John Gusu

John Gusu Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from John Gusu, Financial planner, 3500 Carillon Pt, Kirkland, WA.

I know a Principal Engineer making $450K total comp.A brilliant, senior level, who manages a team of 15, makes complex a...
05/01/2026

I know a Principal Engineer making $450K total comp.

A brilliant, senior level, who manages a team of 15, makes complex architectural decisions worth millions.

But his 401(k) contribution? $0.

"I've got RSUs vesting every quarter. I'm good on retirement."

Not really, you're leaving $10K+ on the table every year.

Here's the math he wasn't running:

His company matches 50% on the first 4% of contributions. For someone at his comp level, that's roughly $9,000-10,000 in free money annually.

He's been there 6 years. That's $60K he just didn't take. Plus the compound growth he missed on that $60K.

Over a 10-year career? He could've potentially walked away from $100K+ in matching alone.

This isn't advanced optimization. It's basic math.

Why do high earners skip the 401(k)?

I see three reasons:

1. "I've got equity, I don't need it"
RSUs are great. But they're not a retirement account. They're taxed as income when they vest. They're concentrated in one stock. And if you leave or get laid off, unvested RSUs disappear.
A 401(k) is tax-deferred, has multiple investments to diversify funds, and it's yours no matter what happens at work.
They're not interchangeable.

2. "I'll do it later when I have more time"
There's never a perfect moment. Meanwhile, the match you're not getting this year is gone forever. You can't go back and claim it later.

3. "It's complicated, I'll figure it out eventually"
It takes 20 minutes to set up, nothing too complex.

The real cost of skipping the match:

Let's say you're 35, making $200K base, and your company matches 50% on 4%. That's $4,000/year in free money.

If you contribute nothing for 10 years:
●You: $0
●Company: $0
●Total: $0

If you contribute enough to get the match for 10 years at 7% growth:
●You: $55,000
●Company: $55,000
●Growth: $22,000
●Total: $132,000

You left $132K on the table because you didn't spend 20 minutes setting it up.

"But I'm saving in other ways"

Great, keep doing that. But the 401(k) match is literally free money with a guaranteed 50% return.

You're not beating that with stock picks, crypto, or real estate. It's the easiest financial decision you'll ever make.

I get it, when you're making $300K, $400K, $500K, a few thousand in 401(k) matching doesn't feel urgent.

But that's $10K/year you're turning down. Over a career, it's $250K-500K+ with growth.

RSUs are great, but they're not a substitute for tax-deferred retirement savings with free matching.

Take the free money.

This is a hypothetical story and not indicative of any specific situations or client. It is presented only as an example and not intended as investment advice. Investing involves risk and there is no assurance that any investment strategy will be successful.

The tech sector has been hit again by a big wave of lay-offs. This situation is never pleasant, but having a ready to-do...
04/29/2026

The tech sector has been hit again by a big wave of lay-offs.

This situation is never pleasant, but having a ready to-do list always helps.

Whether you're between roles and looking to start a new position, or navigating a severance package, here's your quick financial checklist:

✓ Tax Review: Immediately adjust W-4 & tax withholding (high priority).
✓ Equity Vesting: Review & understand accelerated vesting & tax implications.
✓ Retirement Check: Assess contributions & investment allocations across accounts.
✓ Insurance Coverage: Confirm COBRA & ACA options (secure healthcare).
✓ Check Resources: ESD WA, Seattle Tech Alliance.

Q1 and the first part of Q2 brought unexpected changes for many in tech. Your financial strategy should reflect your actual situation, not where you thought you'd be in January.

The Day Someone Asked Why the Truck Needed a Seat!There's a mistake people make when they imagine the future. They assum...
04/28/2026

The Day Someone Asked Why the Truck Needed a Seat!

There's a mistake people make when they imagine the future. They assume it arrives dressed like the past, only shinier. Add a sensor here, a screen there, maybe a little artificial intelligence bolted to the side and call it progress. But every once in a while, someone notices that the thing everyone has been designing around isn't the law of nature they thought it was. It's just habit.

That idea has been surfacing again and again in conversations about autonomy: once you design for the real constraint instead of the inherited one, you don't just improve the machine—you create a different one. Humble's quiet emergence from stealth is a case study in how obvious this becomes in hindsight.

They started with an uncomfortable question: if no one is inside the truck, why are we lugging the cab around? The answer, historically, was "because that's how trucks look." The Humble Hauler does not accept that answer. It is a fully autonomous, cabless, electric freight vehicle, less a tractor-trailer than a platform with a job to do. It has no seat, no windshield, no steering wheel begging for a human that never arrives.

Instead, the Hauler is built from the ground up for places most trucks merely pass through: warehouses, railyards, seaports. It's designed to be universal, a machine that doesn't care what you put on top of it, as long as it needs to be moved. The first version moves shipping containers, which is fitting, because containers themselves were born from the same insight: standardize the unit and the whole system bends around it.

By removing the cab, Humble didn't just simplify the vehicle, they changed its physics. The Hauler is significantly lighter than a traditional Class 8 tractor and trailer, which sounds like a footnote until you realize what weight enables: lower costs, new routes, new use cases, and a logistics problem that suddenly looks less like an inherited mess and more like something you might actually redesign.

The trick wasn't better autonomy. It was asking why the truck needed to look like a truck at all.

Over the past few years, few workplace debates have been as emotionally charged as return-to-office (RTO) policy in big ...
04/27/2026

Over the past few years, few workplace debates have been as emotionally charged as return-to-office (RTO) policy in big tech. Nowhere is that tension more visible than in Seattle.

For a brief moment in the pandemic, it seemed like the future of work had been settled. But now, RTO policies are in full rollout. What does it financially mean for you, why Seattle is the center of this experiment, and - most importantly - what can you do about it?

Read the full blog: *link in comments*

Comp is up, but savings are down. So what's going on?This is something a lot of big earners run into in places like Seat...
04/24/2026

Comp is up, but savings are down. So what's going on?

This is something a lot of big earners run into in places like Seattle.

Back in 2019:
● Rent for a 1BR in Capitol Hill was about $2,400
● Total comp was around $150K
● Life was pretty simple, and saving felt easy
● Overall, things felt comfortable

Fast forward to 2026:
● That same apartment is about $2,900
● Comp is now $240K (up 60%)
● But the actual apartment is $3,800 in Fremont
● There's now a car payment, more meals out, a nicer gym, weekend trips
● And somehow… less money is being saved

Income went up by $90K, but spending went up even more.
This is the part people don't really talk about.

You get a raise and the math seems obvious: "Rent is only up a few hundred, I'm making way more now. I can upgrade."

So you do.

And it's not just the apartment. Everything around it too: a nicer place leads to nicer furniture. A better neighborhood means eating out more. Higher income makes expensive dinners feel normal.

None of it feels excessive in the moment. It all feels reasonable. "I can afford it" becomes the default filter.

But "I can afford it" and "I should do it" are very different things.

In Seattle, it often looks like this:
Capitol Hill → Fremont → Wallingford → Ballard → Queen Anne

Each move feels justified. Each bump in rent feels manageable alongside a raise. But over time, those increments stack up fast.

And it's not just rent: It's the car you didn't need before. The restaurants nearby that are a bit pricier. Going out more because, well, you live in the city now.

The bigger misconception is around income itself.

A $30K raise doesn't actually mean $30K more in your pocket. After taxes, it's less. And once lifestyle adjusts, it can disappear faster than expected.

That's how you end up making more money than ever… and saving less than before.

"So what to do about it?"

Some people limit upgrades. They pick one or two things to improve, not everything at once, and let the rest go straight into savings.

Others keep their old lifestyle for a while after a raise, bank the difference, and only then decide what's actually worth upgrading.
Both approaches create breathing room instead of pressure.

The uncomfortable question is:
If income is up significantly but savings aren't, where is the money actually going?

Most of the time, it's not just rent. It's the accumulation of a lot of small, reasonable decisions.

The takeaway is pretty simple:
Making more money doesn't automatically build wealth. Letting lifestyle grow slower than income does.

"Can I afford it?" is easy. "Is this actually worth it?" is the harder (and more useful) question.

Psychologists call it the "hedonic treadmill".You get the raise, buy the nicer car and move to the better neighborhood.A...
04/22/2026

Psychologists call it the "hedonic treadmill".

You get the raise, buy the nicer car and move to the better neighborhood.

And it feels amazing for about three months.

Then it becomes normal. And you're already looking at the next thing.

The treadmill keeps moving. You keep running. You never actually arrive.

High earners constantly experience this. $150K → $250K → $400K. House upgrades, car upgrades, lifestyle upgrades.

But the feeling of 'enough' never shows up.

Not because they're greedy. Because humans adapt.

What felt like luxury becomes baseline incredibly fast.
The only way off the treadmill? Decide what 'enough' actually looks like and stop there.

It's not easy. But way better than running forever.

I know someone who checks their company's stock price 20+ times a day.Before meetings, during lunch, after work, before ...
04/16/2026

I know someone who checks their company's stock price 20+ times a day.

Before meetings, during lunch, after work, before bed.

Stock up 2%? Good mood, productive day.
Stock down 3%? Irritable, distracted, short with their family.

Their emotional state is tied to a number they cannot control.

Here's what they told me:
"I know it's irrational. I know checking doesn't change anything. But 70% of my net worth is in this one stock. I can't help it."

This is what concentration risk looks like, not just financially, but psychologically.

The pattern I see often:
An engineer gets equity comp. The stock performs well. They hold it because "why sell a winner?"
Soon it becomes 60, 70, 80% of their portfolio.

Now every earnings call feels personal. Every price move affects their mood. They check constantly, before standup, during code reviews, in bed at 11pm.

And all that monitoring does not help. It creates anxiety.

Checking the price 20 times a day does not make it go up. It does not provide useful information. It just keeps you reacting to something outside your control.

The real cost is not just financial. It is everything else:

You are distracted at work. Half present with your family. Running mental calculations at dinner about whether to sell after the next earnings call.

Your kid is telling you about their day and you are thinking about a stop loss.

That is not investing. That is being owned by a ticker symbol.

What changes when you diversify:

I have seen this shift. People reduce concentration, move into index funds, and something interesting happens.

They stop checking prices.

Not because they stopped caring, but because no single stock controls how they feel.

Market down 1%? Okay.

Former employer down 4%? Not a big deal.

You get your mental bandwidth back.

You are focused in meetings. Present at dinner. Sleeping better because you are not refreshing apps before bed.

The irony is diversification makes you better at your job, because you are no longer emotionally tied to one stock.

If you are checking prices multiple times a day, ask:
• Is this actionable right now?
• Does it change my long term plan?
• What am I avoiding?
• How much energy is this costing me?

The most financially successful people I know are not glued to prices.
They built a plan, executed it, and moved on with their lives.

Concentration risk is not just about losses.

It is about what happens to your focus, relationships, and peace of mind while you wait.

Diversification reduces financial risk. It also reduces psychological risk.

That might be the more valuable part.

[This is a hypothetical story and not indicative of any specific situations or client. It is presented only as an example and not intended as investment advice. Investing involves risk and there is no assurance that any investment strategy will be successful.]

Three things nobody tells you before moving to Seattle: 1. The rain isn't that bad, it's just constant (you'll get used ...
04/09/2026

Three things nobody tells you before moving to Seattle:

1. The rain isn't that bad, it's just constant (you'll get used to it)
2. Everyone here is extremely outdoorsy and will make you feel slightly guilty about your weekend
3. The cost of living is high enough that your comp package looks different once you run the real numbers on housing, childcare, and actually having a life here.

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest, it's worth it, just plan accordingly.

Someone could get laid off after 9 years at the same company, while still being a brilliant engineer, getting promoted t...
04/02/2026

Someone could get laid off after 9 years at the same company, while still being a brilliant engineer, getting promoted twice and making great money.

But his entire network was internal. His resume was one tech stack. His LinkedIn hadn't been updated since 2019.

Now he's applying to jobs and realizing the market moved on while he wasn't looking.

Here's the thing, I'm not anti-tenure. Staying at one place has real value. You build deep expertise, you get promoted, equity vests.

But there's a version of tenure that's an asset and a version that's a liability.

Asset tenure: You've built transferable skills, kept your network alive, stayed sharp on what's happening outside your company.

Liability tenure: You're really good at this one thing at this one company and you're not sure you could get hired anywhere else.

Your career needs diversification too.

Not job hopping, but side projects, external network, learning skills that transfer, taking calls even when you're happy.

The goal isn't to leave. It's to know you could if you needed to.

Because layoffs happen. And the people who land on their feet are the ones who didn't put 100% of their career risk in one basket.

How to Misplace a Golden TicketWashington spent decades performing a quiet magic trick: a proudly progressive state that...
04/01/2026

How to Misplace a Golden Ticket

Washington spent decades performing a quiet magic trick: a proudly progressive state that still attracted the nation's boldest companies because it refused to tax the very people building them.

Then, with one stroke, Governor Bob Ferguson introduced a 9.9% "millionaires' tax," instantly giving Washington the fifth‑highest top income‑tax rate in America.

It's a stunning shift for a state whose economic fortune was built on not doing that. Would Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco or even Boeing have planted their headquarters in a place that made success more expensive? It's a question worth asking.

For years, Washington's biggest recruiting advantage was embarrassingly simple: no income tax. People voted with their feet. The state became the fastest‑growing state since 2020, outpacing most of the country. Leaders could clearly see which policies drew talent and which sent it packing.

And yet, they marched confidently in the other direction as if prosperity were something guaranteed rather than something earned.

Just re-read "The Happiness Hypothesis" by Jonathan Haidt and this line stopped me:"The elephant (your emotions) is far ...
03/27/2026

Just re-read "The Happiness Hypothesis" by Jonathan Haidt and this line stopped me:

"The elephant (your emotions) is far more powerful than the rider (your rational mind). The rider can see the path forward, but if the elephant doesn't want to go, you're not going anywhere."

Made me think about every client who knows exactly what they should do with money but just... doesn't do it.

They know they should diversify out of company stock. The elephant wants to hold because it feels safe.

They know they should save more. The elephant wants the vacation now.

They know they should stick to the plan during a downturn. The elephant panics and sells.
Financial planning isn't just math. It's elephant management.

The spreadsheet can tell you what to do. But if your emotions aren't on board, the plan fails.

That's why the best financial decisions happen when you acknowledge the elephant exists, and build a system that works with it, not against it.

What's one money decision where your rational brain and emotional brain were in a fight?

Marcus Aurelius on wealth: 'Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, inyour way of thinkin...
03/14/2026

Marcus Aurelius on wealth: 'Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in
your way of thinking.'

Easy to say when you're the Roman Emperor, Marcus.

But also... he's not wrong?

I work with people making $400K who feel broke and people making $150K who feel secure.

The difference isn't the number. It's whether they have a plan, a purpose, and some boundaries
around spending.

Wealth is as much psychology as it is math.
Maybe more.

Address

3500 Carillon Pt
Kirkland, WA
98033

Telephone

+14255884865

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when John Gusu posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to John Gusu:

Shortcuts

Share

Category