The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting • Hacker News Board

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#151

Post by bigcorp-slave » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 12:39 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #37

samfisher83 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people did ok. Enron had a lot of really smart people. Morally bankrupt, but very smart. No different than any of these big tech companies. People like money, smart people will be attracted to it. Companies like smart people so I don't think they will have a hard time getting another job.

I've interviewed several smart people from Palantir and naturally I did not hire them. They might as well wear a scarlet letter.

I wonder if your employer appreciates your injection of your own personal ideological axe-to-grind into their hiring pipeline. If I found out that any of my employees was rejecting candidates we were paying to bring on-site out of hand due to their previous employer, I would fire that person instantly.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#152

Post by nitrogen » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 12:47 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #146

nitrogen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mediocre high school used to give presentations about how pointless it was to go to a big name school. One of the claims was that, after ten years, all differences in median incomes were gone. Curiously they didn't break it down into percentiles. Everyone in the advisors' office bought into this public-school-to-public-university pipeline. My dream in junior high was to go to MIT. When I mentioned this to my guida…

They were just managing expectations. Partially the kids’, partially the parents’

Managing expectations would be "Here's a plan to maximize your chances, but the chances are still slim, so pick several schools."

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#153

Post by noema » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 12:48 AM UTC

smabie wrote: post #73

whimsicalism wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top 20% of one of the most intellectually challenging jobs in America, also if you exclude Amazon it is not 20%.

I really wouldn't consider most programming to be intellectually challenging. Certainly, most FAANG devs don't feel challenged in the least bit.

Probably because most are doing glorified CRUD, but with an absurd barrier to entry (the interview process).

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#154

Post by finolex1 » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 12:54 AM UTC

> but I've never heard of a Harvard CS major wanting to work for Stripe.

This seems to run very contrary to my experience. The most sought after tech companies among CS majors at my top school were not Google or Facebook, but hot late stage startups like Robinhood, Stripe, Coinbase or Samsara. These companies have all the upside (in terms of pay, security) as G/F, in addition to being seen as "off the beaten path" or slightly more adventurous.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#155

Post by treis » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 12:54 AM UTC

Tomminn wrote: post #119

This essay is weakened significantly by one glaring clanger. If this person had equal levels of talent and yet wasn’t from the place they are, they would never make the foolish statement: “exposure to prestige can't make you successful any more than spending time around rich people can make you wealthy”. Apart from that I think they’ve got some of the causality the wrong way around. Consulting and finance are not buy…

I think this is overly cynical. These prestige firms do legitimately expose you to the tops of the fields. You will gain experience that you would be hard pressed to get elsewhere.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#156

Post by OJFord » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 12:56 AM UTC

Gunax wrote: post #111

I don't think a lot of people know what they want. There is just as much guessing as to which job to take as employers have choosing who to hire. Taking the most prestigious or most compensation is the safest bet, given that you don't really know what you want to do other than 'I like coding and interesting problems'. Partly I think that Harvard students have been adapted to seek prestige (else they probably wouldn't…

> I don't think a lot of people know what they want.

I would go further: I think a lot of people don't know what they want.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#157

Post by motohagiography » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 12:57 AM UTC

Prestige is a euphemism for "not worth it," as it's what they offer instead of paying you. Ask yourself, "do I admire these people and do I want to be like them?" If the answer is not an enthusiastic hell yes, they're time vampires, get the hell out.

Know who is attracted to prestige? People who don't have something that comes free with success. They make up the long tail of the distribution, and they're not first movers, risk takers, or leaders. If it's already prestigious, it's mostly played out.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#158

Post by hiq » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 12:57 AM UTC

howlgarnish wrote: post #136

wayoutthere wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in consulting, and I’d say the top-end in consulting is still higher and much more of a safe bet. It’s not uncommon for people in consulting to be making $500k-$1m annually by the age of 40. If you’re a partner, compensation can be significantly higher than that; in the $2M-20M range. I think there was a golden era of startups capturing value from the old guard, but that era is largely over IMO. All of those t…

However, isn't quality of life as a junior hire in both finance and consulting much worse than in tech? Every Goldman or McKinsey hire I know was worked like a dog for their first ten years, while at a FAANG you can generally work 9-5 and still have a pretty successful career.

I started comparing the (expected) hourly salaries precisely for this problem: somebody earning twice your salary stops being relevant once you know they work three times the hours.

Obviously there are other components as well (how much you travel, being on call...), but that already captures a lot of what's commonly missing in salary discussions.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#159

Post by est31 » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 1:00 AM UTC

vikinghckr wrote: post #90

formercoder wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re making a big bet on equity appreciation though. That’s how the vast majority of very highly paid folks in tech make their money. The consulting jobs pay it in cash.

FANG equities don't require making any "bets". They're as good as cash.

FANG equities won't dissolve into thin air from one day to another unlike startup equities, and you get hard RSUs instead of options from an "option pool" that's arbitrarily diluted, but do you know how many percent your FANG equity will increase in value by the time it's vested? That's the bet you are doing. It's not a rigged bet, plenty of people were quite happy this year by the TINA craze buyers pushing tech stock, but it's still a bet.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#160

Post by hintymad » Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

It may be a prestige to be in a big firm in many places, but in the valley it is a prestige to be in a successful company. And luckily for techies in the valley, there are quite many great blow-out companies of much smaller size. In fact, I would cringe if a company's goal is to grow from 300 engineers to thousands in a year, as Uber's CTO used to boast. I would not join a big tech either because well, where is the 10X return?

Don't get me wrong, though. All I'm saying is that techies in the valley have a lot of amazing choices. Some people are definitely great at navigating big tech's dynamics, and they should join big techs and enjoy phenomenal success. It's just for even more people, joining a small company has a better chance of becoming successful, at least in terms of money and job satisfaction.