271–280 of 351 posts
Other companies nickel and diming engineers think they are somehow getting something for free. All the highest performing companies in the world pay insane amounts to their programmers
overpaying is going to attract the wrong people
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FAANG employees sure are full of themselves considering they've worked at companies that have failed to innovate for two decades. What was the last successful product that Google launched with all their highly paid engineers?
I always see this and it always rubs me the wrong way. You're presuming that the only form of innovation is an entirely new consumer product. But keep in mind that Google regularly launches new products and features that are more profitable than many startups, and then shutters them, and regularly launches individual features or pieces of infra that are industry leading (or defining, as in the case of k8s). They just…
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I'm sympathetic to this argument, because I know both low-quality and high-quality engineers at most FAANGs, but in principle isn't offering a lot of money a good way to attract talent? In the case of OpenAI you also have interesting tech and a brand that will massively accelerate your career if you want to stay in that field. So while yeah, you have to hire the best people; and OpenAI like everyone else will be payi…
Sort of, you will probably attract the best talent by having the hardest problems, fostering a culture of bottom-up innovation, and giving your engineers a lot of freedom rather than micro-managing them. The pay is closely related, but you also get a lot of people trying to game the system and optimize for max pay, without necessarily the skill or creativity you're looking for. Said another way: top pay attracts peop…
We’ll, by the number of Leetcode Hards they’ve completed, of course! /s
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To be realistic, even in the Bay, 300k is more than livable if you're targeting a middle class lifestyle with kids and retiring at 65. If you can't retire at 65 on 300k a year, you're not living a middle class lifestyle. Not even close. Rent: 4k/month = 48k. Car payments 750/month = $9k. Using your post-tax numbers (which are wrong) that leaves over $100k per year for all the other random stuff you've listed, which i…
Rent? Car payments? This is a weird form of retirement to me.
Car payments were calculated based on a 50k new car, so if he's paying more than that he definitely has a luxury car.
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Or...? I mean, Netflix-style hunger-games management might be their thing, and if I got in there at $900K (I did apply!) -- then sure, I'd be working nights and weekends just to shine. But even at infinite comp, above a certain size there will be dead weight.
Is Netflix really that bad? They aggressively state they quickly fire people. But I've also seen reports that their turnover rate is low, and they don't have a PIP culture. It looks to me like people are reasonably happy there for the most part.
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Yes, but this is just because tech industry people are far more susceptible to fantasies and bullshit than those in finance. In fact, they seem to largely enjoy the fantasies and bullshit, as this whole AGI rigamarole has shown. They’ll take a pay cut because the enjoy the make-believe over the cold, naked logic of market movements.
Another way to think about is that finance attracts people who care about money, tech does not.
“I feel like such a failure because I’m 30 years old and only make $300K”
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Yeah, take home of $13.5k a month can get a little tight if you're looking at an $8k mortgage on a crappy little shithole condo You surprisingly (considering you're making 5x the median household income for the US) end up having to lightly adhere to some sort of budget. With car payments, sending money to your family, and local inflated prices, it's easy to find yourself not saving enough for early retirement I think…
How do you find yourself not saving enough for early retirement when you are saving $8k per month? Only a a tiny fraction of your condo is being consumed within a month. Far less than 8k.
My guess is that the maligned commenter I replied to is of the other school of thought, that they want to retire in the same house in the same town
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One of the most compelling lyrics I've ever heard, that has stuck with me for about a decade now, is Chris Brown's, "I get what you get in 10 years in 2 days."
For me, on the same track, I'd have to go with Busta's verse when he's all "cuz it doesn't matter cuz I'm gonna da da da da" (I jest. I just really like that song's beat & Busta's verse in terms of sheer speed & enunciation & crispness in staying on beat.)
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There are exceptions right? Stripe isn't public yet I'm pretty sure there are ways to sell the stock that's accrued. I remember something about them opening up a way to sell your shares and since I get pinged on LinkedIn every so often about it I'm assuming it's a thing.
Only at a deep “we buy ugly houses” type of discount and only if the company allows it and if there is a market for it. Like I said earlier, I know the value of my “equity” in a publicly held company: =GOOGLEFINANCE("AMZN", "price")* (number of shares). I can log into Fidelity and sell my shares during hours when the market is open and not at a discount.
This is incorrect. There is often significant unmet demand for private successful companies. Employees can often sell at close to what investors end up paying for it.