This article is wrong in so many ways and not generalizable. I can see on bigger companies, you may be an excel sheet row. But, the reason why someone would get laid-off is the exact opposite IMO - not adding value. But in a smaller early stage company, you are responsible for team's success or failure and you are the only reason why someone are getting laid-off.
I built and sold my first startup in my 20s and building another in my 30s with family and mortgage - I suppose I'm qualified to answer this question
Short answer: yes, its possible
1. Find your niche and work 1-2 hours every day to create a strong pitch (a prototype and ideally a few early customers) - consistency is the key - EVERY DAY. Act with urgency here.
2. Raise a pre-seed round - this is when you quit your job. Yes, you are selling equity in your sweat. But there is no free lunch - you want to keep the living standards and also, stop working full-time for someone else - you need cash flow. There is a probability that you identify a really good problem and you grow customer base really quickly - that is very less likely in my opinion.
Once you have some capital, you'll have a larger canvas to paint - it changes the mindset to be faithful to people who trusted you with their money and also, brings in so much of focus.
There is the whole weekend hustler concept - I am not a big fan (I made more progress in 2 months full-time compared to what I could make in 2 years working on weekends)
What's the worst that could happen? Just do it.
Two mantras for you: Focus on intent; Always measure impact
Great ideas comes from individuals; But a combination of ideas as a team effort is what usually solves sizable problems.
There may be narrow use cases where the overhead of brainstorming doesn't add any value; but otherwise, I still believe brainstorming is a good way to consider alternatives for open-ended problems.
Yes, Definitely, books are worth it. I was at the same place as of you ~3 years ago, doubting the value of reading books - so, I can speak to it.
tl;dr: For breadth, online reading is good enough; while for depth and study, books tend to be the way to go. No matter which medium(book/audiobook/summaries), reading more is always better.
I can think of at least 4 major differences between online content and books.
1. Comprehensiveness
2. Background research
3. Test of time
4. Focus and grounding
Let me explain.
1. Most of the online content is "designed" to be consumed in < 10 minutes. So, it assumes fundamentals or ignores details otherwise are critical to the topic. This is useful for quickly grasping a concept, but if you want to go deeper, books will give you better context
2. "92% of the online content is designed to prove a point"
(Above statement is a made-up one, and I have no idea what percentage of the online content is made up)
A lot of content available online are valuable and accurate. At the same time, the credibility of online content is questionable, while books tend to be more research-oriented. A person has spent at least 6 months to put together a book, and multiple people spend hours to get it out. Books tend to be more linked to the credibility of the author. Paul Graham's essays (http://paulgraham.com/articles.html), for example, are gems and it doesn't matter if it is consumed as a book or a blog - it does contain valuable content.
3. Books age well than online content - some of the timeless classics still stay relevant in the current decade or century. More people review them, so more crowdsourced opinions. This might sound contrary to the belief, but this is something I've observed over time.
4. Most importantly, you may devour the internet for a whole day, and learn a bunch of things but the very next day, because everything was so unstructured, you'd tend to lose clarity and only a few things stick. This is more pertinent to some people than others. So, consuming or learning about new concepts systematically through a book will improve the stickiness of the ideas and be more structured while thinking about it. Books, also tend to be more detailed with more examples to put things in context, to which you can relate to. It gives you time to think and organize. Think about it as taking a structured course, rather than learning bits and pieces from here and there.
Now, the Pareto Principle (80/20) does apply and reading 20% will give you general context on 80%. But more often than not, on most subjects, 20% does contain in-depth information you'll miss out on.
Listing a few books I recommend, which I believe are worth reading
[1] The Science of the Artificial by Herbert A. Simon
[2] Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
[3] Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Jordan Peterson
[4] Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
[5] A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
[6] Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
[7] Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
[8] The Origins and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann
[9] The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
[10] Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
Work is different for an early-stage startup with purpose vs. established companies making way through day-to-day activities, churning through a list of tasks. It requires quite a bit of mind space and commitment to be part of an early-stage startup - and if you look at it that way, 5 days offsite for relaxation and collaboration sounds like a cool idea to me.
As someone suggested in comments, save at least 1 year worth in a safe haven (preferably gold)
No need to freak out; Relax!
Do NOT donate - That is being irresponsible
Do NOT hire someone - It's not their money; you were at the right place at the right time - not them - you have the responsibility to invest right.
Please do NOT retire - you are at your prime age of contributing back to the society - surely, take more vacations, and spend time with family - may be work only 3 days a week.
Do NOT spend on a fancy house or a car - Not worth it.
If it's of your interest, become a venture capital - You should be looking at 10:1 success ratio - so be ready to lose money on most of the investments - but eventually, you'll create so much value, that it'll be worth it.
Take at least a quarter or two of time to decide the budget - you'll learn a lot. And I believe you have the liberty to do it. ;)
Set aside 10% or whatever you are comfortable to lose for risky investments(bitcoin and sorts) and returns from that for squandering - Don't go over budget there.
Park money in an insured, interest-bearing spot (1% yearly is going to give you 80k just for parking - consider money market accounts - Caveat: FDIC Insurance covers only till 250k per account per person - figure out the details)
Most importantly, what you are essentially getting is time - Try to find a cause worth spending your time.
One last piece of advice - Don't get attached - Know that money is the means, not the ends.