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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

#241

Post by niceguy1 »

The author's examples of places that aren't considered prestigious throughout, such as Stripe and Nvidia, are ridiculous. The article basically takes companies that are considered prestigious to a smaller subset of harvard undergrads and claims that since a larger subset of the population doesn't find them prestigious they are somehow "underrated" and need to be looked at more.

At the end of the day, prestige comes with money, full stop. In CS, prestige at first might start out as just FAANG, and then later on also include well off start ups like Stripe or various HFT firms / hedge funds since more people start to realize their compensation is equal or higher.

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

#242

Post by username90 »

est31 wrote: post #240
username90 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I use the 0% figure, so it is how much the company paid and not how much I get. If you count stock appreciation then a simple senior engineer can make 400-500k or more, but people don't really count that.

IDK for me personally that's the metric I'd use when comparing jobs/careers. From your statements alone, it can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in difference. That's not something to gloss over.

Right, my point is that if you count it as 0% it is significantly better than money, and even with it at 0% the money is still extremely good.

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

#243

Post by twblalock »

unishark wrote: post #190
ackbar03 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general though from what I read on hn I get the impression that it sucks to be an early employee at most startups, especially early stage. From what I've read a lot of compensation seems to be in equity and not cash, and unless it takes off like faang, you end up severely ubderpaid relative to what you could be making

You're basically saying the equity is too low. Any decent exit would make the founders and investors a lot of money. If they wanted to motivate employees to make that happen, equity needs to be good enough to make the employee a lot too. Instead it tends to be much closer to a token amount to check the box, taking advantage of the fact that you can't easily assess its value.

It doesn't matter how much equity you have if it never ends up being worth anything.

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

#244

Post by twblalock »

noema wrote: post #153
smabie wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Startup interviews are just as tough these days.

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

#245

Post by ffggvv »

8note wrote: post #141
lumost wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monetary success historically flowed to founders, and those off the beaten path. 20 years ago startups provided a strong path to success with friends and family often getting excited when the next hot app/website was something you worked on. It’s difficult to replicate either the social or monetary prestige these days, as monetary rewards flow to VC and known consumer experiences are crowded.

Historically, hasn't monetary success gone to people who inherited the wealth? Monarchs and aristocrats and the like

the richest people in the world list is filled with bill gates, bezos, zuckerberg... none of which inherited it

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

#246

Post by tolbish »

emteycz wrote: post #45
toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legislation and regulation.

Meh, I absolutely don't believe that's the way. That's how we get the market to halt. I was thinking more of teaching business and management skills to engineers.

That is called the MBA.

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

#247

Post by ffggvv »

niceguy1 wrote: post #241

The author's examples of places that aren't considered prestigious throughout, such as Stripe and Nvidia, are ridiculous. The article basically takes companies that are considered prestigious to a smaller subset of harvard undergrads and claims that since a larger subset of the population doesn't find them prestigious they are somehow "underrated" and need to be looked at more. At the end of the day, prestige comes w…

yeah anyone within tech or fang finds stripe prestigious. even if some random person on the street hasn’t heard of it. same with HFT. some would even consider them more prestigious than fang. Fang is the backup for harvard grads who can’t work at a unicorn

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

#248

Post by ffggvv »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #20
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 don’t know why the article’s author thinks prestige is about anything other than money/power (for the population as a whole). People would rather work at FAANG than Stripe because FAANG will get you a lot more pay and connections. And people know that, so they will value people from FAANG for it. But it comes from the root fact that FAANG makes a ton of net income per employee, same as some finance/consulting firms…

that’s not true at all. i’ve worked at fang. google for instance pays a lot less than stripe or pinterest or snapchat etc. people specifically work there for the prestige and not the compensation

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

#249

Post by ffggvv »

albacur wrote: post #138
whimsicalism wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People would rather work at FAANG than Stripe because FAANG will get you a lot more pay and connections Pshh what? You work at FANG and think this?

I think Stripe is one of the few bad examples they could have picked to compare against FAANG. Among late-stage startups, it seems highly regarded and its employees' options are likely to hold real value in the not-so-distant future. But generally I think the OP is correct: working for FAANG has made many, many people far more money over the past decade than they would have otherwise made on average in a startup. I s…

you’re comparing fang to average startup. instead you should compare fang to top tier startup. as that’s the choice people who get fang offers make... in almost all examples i can think of, the top tier startup pays more.

furthermore before they were fang companies, google was the top tier startup and IBM was the equivalent to FANG.

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

#250

Post by lambdatronics »

motohagiography wrote: post #157

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 mo…

>If it's already prestigious, it's mostly played out.

That's going in my book of quotes.

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