America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#81

Post by lovecg » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

dangwu wrote: post #16

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #6

- He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said. Sounds like a good wife to me, and this "pay cut" is making 500k-600k instead of 1.2 million, what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't…

It’s not about living on 500k vs 1 million. It’s about much, much earlier retirement.

To expand on this, many people who make this much as employees have a great deal of anxiety about the future of tech, and a reasonable doubt that this level of income cannot continue indefinitely. From that point of view it seems foolish to walk away from the opportunity.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#82

Post by lmm » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

piptastic wrote: post #7

minikites wrote: post #3

>“I feel like I’m wasting my life,” he told me. “When I die, is anyone going to care that I earned an extra percentage point of return? My work feels totally meaningless.” Capitalists are realizing the fundamental emptiness of capitalism. It's hard to have a sense of purpose when your entire life is spent making a number on a spreadsheet into a slightly larger number for the benefit of someone even more elite than yo…

is it capitalism or the fundamental emptiness of life?

> Even though, in theory, the investments he makes each day help fund pensions — and thus the lives of retirees — it’s pretty hard to see that altruism from his window office in a Manhattan skyscraper. “It’s just numbers on a screen to me,” he told me. “I’ve never met a retiree who enjoyed a vacation because of what I do. It’s so theoretical it hardly seems real.”

Helping other people is meaningful. When the work is alienated from the people you're helping is when a job feels empty. It seems particularly common in high-paying jobs - or perhaps certain jobs are high-paying precisely because they're so alienating.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#83

Post by cat199 » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

randomacct3847 wrote: post #67

StavrosK wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a quintessentially American slash Protestant-work-ethicy sentence. Why is anyone surprised that people who work so much that they don't have a life, meaningful relationships to other people or a vibrant social circle are depressed? If you optimize for making lots of money, that's (hopefully? probably?) what you will achieve. But it's very misguided to think that having a lot of money is how you become…

The thing is I don’t think a lot of these people actually work that much. If you’re in a mid level engineering role at a FAANG you’re not usually working 50-60+ hour weeks. You’re actually probably underutilized and working on uninteresting tasks.

> But it's very misguided to think that having a lot of money is how you become happy.

still applies

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#84

Post by maps » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #22

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #6

- He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said. Sounds like a good wife to me, and this "pay cut" is making 500k-600k instead of 1.2 million, what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't…

>what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't afford to live on 500-600k. The one where you lock into a mortgage and a car that assumes a $1.2M salary to keep ahead of. It's really easy to let your lifestyle expenses balloon, especially in a high-COL city where minor increases in living space/amenities can end up costing large amounts of money.

To consume $100k a month we need a $10-20 million dollar mortgage (50-100k/mo depending on years and rate). I have to assume a few cars, dining, etc would probably end up being $10-20k/mo so the mortgage is probably around $15 mil. So in NY or SF you are looking at something like a 1-2k sq/ft 2 bed 1 bathroom shithole apartment. Not so luxurious after all really.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#85

Post by graeme » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

Statistics about income not making people happy are common. I wonder how wealth/savings affects it. If the $1.2 million worker hadn't inflated his lifestyle, he'd be free to take any job he wanted, or even perform his own job the way he thought best, safe in the knowledge that he would be financially fine if let go.

It seems that a lot of people who reach high incomes never maintain slack in their lives. As much as possible I've tried to keep expenses lower as my income grew. And to watch in advance what the big possible causes of such lifestyle inflation are: expensive real estate, expensive car, private school, large vacations or purchases made on debt with no plan to fund them, etc

The janitor study cited here is interesting, but I wonder if they controlled for disposition. Cheery people may simply be good at finding meaning in what they do, no matter what they do. And the opposite.

For instance, the fund manager could think "if I do my job well, I am allocating capital well and helping companies succeed and helping the economy grow faster than it otherwise would." I am sure that some content fund managers do think that. But is it merely dispositional, in the same way that not keeping your expenses low may be dispositional?

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#86

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

cat199 wrote: post #40

dangwu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about living on 500k vs 1 million. It’s about much, much earlier retirement.

Is it? Many people could retire after one year at 500k or 1M because their cost of living is such that they would be able to save almost all of it, and this would spread across their retirement..

The average UK private pension pot is £100k ... this implies that either people with £1m should be retiring earlier, or we'll have a generation who can't afford to retire.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#87

Post by rglover » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #22

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #6

- He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said. Sounds like a good wife to me, and this "pay cut" is making 500k-600k instead of 1.2 million, what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't…

>what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't afford to live on 500-600k. The one where you lock into a mortgage and a car that assumes a $1.2M salary to keep ahead of. It's really easy to let your lifestyle expenses balloon, especially in a high-COL city where minor increases in living space/amenities can end up costing large amounts of money.

Yup. The golden rule: don't ratchet up your lifestyle when your income rises and you'll be far happier in the long run.

Also don't give a damn what people think about you. Typically people get trapped in that mouse wheel because "look what they have."

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#88

Post by gregorymichael » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #70

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #6

- He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said. Sounds like a good wife to me, and this "pay cut" is making 500k-600k instead of 1.2 million, what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't…

So this dovetails with what I think is the most fascinating topic in evolution: the demographic transition in humans. If you're not familiar, demographic transition is the term used to describe what has happened to the demography of nations as they become developed. Which is that, rather than producing more children with their material abundance, people in rich nations have less children. This is not, at all, what bi…

As it says on the wall at Jimmy Johns, "The gap between 'more' and 'enough' never closes."

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#89

Post by fromthestart » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

I sometimes wonder if the problem is that we don't believe in anything in this country. Religion is on the decline, but we as a society haven't replaced it with anything meaningful. Nationalism is a swear word, jobs are performed with no loyalty (not to blame workers, we're treated pretty expendably), marriage is no longer sacred (don't like your partner? Just divorce and move on to the next!)...

What meaning can someone find in such a life? Good times create weak men, and weak men live in existential crisis. Perhaps we need hard times to grant the cure of purpose for our collective depression.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#90

Post by fermentation » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

QualityReboot wrote: post #64

I just don't understand this at all. If you can earn a million a year, do it for 3-5 years, never have to work again, and pursue your passions in life. I think the problem for most workers is the lifetime of toil, not the meaninglessness of the work. I'd happily dig ditches for 8-12 hours a day for 3 years if I knew I was completely financially independent with millions in the bank that. Actually, I'd rather do that…

Seriously, it was hard to feel much sympathy for the person earning $1.2M/yr when they could very easily retire if they just stopped somehow spending hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.