Poor in Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: Poor in Tech

#531

Post by nerdponx » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

About half of this sounds like "I knew I was the only not-fabulously-wealthy person at my tech startup."

I grew up in a quantitatively upper class home, and I'd still feel like an alien around the people the author is describing.

I think this person is suffering more than they need to (while being offensively underpaid) because they happen to be in a particularly weird and wealthy bubble.

I understand the point of the article. It's worth reading. But for anyone out there who is also poor: no, most people at tech companies are not like this, even the ones who make $500k/year and come from wealthy families.

Re: Poor in Tech

#532

Post by sanderjd » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

est31 wrote: post #10

> I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I was the only person who would say hello to the cleaning lady as she meekly made her rounds around us when we worked late. Everyone else had a long habit of ignoring anyone like her. That's IMO the worst behaviour of the rich listed in this article. I've heard stories that at Google, the non-engineering workers at campus may not socialize with engineers…

This isn't close to being true at all in my experience.

Re: Poor in Tech

#533

Post by cratermoon » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

culturestate wrote: post #5

To me, this reads more as a list of "from outside the valley bubble" signifiers than it does as a list of things that people who've grown up in poverty might do, even if the former was a result of the latter. There are some exceptions - not noticing missed paychecks is the biggest - but most of it is just stuff that happens every day in other offices. Making your lunch at the office and not bringing Advil from home?…

There's a place somewhere between "making a lot of money" and "being truly wealthy" where a person can become obsessively frugal. Think of it as hoarders, but for money. They don't want to spend a penny more than they have to, because they have a kind of psychological investment in their net worth. Yes, they will spend a lot of money on some thing in order to be able to display their wealth as their class demands, but they'll pinch every penny in other ways. Think of the guy who tries to stiff a contractor, or never tips for service.

So for your generationally wealthy investment bankers, summering at Fishers Island is a necessary conspicuous display of wealth as well a as networking and social process. Eating the office food and using the office pain killers are largely invisible, but to a person obsessed with having money, the costs are accounted for in their personal ledger.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/wealth-can-make-us-se...

Re: Poor in Tech

#534

Post by TwiztidK » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

sdenton4 wrote: post #494

sokoloff wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people wildly over-estimate the costs of driving an older (say 5-15 years old) car and so are prone to over-pay for a new or newer car, believing they're making a good choice based on flawed data. (They remember the time they had to dump $1200 into repairs into some old heap that isn't even shiny anymore. They don't remember that for the last 24 months in a row, they saved $450 in payments, $200 in depreciati…

(Consider also: just not owning a car. Bikes and transit for the day to day and occasional outlays for wknds in the mountains is cheaper than owning any car.)

Worth considering in many places (especially due to the additional hassle of having a car in some cities) but not viable in others, at least without considerable hardship.

Re: Poor in Tech

#535

Post by cloverich » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #297

isomorph wrote: post #116

Many of the comments on this article are so cold. I can’t believe it. When I read the original article I was imagining all the constructive ways HN readers would interpret it and hold a mirror up to their own behaviour. Some commenters are doing this. But it surprises and depresses me how many people are commenting saying “no, this list isn’t what it says it is, it’s a list showing the author has a negative mindset /…

This doesn't surprise me one bit. Tech is just another white collar country club. The rules are just slightly different than the bankers country club and the surgeons country club and the lawyer's country club. If you're not one of the people who typically joins that kind of club you can hack it but you won't feel like you belong or you might but it will take you many years.

One counter point, which is the defining feature of tech imho, is you don't need to be born into it. Its difficult to become a doctor without prepping years or more ahead of even applying. You can break into tech at basically any point in your life, it just takes time (as you said) and effort. And of course, interest will make it more enjoyable / tolerable. Its not a perfectly egalitarian club, but it is certainly _more_ so than any of those other professions, by a few orders of magnitude.

Re: Poor in Tech

#536

Post by bumby » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #313

strken wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. There are plenty who don't refuse to talk to the cleaning staff, lecture others on their choice of tampon, or snob fat people at the gym. I don't want people from outside the bubble (e.g. me, three years ago) to read this and think they'll be surrounded by wall-to-wal…

> In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I do indoor climbing, it does cost money, we talked about climbing in the work a lot. I would really have to work hard…

>I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I do indoor climbing, it does cost money, we talked about climbing in the work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point.

I did not read the article as commenting about what is "bad" about the tech industry but rather about how the homogeneity of the culture can make people feel alienated. Imagine your statement written by someone else read:

"I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I have a super yacht, it does cost money, we talked about the best places to take our super-yachts at work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point."

Can you see how that would cause some people to feel alienated? Just because something is normative to you and your peer group does not mean it's normative across the board. It also doesn't mean it's automatically good or bad.

Re: Poor in Tech

#537

Post by fl0wenol » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #420

domador wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only other implicit criticism toward her coworkers was ignoring and not greeting the cleaning staff. For the most part, her coworkers come across as privileged, rather than mean or otherwise morally deficient.

I'm not sure I see anything wrong with not bothering the cleaning staff while they're at work. The whole reason they've been hired is to spare everyone else the time and effort involved in cleaning, so to have everyone waste time on greetings would just be demeaning their work.

Do you never say hi to a contractor ever in the workplace? Dude, that's cold.

Re: Poor in Tech

#538

Post by sanderjd » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

culturestate wrote: post #5

To me, this reads more as a list of "from outside the valley bubble" signifiers than it does as a list of things that people who've grown up in poverty might do, even if the former was a result of the latter. There are some exceptions - not noticing missed paychecks is the biggest - but most of it is just stuff that happens every day in other offices. Making your lunch at the office and not bringing Advil from home?…

Yep this was my impression too. I'm from a professional class family in the rural part of the midwest now living in a cosmopolitan "crunchy" wealthy town. A lot of the stuff in here (like the stuff about food choices and tampons) is similar to things that set my teeth on edge just a bit in my town (and also, but not exclusively, at my office). I don't interpret it as stemming from wealth disparity but rather cultural and class disparity, which is related but not identical. For instance, people at the same wealth level as my family are much more likely to eschew fast food here and generally form more of their identity around their food choices. It's cultural.

But a lot of the article does strike me as stemming from wealth disparity, and is very interesting. Indeed, another thing to add to the list is being unable to distinguish between behaviors that are different because of culture vs. because of wealth.

Re: Poor in Tech

#539

Post by miiiiiike » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

This hits very close to home.

When I was starting out I didn’t take the jobs in Boston or SF because I couldn’t conceive of paying such high rents. I knew that if I stumbled and lost a job that I’d be stuck in an apartment that I couldn’t afford. So I didn’t go. I took the crappy jobs with crappy people in crappy towns while working on my own projects.

Moved to NYC. Tried to meet with investors but had a hard time getting meetings because I wasn’t in any of the networks. Not a soul was impressed. I made $180k in profit the year after launching my company. “Who cares? I could just raise money and crush you.”

Was injured and lost my company because I didn’t have a safety net. Had to leave NYC for a few years while I rebuilt.

When I was young my school and early jobs were the issue. Now that I’m in my mid-thirties the fact that I haven’t been funded before is the issue. There’s always going to be a reason to exclude you. Why bother?

Today I just make companies that make money and I don’t even think about investors or the startup “scene”. I’m even leaving NYC (again) to move back to my “crappy” hometown.

Being poor in tech means that there are no reinforcements coming to help you. It also might mean making it and realizing that you don’t have any interest in the idea of “it” anymore.

Re: Poor in Tech

#540

Post by andrew_ » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

I don't understand the post because I identify with every single point of their claims of being poor in tech, and I'm not poor, and am in tech. Perhaps the author is simply an outsider in their bubble, rather than actually poor?