Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#171

Post by raganwald » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 7:53 PM UTC

kennethologist wrote: post #74

Best quote I've read/heard all month "...but passion burns out, whereas greed is sustainable." I identified with the author and it's one of the major reasons I didn't pursue other career paths even though I could have (Lawyer, Doctor etc.) Thanks for this article.

I came here to say that this is the most misleading quote I've read recently. If you're avaricious, of course you think that passion burns out, because your passion is for money. All of your other interests have been fleeting fancies, but you mistook them for "passions."

At the risk of introducing a Scotsman to the discussion, I suggest that passion is the only sustainable thing. If you sustain an interest in money for your whole life but not an interest in programming, or art, or writing, or Ultimate Frisbee, those other things aren't passions, they're interests or hobbies.

Greed is pretty much the definition of a passion for money. If you identify with this quote, I suggest that you modify it slightly to read, "For the greedy, a passion for making money is the only sustainable thing, all other interests burn out."

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#172

Post by larrys » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 7:59 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #126

kfcm wrote: post #120

The author is a bit naive in his cheerleading, extrapolating his situation in his location to a nation-wide situation. That is just simply not the case. As a business-owner in my mid-40's, I travel around quite a bit. There are locations where the employment picture is similar to what the author describes. But what he describes is far from the norm in the places I travel to, or from what I hear from friends and old c…

This is depressing but a realistic depiction of "how the other half programs". What are your thoughts on what puts people into that programming underclass (which definitely exists)?

"thoughts on what puts people into that programming underclass"

An example is the developer that just quoted me on setting up a server. He is charging me essentially his cost for the equipment and 3 hours at $50 per hour to set it up. I've seen this time and time again. Not able to price to what the market will bear. (He's in the midwest by the way and has a stunning resume and full time job working for a known company).

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#173

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #136

padobson wrote: post #112

Money is about being good at something. I know of lawyers that barely scrape by on insurance law suits because all they know how to do is prey on the fear and pain of injured people. Such lawyers have to buy $500 suits and drive BMWs and belong to country clubs to stay presentable, and thus have to scrape by on 80-100k a year. Similarly, I know carpenters and plumbers who will get the job done - and make a lot more t…

Hogwash. For every skilled craftsman you can find, I can find ten other idiots making ten times as much money thanks to being born in the right family. Skilled developers recognize that rockstar developers can be ten times as productive as average ones. I haven't ever heard of any developers making ten times the average salary or even double the average. Stock brokers are regularly getting beaten by monkeys when it c…

"I haven't ever heard of any developers making ten times the average salary or even double the average."

Programmers who are making that kind of money know enough to keep it quiet.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#174

Post by gogetter » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

I did not even get past the first 100 lines before I want to give this blog post a score off the charts. We need more people programming, lots more, with the honesty and humility of the author. Thank you for saying what you said.

yosefk.com +10000

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#175

Post by jarek » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:11 PM UTC

cynicalkane wrote: post #54

dmethvin wrote: post #29

I'm one of those guys programming in my 50s. Technically my jobs involve project management and consulting as well but I still love programming the most. Saying that programming "requires little or no education" is from the perspective of either a naturally smart person or the Dunning–Kruger effect. Like any profession, there are some self-motivated people who can do the job effectively without formal education. Yet…

One piece of the puzzle is that programming education is not very effective. Most computer science programs teach you almost nothing about software engineering, partially because many CS profs know almost nothing about it.

> One piece of the puzzle is that programming education is not very effective. Most computer science programs teach you almost nothing about software engineering, partially because many CS profs know almost nothing about it.

And mostly because computer science is not software engineering. If you want to learn software engineering, find a degree or diploma program in software engineering.

Being frustrated that your computer science degree did not teach you about software engineering is like being frustrated that your civil engineering degree did not instruct you how to physically build a bridge, or that your mathematics degree did not teach you how to corporate accounting.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#176

Post by joe_the_user » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:11 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #138

bjourne wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hogwash. For every skilled craftsman you can find, I can find ten other idiots making ten times as much money thanks to being born in the right family. Skilled developers recognize that rockstar developers can be ten times as productive as average ones. I haven't ever heard of any developers making ten times the average salary or even double the average. Stock brokers are regularly getting beaten by monkeys when it c…

To be fair, compensation in banking is very related to performance. Investment bankers get paid on the size of their deals, traders get paid based on how much they make, money managers get paid based on how much they bring in. The majority of people get pushed out within a few years if they aren't top performers. The key thing to realize is that value to the customer isn't part of the performance equation. It doesn't…

His performance involves how many people he brings in the door willing to pay the fund's management fees. That's the metric he's judged on.

Indeed, and if these people are his high school friends, then the task of bringing them in the door "just got a whole lot easier"...

So going back to a parent's point, it seems being born into wealth just happens to give certain valuable, uh, "skills"...

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#177

Post by parasitius » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:16 PM UTC

kfcm wrote: post #120

The author is a bit naive in his cheerleading, extrapolating his situation in his location to a nation-wide situation. That is just simply not the case. As a business-owner in my mid-40's, I travel around quite a bit. There are locations where the employment picture is similar to what the author describes. But what he describes is far from the norm in the places I travel to, or from what I hear from friends and old c…

Yeah come to Ohio ya'all. At mid-$20k salaries, the only reason to be a developer over other jobs is that you have higher social status. Every single friend I have who didn't go to college is making $35k+ in factories or whathaveyou -- and no $50k college debt loan burden either.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#178

Post by pirateking » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:19 PM UTC

I am grateful that I am able to make a lot of money doing something that is fun for me anyways, programming computers. However, a fool and his gold are soon parted. There are some programs best left unwritten, for any amount of money. And some programs worth no money, yet most valuable.

The freedom from work as we know it, is the dream that technology is meant to bring... to everyone. When I am 50, I hope that how much money I am making will be largely irrelevant due to advances in technology and society.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#179

Post by _yosefk » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:24 PM UTC

kfcm wrote: post #120

The author is a bit naive in his cheerleading, extrapolating his situation in his location to a nation-wide situation. That is just simply not the case. As a business-owner in my mid-40's, I travel around quite a bit. There are locations where the employment picture is similar to what the author describes. But what he describes is far from the norm in the places I travel to, or from what I hear from friends and old c…

I think ageism is "the" problem that you point out, because this is why people can't even get an interview after age 40, right?

There are employers biased against older candidates, I guess - though not near me, not to the point where I'm able to get all the good candidates aged 40 and up for peanuts, and it's not like I'm not searching, goodness knows.

But I think this is going to get better over time, as the masses of young programmers who entered the profession during and after the .com bubble age. In particular, you'll have more people in higher age brackets recommending each other.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#180

Post by typicalrunt » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 8:25 PM UTC

veemjeem wrote: post #91

randomdata wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmer talent is sparse worldwide And yet, when I look around at the job postings in Canada, a job with requirements that go on endlessly tops out at about $80,000/year. Expect less if you are an average programmer. Such a low income, relative to what US-based companies are offering, doesn't really speak to a shortage in my mind. I admit, there could be some kind of survivorship bias here: I'm only seeing the low…

I'm guessing the payment scales depend on the cost of living in your area. They pay more in Silicon Valley compared to Toronto because a 1500 sqft single family home in SV is around $1M.

You'd be surprised at the house prices in Toronto or Vancouver (2 of the top tech cities in Canada). Yes, we're undergoing a housing bubble here, but $1M is the average price of a detached home in Vancouver...and that's for a 50+ year old hunk of junk (or 'crack shack' as we call it here).

One of the reasons that the housing bubble is starting to pop in Canada is that the incomes can no longer support the housing prices. We tend to have lower incomes than the US, but our houses are more expensive, cost of living is here, higher taxes, goods are more expensive, etc etc.

I wonder if SV incomes are higher simply because people expect them to be higher, or maybe there are more fundamentals to it.