Gagan Sandhu
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
So one example that I gave you was my coworker who left a very comfortable corporate job to become a teacher. Now that person, they actually walked away from a lot of future wealth, but they pursued passion. Now, The idea is that financial independence let them pursue a passion and shape their today and their tomorrow.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
They are living in the present, so they didn't wait until, a lot of people wait until they retire to pursue their hobbies and their passions. This person, probably in their late 40s, walked away from a corporate job and is now working with the kids.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Another couple that I mentioned, for them, living in the present is that their kids are young and they actually, until now, they were thinking they need to keep earning a lot of money because they just need to have a lot of money because they have two kids and they live in a very expensive area here in Silicon Valley and they just can't keep up. And knowing, for them, financial independence was...
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
something they couldn't wrap their heads around because of the way their thought processes worked. But by knowing what was needed, they were able to sift the signal from the noise and they were like, oh, okay, we can actually spend more time
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
raising our kids and building the family and building the foundations of the family and not just keep earning more because we have reached a point where financial independence is within reach. So my point is, even if you want to live in the present,
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
I think being aware of the pitfalls and also the possible rewards of financial independence, I think knowing those two is of extreme utility, is of extreme usefulness. So let me finish your thought, what you started on the financial independence part. I would say, yes, we provide assurance, but more than that, We also actually infuse knowledge in the product that is otherwise not very well known.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
For instance, a lot of people are like, hey, I have three or four properties, so that should do it. What we provide is, and people generally, it's not, as I said, like people... Most people don't know S&P 500 long-term returns, believe it or not. Even though to us, it's always at the tip of our tongue and it's always at our fingertips. We know it.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
And people don't know what the returns are for real estate in the long term. I'm talking about American markets. Asian markets are different, but American markets. So we bake the data. We also bake hard data. If somebody has
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
XYZ amount of funds in their 401 , which is the retirement account in the US, and they have some stocks in their brokerage account, and they have some real estate, and they have some treasury bonds, and they have some cash. We are able to put all that together and say, We know real estate grows about 3% to 3.5% per year. Based on what you have, here's where you can expect this thing to grow.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
You have some cash that's not going to grow. It's actually going to lose value. You have some bonds. You have some of this thing. So we are able to build that model. So there is the math there, even though I said it's easy for people like you and me. But for most people, it becomes very complicated very quickly. And that's where we come in and we help.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Who's our ideal customer? Our ideal customer is someone who is earning a decent amount of money. We say $100,000 or more per household. Typically a young family and also quite often an immigrant family. And they are so busy working full-time jobs, raising kids that they don't have time for pretty much anything else for that.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
And when they see Zillion, they're like, okay, this helps me because now I don't have to do all the research all the time. You guys do all this for me. And I'm able to spend five to 10 minutes a week And Zillion will, A, tell me whether I'm on a sustainable path to financial independence or not. B, if I'm not, Zillion will tell me, hey, we have too much cash here. Invest that into stocks.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
What kind of stocks? Here are the stocks you can invest in. also you have a 401k account that is actually you're paying too much fee there change that and optimize it in such a way we actually show step by step so a typical customer will get a lot of value because they're pressed for time This is the money thing is it's always like item number five or six or seven on their list.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
But their number one is don't get fired in this economy. So keep working, keep putting in long hours. Number two is make sure kids are raised properly and the groceries are done. And other things, meet with certain people so you're not a social zombie. So by the time you come to, okay, I also need to look at all my finances and see what I need to do. It's always number five, number six.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Maybe during tax time, it bumps to number two or number three, or we have to file taxes. But planning for financial independence is, and I would encourage you to talk to some young parents and to just to validate this.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
on how much do they actually are able to think about these things and that's where we believe our opportunity young families and also i would say some of the gen z especially who are not yet married and have kids but they're like okay i am finally making some money and i'm able to pay off my student loan or i should i pay off my student loan or should i invest this money and pay
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
the minimum in student loans. We have tools for those people as well, and they are also a big part of our audience. They're like, hey, should I buy a house with this cash I have, or should I invest somewhere else?
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
So what we do is, our pitch is, if you are a professional, and I could go back to this, if you're a knowledge worker, and today we are in the knowledge economy, the best use of your time is to increase your knowledge and increase your earnings through improved knowledge. We help you by taking care of a lot of your financial mediocrity.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
We help you to stay focused on increasing your knowledge so that you can accelerate your career more and accelerate your earnings more. And that's where we are seeing the success.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
a money management firm or something else yeah so we're not a software company you pay us a small fee and it's 19 a month and with that you get access to all our tools so that you can manage money like a professional wall street person you'll have the same tools as those available to the wall street the big egos and you pay us a small fee
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
But if you are like, hey, listen, I also need to talk to someone because for money, I don't just trust some numbers blinking on the screen. I also need to talk to someone. We offer you that service as well. You can talk to a certified financial expert and you pay us $79 a month. And it's a straightforward, simple, we're not an education platform.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Everything happens through osmosis, but that's not our goal. That's not our desire. We believe that there is enough content available just on YouTube itself and overall on the internet that anybody who really wants to learn, there are plenty of avenues available, plenty of resources available for you to learn. We are not here to teach you. We are here to help you.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Hey, thank you so much, Vince. Thank you so much for reaching out and rekindling old memories from business school. And I'm so happy to be doing this with you. And I'm a fan of you and what you're doing. So thank you so much.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
And that's how we position ourselves.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
The term is new, but the concept is not. If you go back, There are a couple of people who come to mind. Dave Ramsey, I don't know, I think he's in the late 60s or maybe early 70s. He's been an influencer for finance since like the 80s. Suze Orman, and there are many others, right? So influencers have always been there. The memory keeps changing. Before that, they were newspaper columnists.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
They were always there. People would write letters. Hey, what should I do this? How should I do that? So there have always been influencers. They started with newspapers and magazines, then to TV, then to cable, and then to internet and some user groups and discussion boards, and now to social media. hasn't changed so much, but it has fragmented.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
There's one Bera Ramsey, one Suzan, and there were probably like a dozen of them, say, 30 years ago, and there is probably thousands of them, if not millions now. I think there is a place for them. They provide bite-sized wisdom. I am in my own very small right. I'm also a finfluencer. I post my videos on LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, everywhere.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
You can easily find me, Zillion or Gagan Asandu, if you search for it. So I post nuggets as well. But I believe that Influencers, they do have a motive. Typically, they're typically tied with someone they're either selling, hey, this JP Morgan bank account is really good. You should get it. And they get some money. I think that model has a place. We are not doing that.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
We don't tie up with influencers or influencers. We believe that it's less authentic. I would rather be selling our own product and not just using an influencer. We want to be an influencer ourselves rather than use other influencers.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
I think some of the things that I'm going to say are probably going to be controversial, but I'm just going to say it anyway. There are many aspects of this. I'll focus on one or two. Regarding ageism, I think I'm less worried about that.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
But the way I think about it is, as compared to, say, 20, 30 years ago, today, in this economy, especially in the US, and maybe in other places as well, a career is not It doesn't span 30, 40, 50 years anymore. A typical career, this is my reading, is about 10 years. Every 10 years or so, you need to rediscover your career. I have done it. I started as a mechanical engineer.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Seven years later, I became a programmer. Another five years later, I became a manager. Another 10 years later, I became a leader in tech overall. And five years later, I started a company. So I have changed career basically three or four times in the less than three, two and a half decades that I've been working. I think this is going to be the norm.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
And it's less about ageism, it's about discovery. For instance, right now we are in this hype cycle, which is somewhat real, but definitely we are in the cycle, I shouldn't say hype cycle, We're in the cycle where some of the old guard technologies are getting replaced with new guard technologies like AI, for instance.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
If you are, whether you're food or you're 20, if you are not exploring AI as a technology, as potentially an enabler of new opportunities for you, then you're falling behind. And what happens is I think the ageism is the name we give to the skill gap. Someone coming out of college is probably well equipped with the technologies that have come out in the last couple of years, AI being one of them.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Somebody who's been working in corporate and doing certain job is less likely to have used those tools because those tools are new and their job didn't require it. So I think as an individual, I think the onus is on me to discover those things and learn those things on my own so that ageism doesn't become a place for me to put the blame on. It should be skills.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
And skills are something that we unfortunately or fortunately live in a time when skills have to be updated and upgraded constantly. That's one. Second thing is, I tell anybody who I've worked with, anybody who has been on my team, I ask them to work hard. Jeff Bezos famously has said, work hard, work smart, work long, and you can't choose between them.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
When anybody joins at Amazon, they're told they have to do all three things. You have to work hard, you have to work smart, and you have to work long. I think what happens is once we start working, get married, we have kids, we have more social life, we have more obligations, I think the work-around part falls off.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
which is natural, but I think we need to find those times in your career where, in our careers, where we can work long for periods of time to build more equity, so to speak, with our employer or to build more skills. So maybe we are not, the work long part is we are doing somewhat long at the work, but also we are putting extra time to learn more skills. And that way we can actually
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
I think we can mitigate the side effects of ageism a decent bit. Does that make sense?
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Will I hire someone who's older? So let me address that. So you also asked whether I would hire someone who is, let's say, over 40 and comes to Zillion. I think the honest answer is yes, I consider everyone. And one of the things I learned early on in my career is to hire the best person for the job.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
So if right now, if I'm looking for, let's say, a marketing person who can come in and really take our marketing to the next level, I'll be looking for the skills that will help us get there. If those skills are in a 23-year-old or a 35-year-old or a 47-year-old, doesn't make as much difference as what is the specific thing I'm looking for. And sometimes experience is an asset there.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Yeah, absolutely. And I agree with you that There is a lot of noise around this term. Financial freedom, financial independence, financially independent, retire early. There's a whole fire movement. And also, especially ever since social media became a dominant force in the society, there are just too many people out there trying to almost... Some of them sound like snake oil salesmen.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
And I would definitely look at that. So I don't think it's ageism as such. I would put it as it's skills. If you have those skills that I'm looking for. And again, we are a small company. We are a startup. Our needs, our skill needs, might be different from, let's say, Google. That is a 27-, 26-year-old company. They might, oh, probably even 30-year-old company at this point.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Our needs are different, and our skill needs might be different as compared to some of the established companies.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Oh, thank you so much, Vince. This was so much fun. Thank you.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
They're like, oh yeah, I'm financially independent. I just have this social media or I do X, Y, Z and I make enough money, blah, blah, blah. So I'll tell you what my criteria was. It was fairly straightforward. And I will actually contextualize, right? I'm careful to use the word financial independence and not retirement.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Because those two are different terms, very different context and very different overall outcomes. For me, financial independence meant I could leave my corporate job and go work on my own and build something from scratch. When I was able to do that, I said, I am financially independent because I can do what I want with my time.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
So I earned that independence and I don't have to be beholden to a paycheck to do that or to something else, right? In this case, it was paycheck. And for me, it actually, I'm an engineer after all, and I actually did a very mathematical thing. I figured out how much money I would need to sustain for at least five years so that I can build something on the side while not starving my family.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
And I did some math, and not super rigorous. We are all pretty good at doing basic math. And I did that. I'm like, OK, five years. Our yearly spend is about this much. My kids, one of my kids is going to go to college in this much amount of time. So here's that. And also, while I build, I will not have an income.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
So my retirement account has to be in a certain shape or form so that I'm not insecure about that. So that's going to be another amount, let's say X. And Y is going to be the amount that is going to be needed for just maintaining and sustaining for five years while I build something. And Z is the amount that is needed to send, let's say, one or two kids to college during that time.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
So X plus Y plus Z. I felt that once I reached that number, that would be my financial independence. And what I realized was that it was a number, right? I think the specifics are not super important. I think everybody's circumstances are different. And what I realized was that it was easy for me to do this almost like a mental math. But for a lot of people, it was a much hard calculation.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Not because the math is hard, but because I think the reason it's easy for me is because I'm able to keep track of things much, much better than an average person. For instance, I know pretty well what my monthly expenses are. I've known it since I was in college and I have always maintained spreadsheets. I can tell you what my monthly expenses were in 2005, for instance, right?
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
I'll maintain spreadsheets. So it's very easy for me to do that. It's just a habit. The second is I'm pretty decent at also managing cash flow and investing. So all of that combined, it became pretty, I would say, attainable and achievable goal for me personally and me and my wife as a family, as a unit. But what I realized is for a lot of people, it's much harder because
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
A, a lot of people don't know how much they actually spend in a month. B, a lot of people do not really start investing early enough to actually gain the compounding effect, the magical compounding effect to actually see their savings grow. And that actually also stops them. Or C, This is relevant very much to the question you specifically asked.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
A lot of people actually go in directions that they are told that will lead them to financial independence, but it's not. For instance, a lot of people are like, hey, I only buy real estate because somebody told me that's what I should do. If you're going to own only real estate doesn't yield cash returns, which means you'll be cash poor, but asset rate. That's not financial independence.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
So understanding those things helped me build my viewpoint. And now my goal is to help others see that viewpoint and build financial independence in a way that works for them. And actually in that respect,
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Another thing that, you know, because you and I went to a really good school and some of the things were hammered into us completely while we were at Booth, which is the stock market returns, right? I think you can wake up any UChicago Booth alum in the middle of the night and say, hey, what are long-term S&P 500 returns?
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
And I think before they even gain a little bit of sense of the world, they'll be like 10%. Right? It's fit. That's the healthiest thing. And I think what I realized is that very few people actually know this very fundamental thing that you can get these kind of returns. And also, if you diversify a little bit better, you can probably get a little bit more.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
Or if you're conservative, you can get a little bit less. But what we did at Zillion was we helped people visualize financial independence so we built tools within zillion and we actually call this tool financial independence tool the fit so how fit you are or how when are you likely to hit financial independence
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
As soon as you tell us what you own and where your money is and how much you earn and how much you spend, we can actually tell you exactly, hey, you're going to reach financial independence in 2034, for instance, or 2037. And you can change things. You're like, oh, what if my income increases by $20,000 per year? How will that impact? We will show you how will that impact.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
You're like, oh, what if I have to pay 100% of my child's college education? How will that impact my financial independence? For those of us who are not very good at mental math, we built this tool so you can just plug that number in and say, okay, my child is going to go to some XYZ college, 200K expense coming up in five years. How will that impact my financial independence?
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
So we actually made the thinking part super easy and we took the assumptions out. Also, how will inflation impact my financial independence? Like I can say, oh, I need a million dollars to retire because that's the number thrown around or these days it's I think 2.2 million. That's the number that's thrown around. But hey, if I'm going to live for another 40 years, is it going to be enough?
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
How will inflation impact that? you can actually adjust for that. So the overall thing we have done is what I realized is some people are very good at this math, but a lot of people are not. And what we did is we made the math so easy and so visual and so easy to understand and actually play with that now financial independence should seem like a tangible thing.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
so much so that a customer of ours I was meeting with them and it was in a social setting and I was explaining what we do and I was talking to somebody asked a question hey
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
government how do i know how much money i need i'm like we built a calculator exactly we built a product just for this and a customer of uh ours he was also in that and he was also right next to me oh not the number i see on the top right corner i'm like yeah so the idea the thing is that we made it this whole complex thing
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
And we simplified it and we made it visually so appealing and so easy to use that people are able to now see what financial independence would mean for them and whether and when they are likely to reach that. And also once they reach, are they at the risk of running out of money or not?
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
If somebody decides, I want to send two kids to college and retire at 42, and I want to travel the world, and I'm going to have no income, our product will show them if they're likely to run out of money, maybe by the age of 65 or 70, or they're not going to run out of money and they can comfortably even retire. For them, financial independence might mean retire.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
For some people, it might mean they go from full-time to part-time. Or it might mean they, rather than just working for money, they can now pursue a passion where they will have a lower income. Let's say some people want to, one of my coworkers at Square, he quit his corporate job and became a teacher. Now, following that passion, I'm sure he took a huge pay cut, maybe 60, 70, even 80% pay cut.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
But my guess is that this person is really good at doing the math and they can say, yeah, I can do this. One of our customers, they both work and one of them decided after using Zillion, they're like, hey, listen, one of us is going to quit and focus on family and just take some time off because we know our financial independence is not at stake. Our tools help people do that.
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
I think we are talking about the same thing. Maybe we are talking about the two different sides of the same coin. What you are saying is living in present. One fact I think we both have to agree on. In the modern world, the concept of money and wealth is enmeshed with our daily lives. We just can't separate, right?
Chief Change Officer
#185 Gagan Sandhu: From Mechanical Engineer to Money Engineer—Mastering Career Pivots & Financial Freedom — Part Two
How we live our lives is influenced by money, whether we like it or not, but that's how the world is structured today. To your point, living in the present, I agree with you 100%. Knowing about independence does is it helps you define that present and it helps you be very conscious about that.