Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#291

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 3:56 PM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #256

keiferski wrote: post #221

It's interesting how so many people have an aversion to being a business owner / entrepreneur, and will instead put in so much effort to optimize being a well-paid employee, instead of learning how to start and run a business. These salaries listed are great salaries, no doubt, but they are not dramatically more than say, a guy running a successful local plumbing business. And the ceiling is limited as an employee, w…

As someone who has been self-employed for over 20 years, done the startup thing (including going through YC in the very early days), I totally understand why people would not want to. There are real downsides to owning your own business. It’s probably been 15 years since I had a day where I didn’t check my email. Most people are Indians, not chiefs, and I think that’s actually an evolutionary adaptation that’s built…

In general, one-person shops have real downsides for both owners and customers. As an employee, I've often been in situations where I simply haven't been reachable for extended periods of time which obviously isn't great for a customer either absent a fallback. Fallbacks of various sorts are available but probably not at "the SaaS is down" level.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#292

Post by reaperman » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 3:56 PM UTC

brodouevencode wrote: post #285

reaperman wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's a fair assumption you never once attempted to calculate your own taxes in the first decade of filing taxes? Did you just drop some papers off to an accountant the first year that you reached adulthood? I've used an accountant occasionally, but only when I had genuinely confusing tax issues involving international work or work across many states where I wasn't sure whether there existed a "nexus" that req…

If you're in the lowest tax bracket making just above the poverty line, as I was then (as well as most people around me), it was what we all understood to be.

I was in that tax bracket for half my adult life (often did not have enough money to eat chicken and rice at home and just went hungry). I had to do my own taxes because I couldn’t afford an accountant and TurboTax starting taking the piss on their dark pattern pricing schemes. All of my friends at the time were also very poor, it was a giant recession and we worked in restaurants that weren’t getting customers. We got paid $2.65/hr so if we actually had a “good week” our paychecks were $0 (actually negative, honestly, but paychecks bottom out at $0) due to taxes on tips.

Now I’m even more confused. Accountants were genuinely expensive and none of my peers in my economic class could afford one.

At the risk of repeating myself: how did you file taxes for the first decade of adulthood? If you were too poor pay an accountant like I was…how did you misunderstand how to calculate taxes owed for ten years, but still arrive at the correct amount to pay? Did the IRS often return money to you saying that you over-paid? Did anyone ever try to correct your misconception?

I’m trying to understand this in more detail than just “memorize the fact that 50% of Americans were lied to by (someone?) about taxes, and also just blindly accept that there is some magic unknown to me which allowed them to not be affected by that misunderstanding through most of their adult life”.

You were in poverty when you had this misunderstanding. This other commenter bought a house while they had the same misunderstanding. (So, “being poor” isn’t the experience you both had in common while holding this misconception and can’t explain it for both of you). I’m trying to understand how that misunderstanding never affected either of you. I’m trying to understand how neither of you ever had to read about how to calculate taxes owed.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#293

Post by Merad » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #242

epicureanideal wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean a SAAS that solves a boring problem for other businesses with money to spend. Profitable software-based ideas are increasingly difficult to find. Thousands of people are exploring every niche and trying to start startups in them, which is great, but competition is fierce and unexplored niches are shrinking. And of course, it's still not straightforward even if you find a relatively unexplored niche. Most peo…

People say this but I don’t buy it at all. If anything, it feels like the vast majority of the business world is still operating on some combination of Excel and a software program that was outdated a decade ago. The main issue is that their problems are too boring and obscure for anyone without direct personal experience to care about them.

I used to work in internal IT at a Fortune 500 working with different departments in the company to turn Excel spreadsheets and Access97 tools into web apps with real databases. The problem is that the companies/departments where this is the case all have their own workflows and business processes, and 99% of the time are completely unwilling to consider change. It'll be really challenging to develop software that can be sold to multiple companies even when they ostensibly do the same thing.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#294

Post by gmadsen » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

Rinzler89 wrote: post #234

keiferski wrote: post #221

It's interesting how so many people have an aversion to being a business owner / entrepreneur, and will instead put in so much effort to optimize being a well-paid employee, instead of learning how to start and run a business. These salaries listed are great salaries, no doubt, but they are not dramatically more than say, a guy running a successful local plumbing business. And the ceiling is limited as an employee, w…

> instead of learning how to start and run a business Because the stress and risks of running a small business as a solo inexperienced first time business owner are insane compared to a regular 9-5. Especially if you start hiring other people, your liability then increases 10 fold as now anything can happen with them (sick leave, absenteism, low performance, sabotage, etc) but you're still bound to the same deadlines…

isnt this the purpose of LLCs?

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#295

Post by tracker1 » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

fulladder wrote: post #239

tracker1 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My plan next time I'm doing any kind of c2c type work will be to setup with trinet or another similar company to handle payroll benefits, even if it is just me.

You'd still have GP's problem of not finding any decent health insurance offered for a single-employee business. Google "adverse selection."

The health insurance would be from TriNet (not a single-employee business). There are similar collective businesses.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#296

Post by dawnbreez » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #255

reaperman wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently this belief is far more common than I thought. I expected it to be closer to the percentage of Americans who think the Earth is flat (10%)[0]. Evidently 50% of Americans[1] believe you pay your highest marginal rate on all of your income. I'm blown away, and genuinely humbled. I don't understand how someone can get a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac home loan, raise children, have a long and successful career and no…

There is a class of rich people in the US who really like that people believe this. It allows them to spread a lot of fear about higher tax rates for high incomes.

Not to mention the influence of companies like Intuit, which has been pushing against convenience in tax filing for decades because its entire business model relies on people being unwilling or unable to file by themselves: https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#297

Post by ldjkfkdsjnv » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

packetlost wrote: post #174

chollida1 wrote: post #155

Sure, if you work at many hedge fund you'll make similar money, and likely more if you are good at the job and the fund has success. One other nice thing is that instead of restricted stock you get actual money. And generally the money will be locked up for less time than the 4 year vesting that these companies often follow. And on top of that you can usually invest your money fee free in your own fund to help juice…

It's pretty hard to get into these IME. I'm considered a top-performer at the deep tech company I currently work at, and interviewed at a hedge fund awhile back. The process was way less intense than what I would expect a big tech co. interview to be. I made it to the top three candidates, but didn't get it. In hindsight, the role wouldn't have been a good fit, it was "higher up in the stack" than I prefer to be, whi…

Alot of getting hired into these roles depends on your upbringing/perceived social class by the people at the fund, the school you went to, how you present yourself, whether they want to work with you, how trustworthy you are, etc. The technical pieces are pretty far behind.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#298

Post by alex_suzuki » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #221

It's interesting how so many people have an aversion to being a business owner / entrepreneur, and will instead put in so much effort to optimize being a well-paid employee, instead of learning how to start and run a business. These salaries listed are great salaries, no doubt, but they are not dramatically more than say, a guy running a successful local plumbing business. And the ceiling is limited as an employee, w…

While running a small business can be incredibly fulfilling and teach you a ton of adjacent skills that you wouldn’t learn as a SwEng at a FAANG (sales, marketing, …), I find it infinitely more stressful than regular employment.

There’s just so much more responsibility resting on your shoulders. Holidays have never felt the same since I left employment in 2011.

No regrets here, just saying this path is not for everyone and not as accessible as you might think.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#299

Post by shrubble » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 4:00 PM UTC

Rinzler89 wrote: post #249

keiferski wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that, but if you’re trying to get a job at one of the best paying companies in the world, is the stress level actually that different? And there are plenty of examples (search on HN for them) of people running one person internet businesses and making a healthy living.

> is the stress level actually that different? Your liability is. Worst case scenario is you don't get hired, or you get hired, and then get fired. That the worst that can happen. FAANG isn't gonna come after you for damages if you accidentally brick something in production or are just lazy and incompetent. As a business, your customers might. Let's watch how the Crowdstrike scenario unfolds in the coming months, whe…

CrowdStrike is a publicly traded company; no one is coming after the founders or the CEO for money they have cashed out via stock sales, prior to the event. So it's not a great example.

A better example is simply having your business evaporate overnight while you have a building/offices to pay for, employees to pay, etc. Which happened to someone I know back in the early days of Windows NT: his servers and desktops that he built, worked under NT but then a service pack for NT 3.51 broke everything; overnight his contract with a large local hospital went away; that a few months later the next service pack fixed the issues, meant nothing to his former customers. He went from making the equivalent of $250K today to approximately zero.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#300

Post by reaperman » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 4:00 PM UTC

698969 wrote: post #290

dvdbloc wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA this is not how tax brackets work. You are taxed on your income in each bracket at that rate, not overall

Out of curiosity, since you said "In the USA" specifically, is there any tax regime in these times where tax brackets don't work like this?

They likely don’t know every country’s tax code and instead of confidently spreading misinformation like the above commenter, this commenter is being careful to only state facts they actually do know.