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Cutting your salary by 40%

codewithoutrules.com

271–280 of 451 posts

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#271
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> zero-sum competition for inflexible goods if you consider good housing to be only within a certain distance of some CBD, then yes, housing is zero sum. But there's lots more space available than humans right now, and relaxing the distance/centrality requirement will greatly increase the pool of available housing (and hence, "cheaper"). The only winner when everyone tries to outbid for a small amount of housing is t…

All the best jobs are in the big expensive cities. Everywhere around the world, if you want the best job you will need to go to New York, SF, London, Tokyo, Paris, Munich etc. That's one reason why everybody wants to live there. Second reason would is to be close to a large number of people which greatly increases social activities you can do. In a large city even a niche hobby will probably attract enough people tha…

How do you define "best job"? I want to minimize my commute to work. Right now I work about 4 miles from my house, which is a 10 minute drive without touching a highway. If I lived in San Francisco I'd need to make over $300k just to break event when you look at the insane cost of living, and that's not even taking into account the higher federal taxes or California taking its cut.

Most people want to live in big cities for the big cities - not because of the jobs there. NYC would be really fun, but I'd need to make an insane amount of money to have the same lifestyle I have now and a 10 minute commute to boot. In fact, that'd be impossible, because now I have a yard, a dog, and a car. A 10 minute commute in NYC would pretty much require me to be in a small apartment.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#272

I often think about Arthur Rubenstein, the phenom mid-century pianist, for whom a lot has been written about his mission in early life to "practice as little as possible." There's a lot of hyped up romanticism in these quotes and anyone who plays at his level has spent a lifetime playing piano, period. Regardless, his guidance about spontaneity, creativity, and the relationship to practicing too much, which I equate…

i think the key here is the risk, not necessarily not practicing. its always good to boost you technique. its always good to know more rather than less. but, if you practice in such a way that you are trying to eliminate risk when performing, thats i think where you run into trouble. far be it from me to think i know more about this subject than rubenstein... but just my 2c. risk kind of seems like the empathic gateway with the audience, they can see that you are vulnerable, which makes the whole thing infinitely more interesting. its almost unfair that playing things perfectly makes them worse, because most people wont even know its hard or could have fallen apart.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#273
post #5

Tangential: I loved the "When programming is your hobby" part of this blog post. Finally someone accepting, and not dissing, people who actually like to code . The advice is spot-on, too: coding > 40h / week is fine, but why give up your freedom of choosing what to work on, when to work on it, and when to take time off, without any compensation?

Nobody really ever "disses" the people who like to code. What gets talked about are those who spend all that time coding to make someone else rich, instead of doing something for themselves.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#274
post #2

The original job postings[1][2] were even more egregious. They originally said, "many of us routinely work 70-90 hours/week". After a lot of criticism on a Facebook post by Andrew Ng[3] (where you can still find residual evidence of the "work 70-90 hours/week" claim), they modified it to, "many of us routinely work and study 70+ hours a week". So to be precise, they were initially offering you a 43% to 56% pay cut. G…

Funny thing is that site shows up as just a black screen on Chrome on Android.[1] If they are working so much then why is their website so broken?

[1] https://imgur.com/a/dWnvl

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#275
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Rubinstein humbly then revisit technique and practise religiously in his 40s? (Not to detract from your point, which I think has value). I think that the middle way is key. I've met people who think work for the sake of work is valuable. Others who wouldn't touch hard work with a barge pole. If you cherish success, both are required. Having met virtuoso pianists, I'd say the context which Rubinstein talks from…

>> Reaching the level of mastery where one can sightread any of the Beethoven concerti or a Liszt etude requires a lifetime of years/decades of dedicated practice, but it is true that once you're at that level, you can find diminishing returns on hard work which encroach upon your creativity. I would argue that looking at sheet music and playing it requires very little creativity, if any at all. It is in that arena t…

"requires" is an interesting word. i think you can get away with being a robot, but you are basically saying that no classical musicians are creative, which is laughable. you can improvise dynamics, tone, articulation, phrasing, tempo... its not just the pitches man!

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#276

The most successful people I know work much more than 40 hours each week.

Reminds of a bit by Chris Rock. Paraphrasing: "If you have a job, the clock is your enemy and you can't wait for the shift to end. If you have a career, there are not enough hours in the day." In his world, having a career means working 100% for yourself.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As people. Granted, none of those people are grinding away working for The Man. Instead, they are running their own organizations. Is that not your experience?

Working for yourself versus working for "The Man" makes a huge difference because you know every second of that 60 hour week you're putting in is to your direct benefit. Talk to someone who owns their own business working 60 hours and then someone who's being forced to work 60 hours for their company and you'll be talking to two people with vastly different outlooks.

Well, you either are The Man, or you work for The Man. The choice is yours to make.

I agree with you, but the point stands. They're able to be productive and happy while working more than 40 hours per week.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#278
post #2

The original job postings[1][2] were even more egregious. They originally said, "many of us routinely work 70-90 hours/week". After a lot of criticism on a Facebook post by Andrew Ng[3] (where you can still find residual evidence of the "work 70-90 hours/week" claim), they modified it to, "many of us routinely work and study 70+ hours a week". So to be precise, they were initially offering you a 43% to 56% pay cut. G…

> Getting paid for 40 hours Do salaried jobs always specify a number of hours in their contracts? Otherwise you aren't being paid for 40 hours - you're just being paid to get the job done aren't you?

Try getting your work done in 30 hours, and say you're going home. See how far that gets you.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As people. Granted, none of those people are grinding away working for The Man. Instead, they are running their own organizations. Is that not your experience?

Yeah, my experience is the opposite. Sounds like you hang out with people in a higher tax bracket than I do, and that could explain some of the difference in experience.

Their behavior certainly has a causal relationship with their tax bracket, yes.

The attitude pervades their life.

* You know how most folks sleep and drink when they fly? They work on their laptop.

* You know how most people come home from work exhausted? They come home energized by the things they worked on, filled with new ideas.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#280
post #2

The original job postings[1][2] were even more egregious. They originally said, "many of us routinely work 70-90 hours/week". After a lot of criticism on a Facebook post by Andrew Ng[3] (where you can still find residual evidence of the "work 70-90 hours/week" claim), they modified it to, "many of us routinely work and study 70+ hours a week". So to be precise, they were initially offering you a 43% to 56% pay cut. G…

It's not a pay cut if the pay is $500K-$1M/yr including expected value of stock options...

Unless it's a publicly traded company, stock options should be considered a bonus, and not relied upon for this. They will likely end up dilluted to hell and back, or just end up worthless.
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