421–430 of 515 posts
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The trick with equity isn't about making it big at IPO. That rarely happens for most. Go to an established company that does stock RSUs and if you prove your worth the the RSUs will follow. They can be worth a lot from established "boring" companies.
Can we make an example of those "boring" companies?
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Keep learning new tech. I would expect major retraining to be required much more often than even 10 or 20 years ago. Personally, I am a big fan of Coursera and eDX online courses, but any form of study is good. Someone from HN just emailed me about this HN thread, and I will make the same comment to you as I did in an e-mail: “”” Every morning first thing, I spend a minute or two thinking of everything that I am grat…
I agree. I'm 50 and don't feel as though the sun has set on my usefulness yet. I'm definitely experiencing more demand than ever. My personal philosophy is similar and I very much love the work I do. 1. My role is to help the team. 2. Stay humble. There is always a better way to do something and we're very lucky to be in our position. 3. Practice not talking. Let others have the experience of figuring it out for them…
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I agree. I'm 50 and don't feel as though the sun has set on my usefulness yet. I'm definitely experiencing more demand than ever. My personal philosophy is similar and I very much love the work I do. 1. My role is to help the team. 2. Stay humble. There is always a better way to do something and we're very lucky to be in our position. 3. Practice not talking. Let others have the experience of figuring it out for them…
I'm 55. I'm tired of learning. I've been learning for 30+ years of professional software work, and none of it applies to any new jobs I might want to seek (I'm talking about specific languages, platforms, buzzwords, etc.) The pace of change is faster than the average person can keep up with and still be competent. I can see that by the time I retire, the knowledge I have spent my adult life acquiring will be useless…
$250k. Wow. I'd have to say you'd need multiple doctorates, you'd written at least one book that every programmer regards as "The" reference manual, and gotten a Nobel Prize for something. I've been writing software professionally since 1979 and I'm at not quite 3/4 of your goal. Maybe location and choice of tool set has something to do with it. Good luck.
Personally I would just identify a technical niche that is highly valued by certain industries, and specialize in that. For example in high-frequency trading, there is a small niche developing ultra-low-latency FPGAs or ASICs for trading systems. The work in question is fairly straightforward compared to other industries, but most of the people with the right skillset tend to go to aerospace or other big user of soph…
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Getting $100k sticker price worth of stocks per year is worth about $100k a year. If stocks go up they are worth more, otherwise less. On average they will be worth more than cash, and for a big company it is rare for them to go down a lot, so I'd say that getting the $100k worth of stocks a year is at least as good as just getting the cash. Edit: Not sure why people think otherwise. Maybe they are used to companies…
> at least as good as getting cash This claim is patently false. If you receive $100k in cash, you can immediately exchange that to $100k in public company stock. The opposite is not true (if you receive stock with a vesting period, you cannot immediately exchange it to cash). Therefore, getting cash is at least as good as getting public company stock, not the other way around.
Say you are granted $600k that vests over 4 years. Well lucky you, the stock has 1.5x after year 1, doubled at year 2 and tripled by year 3! That means you've cumulatively vested $225k at year 1, $525k at year 2, and $975k at year 3. If you had cash only compensation, you would have received a total of $450k for that same time period.
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As soon as your RSU vests, you can sell it for cash. Most companies offer an auto-sell option that works even during restricted windows. With a good vesting schedule, it's almost identical.
Sure, almost identical, but in the direction where cash is always AT LEAST AS GOOD as stock. Not in the other direction.
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At least at Google, you get vested shares every month, and you start receiving them in about the 3rd month. You can also have your broker automatically sell. It is pretty close to cash.
> It is pretty close to cash. Sure, but specifically in the direction where cash is always at least as good as stock, not in the other direction.
Want to know how I know? Because I'm working at my 3rd company where my 6-figure stock grant is vesting at 7-figures due to appreciation.
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If someone come in and beats them by .001ns they get all their profits. Is .001ns really worth that reward? The utility provided is mostly detached from the reward, it is just winner gets it.
Worth what reward? Once an HFT firm buys a security, they now have to sell it again. Or vice versa if they sell a security. Do you think they earn a profit on every trade? There is risk in every trade, sometimes they overpay, sometimes they underpay. It makes no material difference to the profits of a buy and hold investor. If it did, buy and hold investors would not trade with HFT firms.