411–420 of 941 posts
See this:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/16/ceo-versus-...
I quote: "The 2017 CEO-to-worker compensation ratio of 312-to-1 was far greater than the 20-to-1 ratio in 1965, and more than five times greater than the 58-to-1 ratio in 1989"
Two things bother me about this article: One is the message that "'the richest people got rich by winning the lottery, therefore buying lottery tickets is good' says rich lottery ticket seller". The other is the unspoken (and thus unchallenged) assumption that getting rich is what you should strive for in life, which I personally disagree with.
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I started working full time at 15 to keep the roof over our families head after my mothers cancer diagnosis. Until the early death of both my parents I had an anti-safety net, I can vouch that people underestimate the soul crushing nature of real poverty. My own congenital heart defects cost me many surgeries, procedures and money. Thank goodness for medicaid for children, I would probably be dead without it. I have…
Speaking as someone with a not dissimilar background to yourself, and happening to have friends in similar circumstances. You might want to consider what it is, exactly, that you want out of your career. You already are in a position to give your children a 10x better life, if that’s something that drives you (this is a common denominator for a lot of people). The stress of chasing the 100x and the fear of the 0x, wi…
I have some concepts that I want to try to bring into the world.
One is a first principles notes/app platform I've been using for personal use that upends how apps and data relate. The goal is to reduce context switching costs to nearly 0 and reduce cognitive overhead for 80% of "life things".
One is a social software approach to ending involuntary homelessness that is invasive enough that it needs tons of homelessness education for the general public and buy in from existing homelessness resources. I want to upend charitable giving by combatting the learned helplessness society inculcates from childhood.. because we perceive it as an intractable problem.
Another is a platform for developers to "never" interview again and for high signal employed developers to capture 50/60% of profits going towards recruiters (piggy backing off my work with speaking talent and how speaker bureaus work.)
I'd like to take an honest, well funded stab at those three things before I die, the notes app is the first on the docket because it's the easiest and I'm working my way there via bootstrapping atm because I'm weak at fundraising. Succeed or fail I want to birth these things into the world you know? Do my damndest before I die, that's really it.
I don't want to derail this too much with personal anecdotes, but I suspect you are much more likely to build wealth with the more established tech companies - and that wealth is "rich enough". Maybe I am just unlucky or unskilled, but I spent roughly 20 years working at startups or innovation labs. I was "close" to some big events where I could have made big $$ but made 0. Both at my own startup and being at early s…
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I used to work in investment research in NYC. So I know those types, but the vibe was the same. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but a lot of people I know actually have had startup success. I know a few people that ended up making over 25 million by 30. None of them made it in law or finance, and none of them ever wanted to continue their finance career. 10x the median income just isn’t that much. If you have three kids, mone…
The lowest state median income in the US is Mississippi at $45,000. I can't possibly imagine how someone mismanages their finances so much that $450,000 is not enough to raise a family on.
Sorry, describing an old boss.
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I understand the comparison, but the FSF can exist without RMS. PG on the other hand solely supports HN, I doubt he would continue to pay for a site that vilified him.
This site is mainly supported by its volunteer moderators. I doubt it cost more than a few thousand a year at most to run. So the fact that PG pays for it doesn't mean much. If the community decided to no longer be under his care, they could easily find a replacement model or benefactor and they're more than capable to arrange such an uprising/migration.
> There were no fund managers among the 100 richest Americans in 1982. Hedge funds and private equity firms existed in 1982, but none of their founders were rich enough yet to make it into the top 100. Two things changed: fund managers discovered new ways to generate high returns, and more investors were willing to trust them with their money. PG brushes past this to talk about tech company founders, but I thought th…
What you are describing is how a bank or more conservative financial investment management firms work. These are the firms that manage mutual funds or sell life insurance.
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"working for a corporation day in and out is slavery" Corporations are the boogeyman de jour but from personal experience, landlords / restrictive zoning / "anti gentrification" activists are the primary cause of my angst. I make more money now than I ever thought I would, but a truly staggering amount of it goes directly into my landlord's pocket.
Zoning doesnt matter unfortunately, prices go up in line with maximum possible mortgage amounts. Real-estate prices have no bearing on 'value' of the land or materials. The buyer is convinced that he will get that money back and then some from the next sucker to buy it off him. It a pyramid scheme, detached from real economy.
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The political messaging has also changed from “people in poverty have specific material needs that we need money to fix” (war on poverty) to “actually, people having or making different amounts of money is inherently wrong” (war on inequality). The war on poverty can be waged with a modest tax on the PGs of the world. The war on inequality is different. Venture capital always seeks to create wealth that will flow to…
> actually, people having or making different amounts of money is inherently wrong” (war on inequality). This is a misrepresentation though. There isn't anything inherently wrong with people having or making different amounts of money. The complaint, as I see it usually, is that the degree of inequality is unacceptable. That is, millionares aren't inherently unethical, heck people who make millions annually aren't in…
Thanks to $AMZN going up. There's no way he can spend that much per year for prolonged periods of time.
I think there’s a different reason, companies just aren’t paying enough. Wages, even at 150-200k just really aren’t that much. 200k now is a lot less than 200k in 2010. The younger generation intuitively knows this. I don’t know anyone jockeying to climb the corporate ladder, and my social circle spans Stanford grads to no college degree at all. People are starting businesses because working for a corporation day in…
No FAANG company even made the list for Entry Level on the Levels.fyi 2020 list: https://levels.fyi/2020/