I've always heard it as being 6 months. Especially with his next point assuming you can certainly find employment.
Or maybe that's what I chose to remember, because I'm lucky enough to work in a high-employment sector in a region that can't fill enough positions: i.e. my profile is in high demand.
(... for now. I know)
Anyone good enough to get hired by Facebook in the first place is going to have no problem finding a job in two weeks, nevermind two years. Quit, shop around and burn some savings until you find something good enough. If it's not your dream job, stick with good enough while you shop around some more.
No one worth working for actually cares about some amount of job-hopping. More employers care about long gaps than about minor job hopping. Neither is a showstopper if you find a good destination.
You should check out r/financialindependence sometime. A whole community of people (358k subscribers at present) who would consider that amount table stakes. I'll admit not all 358k of those subscribers would actually have that much money but it's still hardly "almost no one".
57% of Americans with less than $1000 dollars in their savings account. Only 25% with more than $10,000. What fraction of those with more than $10,000 do you think have enough to live for two years on it?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/how-much-americans-at-have-i...
This doesn't seem correct to me, but people don't like to talk about their personal financial situation (any of income, expenses, and savings) sooo... I guess hard to say.
I'd definitely be able to live for 2 years on my savings, but I'm pretty frugal and am privileged to not have student loans. I recognize this is not everybody's situation, but I don't think it's helpful to constructive to frame it as "bragging" or "humble" or any such words. People have different situations and I think it should be OK to talk about that.
That said, it's probably overly conservative to say 2 years as a minimum. I'd use the standard 6 months figure for that. 2 years is a good idea if you can swing it, obviously...
Most people are going to need much more than $10,000 to live for two years so I think it's pretty safe to say that almost no one has enough savings to last two years.
57% percent of Americans, according to my source, have less than $1000 in savings which isn't enough to last a month for many of them.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/how-much-americans-at-have-i...
If you have a "top tier tech job" then I don't really understand the need for two years of savings. Do you think you won't find a job before two years? I guess it depends on location.
I've left jobs multiple times to take a few months off to work on stuff before job hunting again and I definitely didn't have more than one year of savings.
You are in a very small minority if you saved up that much in your first two years out of college.
Also, FANG comp packages have significant equity components and IMO it would be foolish to rely on that portion of comp for anything important; you can treat vested RSUs as windfalls to add to the retirement savings but should not rely on RSU grants to meet your goal of x% savings rate. New grads will have nothing vested for a few years so their ability to save is especially limited during that time.