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Startup employees don't earn more

80000hours.org

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Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#31

Post by bunkydoo »

jeremyt wrote: post #28
bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

Just sour grapes. You don't have any magical insight into the industry. You're just drawing conclusions from one data point. Here are two more data points for you: I've worked at two startups and so far both startups are solid successes.

Our country is just shy of $20 trillion in debt because investors spend their cash on startups like mine and expect the government to write it off on their taxes when it fails.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#32

Post by HaseebQ »

telotortium wrote: post #27
adamzerner wrote: post #22

This talks about aggregate earning rather than earning per unit of time. I think the latter is what people are/should be interested in, and from what I understand, startup employees put in a lot more hours.

Well, it depends on what you're trying to achieve. There are legitimate reasons to try to achieve the highest possible pay per year, no matter how many hours in the year you have to work in order to get it. In the case of 80000 hours, the goal is to donate as much money to charity as possible, and, if I may put it somewhat crudely, they would prefer you work as much as possible, only stopping work in order to eat and…

Completely disagree. Even if you're maximizing for donations, any reasonable analysis would still have to privilege your own well-being as a giver. Lowering your burnout/regression rate from 25% to 5% by giving yourself a higher quality of life seems like one of the best investments you can make.

You don't need to expend wads of cash. But you don't need to be destitute as a software engineer to give effectively.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#33

Post by w1ntermute »

bunkydoo wrote: post #30
exstudent2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1 million is practically nothing as far as startup funding goes. Especially in the Bay Area. That's basically a year to find product market fit and raise another round. No offense but you don't sound like you have enough experience to be commenting on our industry as a whole.

$1 million dollars used to be enough to buy the American Dream and have enough left over to send little Timmy to college. How 'bout them apples?

That's a terrible comparison. The impact of $1 million dollars on a family and the impact of $1 million dollars on a seed-stage startup are totally different. Did you really work in the tech industry? It doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#34

Post by bunkydoo »

w1ntermute wrote: post #33
bunkydoo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1 million dollars used to be enough to buy the American Dream and have enough left over to send little Timmy to college. How 'bout them apples?

That's a terrible comparison. The impact of $1 million dollars on a family and the impact of $1 million dollars on a seed-stage startup are totally different. Did you really work in the tech industry? It doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about.

Circuithub YC Winter'12 batch baby. I make more money at the post office duder.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#35

Post by parent5446 »

This is just a minor annoyance, but the header image of this article, which has been used in other articles [0], is CC-BY 2.0 licensed [1], and yet is not attributed to the original author at all.

(Perhaps even more interesting is that it looks like it's being used to depict a startup company environment, even though it's actually a hostel in Amsterdam during the Wikimedia Foundation's annual international hackathon.)

[0] http://silicon.nyc/code-academies-new-york-coding/ [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Hackathon_...

EDIT: I misread the license. It's CC-BY 2.0, not CC-BY-SA 2.0.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#36

Post by telotortium »

HaseebQ wrote: post #32
telotortium wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends on what you're trying to achieve. There are legitimate reasons to try to achieve the highest possible pay per year, no matter how many hours in the year you have to work in order to get it. In the case of 80000 hours, the goal is to donate as much money to charity as possible, and, if I may put it somewhat crudely, they would prefer you work as much as possible, only stopping work in order to eat and…

Completely disagree. Even if you're maximizing for donations, any reasonable analysis would still have to privilege your own well-being as a giver. Lowering your burnout/regression rate from 25% to 5% by giving yourself a higher quality of life seems like one of the best investments you can make. You don't need to expend wads of cash. But you don't need to be destitute as a software engineer to give effectively.

I actually agree with you. I was being a bit facetious - 80000 hours is somewhat infamous for a rigidly utilitarian view of effective charity and for optimizing for monetary means of increasing the effectiveness of said charities. But even they recognize the risk of burnout.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#37

Post by _9vpl »

exstudent2 wrote: post #29
bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

$1 million is practically nothing as far as startup funding goes. Especially in the Bay Area. That's basically a year to find product market fit and raise another round. No offense but you don't sound like you have enough experience to be commenting on our industry as a whole.

Seed rounds have certainly exploded over last few years.

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#38

Post by superuser2 »

djur wrote: post #14
zachsnow wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that while I agree that the marginal value decreases I also feel (literally feel ) that somehow having say an order of magnitude more would somehow be qualitatively different (and better). Funny to see my own biases play tricks (?) on me!

Paradoxically, I think that you feel that way _because_ of the decreasing marginal value of money. Superfluous income is disposable income, and spending money in a way entirely of your choosing is pleasurable. Especially if you're already making enough to get by, the value of the money you're already making is "priced in" to your subconscious analysis. Thus, the next order of magnitude of income really is qualitative…

> Superfluous income is disposable income

Only if you don't rent a nicer/closer apartment. (OTOH, lower commute times are associated with happiness).

Re: Startup employees don't earn more

#40

Post by dohoho »

bunkydoo wrote: post #24

I'm gonna be straight with y'all, I earn more as a post office mail carrier than I ever did as a programmer for a silicon valley startup with $1 million dollars seed funding. I also surprisingly have more freedom even though I work basically like a slave. Nobody wants to admit it but we are in a tech bubble. Sure, if you are in the right startup things might be different. I had a great valley experience - but it was…

Hah, I worked in government as an engineer before I moved to a startup doing something completely different. If you're ok with being a slave and fighting the very people you're working for to get the benefits you need to live a decent life then yeah government work is for you. That mindset that we're in a tech bubble is what I was worried about when I took on a city position but it's just fear. I thought it would happen for two years and nothing came. If you want to be scared, fine but how about you try and make an educated prediction and see if it will come true instead of just hand waving it.

On a broader note, I thought the fact that you make less at a startup was established. Big Co almost always pays more.

https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/

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