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The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

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

#211

Post by ryandrake »

thrav wrote: post #133
dvtrn wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt that way about my own life. Still so sometimes. Though far, far less than I used to, and feeling noticeably less anxiety about it previously. A Relevant bit of reading, I think, I hope: https://fs.blog/2014/05/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/

Yeah, this is a popular saying, but couldn’t be further from the truth for the most successful people. Generally, they begin with an end in mind. It’s a lot easier to get where you’re going if you know where that is. Or, as the Cheshire Cat says to Alice, “Which way should I go?” “Where do you want to go?” “I don’t much care.” “Then it doesn’t really matter.” (Abridged)

Yea, I'm a big believer in setting goals, and then taking the "most likely" path to get there. My career decision method (disclaimer: it might not work for you) boils down to this:

1. Estimate $X: how much $$$ investment do I need in order for my family to live off interest for Y years so I never work again? For me right now, $X is 5M and Y is 40 years.

2. What do I need to do right now in order to get closer to $X? Maybe it's "study computer engineering". Maybe it's "get a job in tech". Maybe it's "apply for a FAANG company". Maybe it's "Go for promo". Maybe it's "Add more to my retirement savings". Maybe it's even "Change my entire fucking career, I'm at a dead end." Whatever it is will be different for whatever stage of life I'm at.

3. If not at $X, GOTO 1.

4. Retire and do whatever I really want to do with my life.

That's pretty much it for my state machine. I wish I figured this out in my 20s--if I did, I'd be much closer to step 4 than I am now in my 40s.

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

#212

Post by username90 »

spot5010 wrote: post #176

Question to HN folks: how valuable is it to have FAANG on your resume?

Quite a lot in salary negotiations. FAANG tend to down-level people from less prestigious companies. 5 years at a FAANG will usually land you a senior engineer position at other FAANG's, 5 year at non prestigious will land you one step lower. The difference is about $50-$100k a year.

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

#213

Post by username90 »

est31 wrote: post #159
vikinghckr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stoc…

You don't need luck though, even with no stock appreciation at all you make over $300k a year as a senior engineer at Google. The high salaries you see are mostly without extreme stock value changes.

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

#214

Post by yitianjian »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #144
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%.

Exclude Amazon? What?

Big size, low barrier to entry (especially at SDE-1 level)

Source: work at Amazon

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

#215

Post by yitianjian »

centimeter wrote: post #10
notacoward wrote: post #6

I find two things to disagree with in this article. First is the premise that equally high compensation is offered elsewhere in each industry. I don't know about finance or consulting, but at least for FAANG it doesn't seem to be true. Second is the overlooked explanation that it's headroom - not prestige - that accounts for the difference. I'll provide an example that illustrates both points: me. When I went from Re…

I find it surprising that people still consider FAANG prestigious, given that these companies collectively have probably 1-200,000 engineers in their employ. Even if they managed to perfectly select for the cream of the crop (they don't), that still has to be like 10-20% of all programmers/engineers in the US. Being top 20% isn't that impressive, and in reality they're probably mostly hiring from the top 30-40%.

I would keep in mind that FAANG likely has a much higher percentage of international students and workers, which skews things a bit. It's definitely taking the top talent from all over the world, versus your small web shop in Cleveland, Ohio, hiring whoever it can get.

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

#216

Post by icedchai »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #204
rhizome wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers are easy to find, but sure, let's break out our calculators. By recent generic numbers, Jane street does $171MM revenues across 900 employees. Apple has $274B revenues across 137,000 heads. $190,000 vs. $2,000,000. Netflix is even higher: $2.4MM. What numbers do you have?

Profit matters, not revenue.

Where do you think most revenue goes? Employees.

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

#217

Post by est31 »

username90 wrote: post #213
est31 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stoc…

You don't need luck though, even with no stock appreciation at all you make over $300k a year as a senior engineer at Google. The high salaries you see are mostly without extreme stock value changes.

> without extreme stock value changes.

That's the point, you don't know whether there will be any. So they are definitely not "as good as cash". Just because they aren't lottery tickets doesn't mean they are equivalent to cash.

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

#218

Post by ashtonkem »

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…

One of the key takeaways from the social sciences is that people are really bad at estimating what will make them happy. Even those who have a plan for what they want are often drastically wrong about how it'll make them feel in the long run.

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

#219

Post by throwaway713 »

The author doesn’t consider Stripe prestigious? I work at one of the companies he lists as prestigious, and I think most of my co-workers consider Stripe to be a top company to work at and very competitive to get into. A lot have in fact left to go work for them, because they have a reputation for having good career growth and great engineers. If I decided to go somewhere else, that’s actually where I would send my resume first.

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

#220

Post by username90 »

icedchai wrote: post #216
srtjstjsj wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit matters, not revenue.

Where do you think most revenue goes? Employees.

Depends on the company. For example most of Walmart's revenue goes to buying goods to sell. Apple sells physical products and hence will spend a lot of money acquiring the physical parts etc, you can't really compare their revenue to for examples Facebooks revenue.
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