Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like I said, risky/dumb things
To realize the benefit of ISOs you need long term gains treatment. That requires you "prepay" tax when you execute. It's the difference between 20% and 33%+ effective tax rate.
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“Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
321–330 of 335 posts
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#322Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're not really contradictory. A 9 to 5 day can easily turn into 4 hours of real work. Show up, eat breakfast, spend some time reading HN, an hour of work, lunch, an hour or two working, grab coffee, play some foosball, another hour of work, go to the gym, time to go home!
Conversely, most engineers only have three to five hours of really hard, sustainable technical work in them per day, and that's assuming a regular schedule, adequate sleep, good nutrition, no major emotional upsets going on... Now, that is work . No checking Facebook. No checking email. Process optimized so there are no long periods of waiting around. I have had periods when my day was six hours: five hours of hard w…
>Conversely, most engineers only have three to five hours of really hard, sustainable technical work in them per day,
What makes you say that?
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#324This actually dates back decades. DEC invented "no output division": a team comprised of senior but bored people who would be unfashionable and dangerous to kick out. You give them some bullshit bling project and segregate them well from people who are actually doing meaningful work so that they don't get in the way. It's better if they do something meaningless for you than something meaningful for a competitor.
These also exist at Google.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#325This is probably why Apple, a hardware company, has operating margins that are higher than Google and Microsoft (even though their gross margins are almost half of Google's and Microsoft's). The only person I can think of that might have this arrangement at Apple is Scott Forstall. I think that's why he's been radio silent until very recently (or he could just be very loyal to Apple). Maybe Katie Cotton when they cha…
Every time I read one of your comments, I know it will be about your employer, how great its products are, and how great its business is; even when the article, like this one, is not about your employer. Yes, we know that this sort of thing is rarer outside of Internet companies. Yes, we know that Jobs's Apple and Pixar notoriously initiated no-poaching agreements with other Silicon Valley employers that depressed sa…
I don't work for Apple.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#326Ok, thanks for sharing this. I made this observation for the last 3 years myself, not as an employee even, but as a contractor. I had three positions at two companies, all paying quite high (150k$/year). I changed the positions because the workload was so low that I had an hour of work a day, then pretending I was doing work for the rest of the day which I can't stand for more than a few months. Now I changed again i…
> I changed the positions because the workload was so low I knew someone who basically took full advantage of this. He was a contractor too, but just added a clause that he'd be allowed to work from home/remotely. So he was doing multiple gigs simultaneously; so instead of making $100/hr (or thereabouts, I'm not sure about the exact numbers), he was making $400/hr. It's probably not legal to do what he was doing, but…
It's probably not legal to do what he was doing, but he sure was livin' large.
Of course it's legal; a contractor is not an employee, they are a company in their own right. A company can manage its operations however it likes.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
To realize the benefit of ISOs you need long term gains treatment. That requires you "prepay" tax when you execute. It's the difference between 20% and 33%+ effective tax rate.
Just to be clear, sounds like you are referring to the company that was acquired (not Google, whose stock is liquid). Few startups have Early Exercise of stock options. For those that do, if one has the cash to do the exercise and the willingness to put the cash into that illiquid startup stock, it behooves them to do it as soon as they can, so that there is no difference between their Strike Price and the Fair Marke…
"Alternatively, they could simply hold the option, which costs them nothing, and just pay the normal taxes (33%+) when exercising and selling."
This forfeits the tax advantages of an ISO. You don't need early exercise, you exercise when they vest, hold them for a year, and sell at long term treatment.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
A friend of a friend at Apple seemed to have a very long leash. He was involved in the original iPhone, but afterward he kind of bounced around, spent time in Japan, "worked" at home, did a lot of other projects. He and Apple eventually parted ways, but I'm not sure he was fired, and at any rate it was after years of this kind of behavior.
I find this hard to believe given what I know about Apple's corporate culture. If your characterization of his employment is true, I don't believe it's common. I think the closest that might come to this is Bob Mansfield. He returned after his retirement shortly after Scott Forstall left and eventually gave up his executive role, but even then he continued to work on "special projects", which turned out to be the App…
Apple's a big company with a lot of business units that are pretty hermetically sealed from each other. Various different people I've met who work at Apple have had very different experiences there.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#329Cuck.
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Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
The parent's point, I think, is that teachers and firefighters (in this country) are rarely (effectively never) compensated according to the value they provide. I happen to agree with that point.
Even in the US. I doubt that's a general truth. The 4 million American developers outside of the GAFA and HN circle have nothing outstanding. By the way, in the country I come from, they are both compensated more or equally than developers.
GAFA?