugally, you can afford a 4-bedroom house in a not-bad part of the Bay Area in 10 years in the best case. And you need your salary to keep up with the real estate market. So yeah, it definitely depends! Hope your wife works, too…
The median income in San Francisco is ~70K per year, so even just looking at SF this is more than double the median. The median household income is ~120k per year in SF. No idea what the author's family situation is but assuming their spouse works then the household income is probably 3-4x the median income of SF households. Everybody's financial situation is different and you certainly have to take that into account, but my only point is that if you are looking at a job change that involves a pay cut but to a level where you can still be financially secure then it makes total sense to evaluate it based on other factors like job satisfaction.
