Sick of the Corporate Ladder

FYI:  I wrote a version of this a while ago and don't think I published it, but apologies if this is repeated material.

I don't know if I'm a failure, or if working for the big companies is actually not as great as I thought, or if I am getting tired of programming despite my continuing desire to be more awesome at it.  I don't think its the third option, but regardless, I am getting sick of working for big companies.

They act all excited, and go on about their own lame ass take on corporate culture, which despite seeming very different from every other tech company will always have that common element of trying to milk as much work out of you as possible.

They do it with this mandatory RPG game called "career management" or "performance management" or "rhythm of the business" and it sucks.  You have to make all these people like you and accrue all these different accomplishments despite not actually having much choice in what you work on.  Sometimes there's a fork in the road, and you can choose right instead of left.  Sometimes you find out that there was a fork in the route and your manager chose left for you.  In this example, left always leads to shitty ass boring work that does not lead to anything you can use for your resume or the corporate RPG game.  Also, they use these stupid ass tools (and some stupid ass business processes).  Either its not of-the-shelf software and likely sucks, OR it is [normally expensive] off the shelf software, but has so many unnecessary bells and whistles on it that it takes hours just to figure out how to do something, and simple things that probably everyone [who isnt an idiot] would want to do, like incrementing the build number and putting that in the version info of the dll are not obvious, or even supported.  Another example:  getting a list of files in your working directory that aren't known to your source control software:  surprisingly difficult in some of them.  Yet another example:  having a deployment system that can roll back the software you just deployed to production.  That one should have been a no brainer.

So.  What do you do if you're looking to break the corporate cycle?  I have spent a lot of time thinking about this.  What follows are some options that I actually like.

1.  Join/create a startup.  Pretty much everyone's dream if they don't have a family yet.

2.  Create/own one or more businesses that make some money without your direct involvement.  Described in The 4-Hour Workweek.

3.  Accumulate assets that make you money.  Stocks, bonds, rental houses, etc.  Live frugally in order to "retire" ridiculously early and live off of interest.  Described in Rich Dad Poor Dad and a blog called Mr Money Mustache.  If I could just win the millenium prize I would be mostly there....

4. Kickstarter:  you can quit your job only if the kickstarter gets funded, and if you're successful, continue to do whatever projects you want, so you never get bored.

5.  Invent a time machine and go back in time to invest in bitcoin :(