Take a short trip to SF and see if you like it. Keep in mind SF is not what it used to be because of all the techies that live there now. If you really want to see what SF is like go see other areas of SF and eastbay.
Exactly. OP comment is thinking that professionals are the one spending the most money. I strongly disagree without knowing any statistics but I'm going to assume by looking at the sheer number of macbooks that young people have to look at youtube and iphones to have cool photo filters are their major market. Like I said, I don't have any statistics, but I'm willing to put money on it. The ones that have money can afford the high end stuff but they are always not professionals
Have you ever thought that the amount of motivation for money is the issue? In other words, what if the main factor that motivated you to work hard was not money? What if you kept the job but you shifted your motivation on producing impact for other people instead of yourself? To add to your point, even if you do build a successful business, you'll get to a place where you will have this same problem correct of diminishing motivation correct? In summary, I think it is necessary for us to sit down and ask ourselves what are living for?
I don't know where you are from but most universities in the U.S. teach Java or C++ as primary language. Pretty much everybody in our school used Java as their interview language and due to the leetcode grinding culture, the interviews are not definitely easy. The companies you talk about sound like they suck.
This is the struggle and the reality of the competition. You have CTCI and leecode on top of that. Plus, to stand out with recruiters, you also want to contribute to open source code and/or have side projects. All of this on top of full-time school and a part-time job was extremely overwhelming. Now that I'm working full-time it's much more manageable.
Also, luck is hugely important during the interview process of your interviewer and the questions you get.