The sadness you speak of is very interesting and some thing I felt a long time ago when I left. As a sidenote I spent 2003 to 2008 with many of the same people you did I’m sure at Lehman. Watching the guys paraded in front of the court just gutted me.
I certainly feel it and it’s not dissipating any time soon, I suspect. While in the back of my mind I always knew this day would come but the finality of it just sort of it me once we’ve officially begun the legal dissolution process.
Before the pandemic, I had always just presumed I could start my own FO anywhere in the world with HK as the frontrunner and perhaps Singapore a distant second. While I’ve never seriously considered Tokyo, it’s certainly worthy of consideration; I love the city, its people and have always enjoyed my trips there.
As I’ve begun the evaluation process, Utah—shockingly, to me anyway—isn’t that bad. Salt Lake City appears to be, like, an actual city. So, who knows, perhaps ironically my first venture deep into “Flyover Country” will be to settle there permanently.