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No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

sahillavingia.com

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Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#301

Post by wolco5 »

rablackburn wrote: post #283
callmeed wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I make more than enough to afford proper health insurance on the open market. Everyone at Gumroad is paid very well and should be able to afford the same. This might be true for everyone at Gumroad , but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with…

> Imaging paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance I decided to actually look at my budget from the last year and see how this compares to my costs. In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare, and I have private health insurance on top of that for roughly the same cost again (for dental, which isn't covered in our system because of dentists lobbying an exception back in the 80s)…

Australia spends 10.5% on health.

US 17.5

Is the increased level of care worth 7%

In Canada it's 11.5 so 6%,extra.

In Canada the waiting lists for mri and other advanced testing can be long where the same tests/operations can be done as a walkin option that day in the US.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#302

Post by bcrosby95 »

callmeed wrote: post #280
philipkiely wrote: post #15

I work at Gumroad, mentioned in this article. Sometimes, I read things by CEOs about how a company works on the inside and I wonder if it really looks like that, or if it is a view from the top that doesn't reflect what it's really like. This article, with its discussions of the upsides and downsides, is accurate to my experience and my understanding of other people's experiences. For many people, Gumroad wouldn't be…

> I make more than enough to afford proper health insurance on the open market. Everyone at Gumroad is paid very well and should be able to afford the same. This might be true for everyone at Gumroad , but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with…

My company pays $3,000/month for health insurance for my family of 5. I assume it's pretty good insurance at that price, but we still have to fight the insurance company tooth and nail whenever we have medical bills.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#303

Post by deathgrips »

mkingston wrote: post #281
callmeed wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I make more than enough to afford proper health insurance on the open market. Everyone at Gumroad is paid very well and should be able to afford the same. This might be true for everyone at Gumroad , but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with…

In the USA ~17% of GDP appears to be spent on health care. I guess that skews fairly heavily toward elderly people, but 10% on health insurance for a family of four doesn't seem out of the realms of sanity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h...

Maybe that's because the US needs more healthcare?

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#304

Post by deathgrips »

wolco5 wrote: post #301
rablackburn wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imaging paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance I decided to actually look at my budget from the last year and see how this compares to my costs. In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare, and I have private health insurance on top of that for roughly the same cost again (for dental, which isn't covered in our system because of dentists lobbying an exception back in the 80s)…

Australia spends 10.5% on health. US 17.5 Is the increased level of care worth 7% In Canada it's 11.5 so 6%,extra. In Canada the waiting lists for mri and other advanced testing can be long where the same tests/operations can be done as a walkin option that day in the US.

Do Canadians and Australians need as much healthcare as aging and obese Americans do?

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#305

Post by rconti »

callmeed wrote: post #280
philipkiely wrote: post #15

I work at Gumroad, mentioned in this article. Sometimes, I read things by CEOs about how a company works on the inside and I wonder if it really looks like that, or if it is a view from the top that doesn't reflect what it's really like. This article, with its discussions of the upsides and downsides, is accurate to my experience and my understanding of other people's experiences. For many people, Gumroad wouldn't be…

> I make more than enough to afford proper health insurance on the open market. Everyone at Gumroad is paid very well and should be able to afford the same. This might be true for everyone at Gumroad , but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with…

That $1400 sounds super low. Last time I saw what my employer paid for my health insurance, it was $1500/mo, for just me. And if you're buying insurance on the open market, it's more expensive than it is for an employer.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#306

Post by OJFord »

poorman wrote: post #121
_2d30 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to provide any additional clarity on "very competitive rates as contractors"? I understand if not but would be useful to help some of us externally think about this model.

People don't realize that as a contractor, you can write off the room you're using for your office. As a remote employee you cannot. For people living in high rent areas, that's significant.

People don't realise that on the internet you need to mention a jurisdiction when you talk about things like law and tax.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#307

Post by curryst »

wolco5 wrote: post #301
rablackburn wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imaging paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance I decided to actually look at my budget from the last year and see how this compares to my costs. In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare, and I have private health insurance on top of that for roughly the same cost again (for dental, which isn't covered in our system because of dentists lobbying an exception back in the 80s)…

Australia spends 10.5% on health. US 17.5 Is the increased level of care worth 7% In Canada it's 11.5 so 6%,extra. In Canada the waiting lists for mri and other advanced testing can be long where the same tests/operations can be done as a walkin option that day in the US.

A substantial difference is that healthcare tends to be incredibly regressive in the US. People with good jobs that have good pay tend to get pretty good company insurance. People in jobs that don't pay very well tend to have bad insurance, if they have it at all. Bad insurance typically means you pay a lot of out of pocket costs, meaning lower earning people often pay more out of pocket for the same medical treatment. It's more poignant in reverse though; high earners should expect to pay less than low earners for the same medical care. If it didn't work that way, why would any of us pay for more expensive health insurance?

If you have bad insurance, your options are usually to do the walkin option and pay whatever your insurance won't. That's probably more than you can afford unless you're sick enough to get a doctor to order it (which often means you've missed a critical window in treatment options). Or you can try one of the clinics, and wait for forever trying to get it looked at. Or you can do what many Americans do and ignore it, hoping that it goes away on its own.

We do have better options than other countries, but whether those doors are open often depends on your income level. Socialized healthcare does equalize that, even if it means dragging down the standard of care for the wealthy in exchange for bringing up the average.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#308

Post by bluedevilzn »

konjin wrote: post #277
monkeydust wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting is the Product Management market pretty active? What's kind of roles are on offer?

Not sure what end of the scale of PM OP is on. It goes from "I make PowerPoints" to "I write unit tests and debug code before I start the deployment." $250 an hour is great for the bottom 75% of the market though and better than average for anyone not in facebook/google. I'm a contractor too and the tax breaks you get are essentially another 20% raise.

$250/hr is equivalent to half a million dollar per year. Most PMs at FAANG do not make that much.

If that’s the bottom 75% of the market, what does the top 10% look like?

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#309

Post by lostcolony »

brianwawok wrote: post #291
kgin wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Premature optimization is the root of all evil

You say that, but the other side of this argument is having to rebuild every. Single. Part. Of a program because nothing was designed with forethought and scalability in mind. Great code is both simple and has the ability to scale if needed in the future.

Sure. A lack of premature optimization does not imply a lack of consideration.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#310

Post by Guthur »

rablackburn wrote: post #283
callmeed wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I make more than enough to afford proper health insurance on the open market. Everyone at Gumroad is paid very well and should be able to afford the same. This might be true for everyone at Gumroad , but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with…

> Imaging paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance I decided to actually look at my budget from the last year and see how this compares to my costs. In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare, and I have private health insurance on top of that for roughly the same cost again (for dental, which isn't covered in our system because of dentists lobbying an exception back in the 80s)…

Just as an aside i think dental care in Australia is ripoff expensive. As anecdotal evidence; with the ban on international travel local dentists are apparently very busy as people can no longer fly abroad for more cost effective care.
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