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https://www.financialsamurai.com/living-a-middle-class-lifes...
The most egregious example is college.
JUST the 529 has something like $38k when the kid turns 18.
The house will eventually be paid off, and 15 year mortgages are still possible in many expensive coastal cities on $300k/yr. So you have an additional $3,900/mo = $46,800/yr, some of which you can burn on college expenses. Let's say half.
That means you have at most 38+8.5+46/2 = 69 PER YEAR of college. AND that's with additional 46k/2 retirement savings! Even for a huge family of 4, after discount rates [1], that's enough to pay for tuition at an expensive private college with zero scholarship over the discount rate. Especially if you forego constantly making car payments on an expensive car (drive that 5 year old car for 5 more years while the kid(s) are in college). That level of saving isn't necessary! If you're spending more than that on college, the loans to cover the difference will more than pay for themselves. (Oh, and you're in a coastal city, so there are top-tier universities within driving distance, so no ned for room&board.)
[1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/05/16/discount-rate...
edit: I can't read columns correctly. need coffee.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Competition, and value. At the height of Microsoft's days, the average employee generated something like $2m in value. Take a dozen companies like that, where the income of the company divided by the number of employees is still in the millions, and have them fight for the best talent. Lately, tech is especially special for this because a good employee is so much more valuable than a bad one. Some developers honestly…
There's still the question of FAANG branches in other parts of the world not paying nearly as much as they do in the US, which is bullshit to me - if an employee generates value while working in the US, it does so outside of it as well. Companies this big shouldn't lower their compensation to match the country they operate in, I feel like it's an insult to employees who simply were born/decided to live in a different…
There are significant barriers to moving (for the employee) and hiring remotely (for employers) which means the salaries don't equalize across regions very well. Employers are mostly competing with other local employers, so there's not much pressure to increase compensation and salaries change slowly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Competition, and value. At the height of Microsoft's days, the average employee generated something like $2m in value. Take a dozen companies like that, where the income of the company divided by the number of employees is still in the millions, and have them fight for the best talent. Lately, tech is especially special for this because a good employee is so much more valuable than a bad one. Some developers honestly…
There's still the question of FAANG branches in other parts of the world not paying nearly as much as they do in the US, which is bullshit to me - if an employee generates value while working in the US, it does so outside of it as well. Companies this big shouldn't lower their compensation to match the country they operate in, I feel like it's an insult to employees who simply were born/decided to live in a different…
There are many people in China/India who are smarter and harder working and more driven than many people at FANG headquarters. However they're competing with each other in a highly competitive area while in the US there is less competition because of moats dug to create better quality of life. Like how elevators beep when there are too many people to prevent crowding.
So the end reason is very very similar to why any sort of inequality exists at all, just in a more extreme and jarring form because the field in question is supposed to be THE meritocratic field. (Which it is in a way... But most of that disappears in large companies. And in the truly free economic playing ground it's not about smarts but about money and smarts)
What do you do?
* What is your job title? CTO
* What is your total comp? $600k salary, $500k cash performance bonus, $750k equity mix (RSUs and options)
* Who do you work for? Post C-round VC backed tech company, * Where do you live (assuming you don't work from home)? London, UK
* How long did it take you to get here? ~12 years
* How did you get here (networking/raw technical skill/job board/dumb luck, etc.)? Worked for a couple FANNGs, did consulting, built a brand for myself, got hired to replace a founder CTO who maxed out their skillset.
I wonder outside of FAANG how easy it is to get 300k salaries.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cost of living in the US gets ridiculous. Healthcare is expensive and gets more expensive the more you make. As much as I make I'm probably one bad accident away from being wiped out financially When you add a family, child care is super expensive; think $350/week for two kids Not to say we aren't hyper-consuming gluttons, but I think that's only about one third of the picture
Don’t forget the govt takes over 40 percent when your making upper class to higher level salaries especially if your single. That 300k is really only 180k annually. So the govt takes the salary of a lower level upper class person for taxes. When u make the jump from 50k to a higher tax bracket, taxes will shock u!
Another important question: What is your take-way home amount vs. what you pay in taxes. $300k is cool but if you are paying $100k of it to uncle Sam, then it is not really $300k.
Here's the real question. If you are pulling that much, why are you still working? Why not head straight to the beach and live a wonderful life of idle luxury?
According to glass door at Amazon in the UK you can make anywhere from £30k to £50k.
Microsoft goes a bit higher (in London, but everything is higher in London) to around £65k for SE2.
I only know one friend who is a developer on £100k+, most of us are on around £30k to £40k.
I know one Senior Developer doing Web Development on around £25k ($35k)
The fraction of people in the UK pulling in £100k+ in any job is tiny, nevermind tech workers.