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Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#241

Post by kobeya »

driverdan wrote: post #135
slewis wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my counter-anecdote. I hesitate to do this but I think it's nice for aspiring software engineers to have details. I moved to San Francisco in 2006 straight out of college to work at Google as a SWE. I was $27k in debt (student loan + credit card). My rent was $1450 at the time (2 bedroom with a roommate in a nice part of town), and I took out a $26k loan to buy a car. I'm not particularly frugal. I did well at…

So 7-11 years ago. Not very relevant anymore since the cost of living has increased significantly in SF since then.

Those numbers are still reasonable for the South Bay, which has just as much opportunity, or the East Bay where you could commute in to SF. Or for someone more frugal than the GP. I get what you're saying, but it's still possible to work.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#242

Post by jdmichal »

frakkingcylons wrote: post #165
ryandrake wrote: post #7

> Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will reduce your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing…

Saying it's impossible to save is misleading and it's laughable how often this myth about the Bay Area is perpetuated on HN. Unlike a lot of places in the US, the Bay Area has all of the following: * a meaningful degree of racial diversity (makes a big difference if you're not white) * comprehensive public transit (yeah, yeah BART and MUNI suck, but where I've lived in the US previously, they didn't even exist) * an…

This comment, in turn, is laughable from a guy in his 30's with a wife and toddler... We live on a single income and have our own house with a quarter acre of land. And this is in coastal Florida, not a economically-depressed city in the Midwest.

We all need to accept that people are looking for different things in life. It's difficult to save money in SF, while also having a lifestyle that's relatively easy to maintain in other places. For instance, living without roommates.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#243

Post by speby »

leeoniya wrote: post #19
metalliqaz wrote: post #5

Missing from the strategies for the first two (really all three): come from wealthy background.

not really. my family moved to the states from moscow when i was 7. we spent all our money that we got from selling a crappy apt on the move itself. we lived on food stamps, had to learn english, my parents (both with technical university degrees) went to community college and worked low wage jobs to pay the rent, bills and tuition. we had a super old used ford that was rusting everywhere a vehicle can rust and the d…

> my family moved to the states from moscow ...

Right there, there was enough wealth that you ultimately transferred for what was far better prospects in the US than in Russia. This was probably a very smart move that others with much less means from Russia might have had a very difficult time even leaving their country for the US in the first place.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#244

Post by Woofles »

martin1975 wrote: post #124
Woofles wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or consider that the bay is more than SF. I recently moved to Oakland and I'm paying around $1k/mo on rent compared to $2k/mo or more living in the city while not really giving up any of the benefits of living in the area.

How's your commute time?

My commute is 30-35 minutes each way (walk to Bart, work in downtown SF). For comparison, when I lived in Lower Haight my commute time was 25 minutes each way (MUNI bus a block from my apartment to downtown).

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#245

Post by speby »

shimon wrote: post #129
alexandercrohde wrote: post #22

> • Often don’t get a voice in major decisions – even when you “know the right answer” I'm not sure if the use of quotes here is intended to imply one doesn't actually know the right answer, but only feels that way. It's a particularly important point, I feel in my career I've met so many managers insecure in themselves that they would never consider listening to an idea from a report, not unless you can convince the…

There are a lot of insecure managers who don't want to be challenged on the merits of their decisions. There are also lots of individual contributors on teams who are strident in their beliefs even though they might be informed only from a narrow perspective. If you're a manager, you can address this by inviting thoughtful debate and sharing information. But if you're a non-manager employee, you can't always rely on…

I believe this is true no matter what. In a large enough organizations, decisions are going to be made that not everyone will find they like or agree with. Sometimes, this may be because even though the right answer was shared or discussed, not every other individual employee who may also have shared their input had the same answer.

Net effect is that even with open dialog, debate, or input, management teams still need to work with their employees to make decisions that are right for the company, or at least appear to be, at the time they are made. And inevitably, some employees who feel they should be entitled to influence or even make a decision outright will feel sidelined when their input is not heeded. The feeling of a lack of control sets in and this can be frustrating as it now means supporting decision(s) made by others with whom you do not agree with.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#246

Post by s73ver_ »

melq wrote: post #137
falsedan wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40% of $45k is 12% of $150k, and that doesn't value in the experience and networking opportunities of working in the Bay Area

That's an unreasonable comparison. Where would you be working for 45k that would equate to a 150k salary in SF?

The Midwest, not in a major city like Chicago.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#247

Post by gxs »

urda wrote: post #159
Akujin wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand where people get off telling someone who makes six figures that they should "get a roommate" just so that they can actually save some money.

Typically it is one of the following: - Someone who is completely disconnected from reality - Older generations where "a firm handshake a smile got me my job and education, why are you younger folks so poor? Why didn't you buy a cheap house decades ago like I did?" - Someone who never lived in the Bay Area, yet feels like they should comment on those trying to make a living there.

You can see how I might have been confused about which site I was on since the level of entitlement is exactly the same.

Not sure your preaching about this not being Reddit contributed to this discussion anymore than my comments.

Admittedly I could have reigned in the language, however.

Finally, to address your points:

>>>How can you expect a technial worker

Shining example of my point about entitlement.

>>>Someone who is detached from reality >>>Older generations >>>Someone who never lived in the Bay Area

On my part at least, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

You should not jump to assumptions. I grew up extremely poor and followed the exact same path I outlined to make it out of the bottom rung.

If you're trying to launch your career in your 30s in the bay area and have children etc., the way others have mentioned, then I especially sympathize with you and it's a different conversation. Admittedly that is harder to do here.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#248

Post by encoderer »

jdmichal wrote: post #242
frakkingcylons wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying it's impossible to save is misleading and it's laughable how often this myth about the Bay Area is perpetuated on HN. Unlike a lot of places in the US, the Bay Area has all of the following: * a meaningful degree of racial diversity (makes a big difference if you're not white) * comprehensive public transit (yeah, yeah BART and MUNI suck, but where I've lived in the US previously, they didn't even exist) * an…

This comment, in turn, is laughable from a guy in his 30's with a wife and toddler... We live on a single income and have our own house with a quarter acre of land. And this is in coastal Florida, not a economically-depressed city in the Midwest. We all need to accept that people are looking for different things in life. It's difficult to save money in SF, while also having a lifestyle that's relatively easy to maint…

The commenter could be 10 years your junior.

I'm mid 30s, wife, kid on the way, and own a home in Sfba with reasonable commute.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#250

Post by leeoniya »

speby wrote: post #243
leeoniya wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not really. my family moved to the states from moscow when i was 7. we spent all our money that we got from selling a crappy apt on the move itself. we lived on food stamps, had to learn english, my parents (both with technical university degrees) went to community college and worked low wage jobs to pay the rent, bills and tuition. we had a super old used ford that was rusting everywhere a vehicle can rust and the d…

> my family moved to the states from moscow ... Right there, there was enough wealth that you ultimately transferred for what was far better prospects in the US than in Russia. This was probably a very smart move that others with much less means from Russia might have had a very difficult time even leaving their country for the US in the first place.

we were very typical or below in terms of income. the difference is that my parents chose to risk everything we had for a narrow window of opportunity that was nowhere near 100% guaranteed. our friends and neighbors were not prepared to do the same.
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