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Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

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Re: Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

#81

Post by ForHackernews »

a_c_s wrote: post #70
beat wrote: post #16

I have a term I call "win at money". You've won at money when you have enough capital to live comfortably for the rest of your life just on the interest from low-risk investment. Can you win at money in software? Yes, but pretty much only by founding your own company or being among the first handful of employees at a startup that gets huge. On the other hand, you can make a comfortable middle-class living at software…

Btw, is commonly referred to as Financial Independence (FI). There are also several online communities devoted to FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early).

FIRE is also an acronym for "Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate"[0] which are business sectors famous for paying loads of money. So working in FIRE makes it easier to achieve FIRE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_economy

Re: Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

#83

Post by venomsnake »

api wrote: post #60
venomsnake wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon valley startups are good at redistributing the money from the top to the bottom.

Great point. Startups are one of the only mechanisms doing that in our contemporary financial pyramid economy. They are one of the only true class mobility engines left.

My point was more cynical one. Startups are payed to lose money.

Re: Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

#84

Post by arbitrage314 »

burger_moon wrote: post #57
arbitrage314 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi burger_moon! There are a couple of options: 1. Attempt to sell back to the company 2. Sell your shares to an independent buyer that you've found (the company typically has right of first refusal, which just means they're allowed to outbid the independent buyer) 3. Wait until the IPO, and sell them on the open market. 4. Sell your shares on EquityZen, SharesPost, or something similar.

Thanks for the reply. Have you sold any of your investments so far? What process did you go through if you did?

Every sale I've done so far has been to my network of friends/colleagues. Most people are eager to get some slight financial exposure to the startup world as part of a well-diversified portfolio. There were two steps required: (1) the person I sold to had to be an accredited investor (2) I had to give the company right of first refusal (which required writing a quick letter and waiting 30 days)

Re: Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

#85

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

giuscri wrote: post #76
bdcravens wrote: post #66

Key word: "employee". Where someone else tells you what to do and controls your destiny. You can wrap it up in whatever words are prettiest, but employees serve the founders' visions for the product, financial rewards, etc. (which is of course perfectly fine, given the risk founders take) That doesn't mean the only choice is to become a founder, not everyone is there yet. Looking at the article though, you see the bi…

> Small businesses. Be prepared to rethink how your career works. could you explain better?

He means start a business doing something profitable.

Re: Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

#86

Post by api »

ForHackernews wrote: post #80
api wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and I meant relatively speaking compared to other mechanisms. Startups mint new money rather than enrich old money, and they create high paying jobs.

I was mostly responding to your comment about class mobility. I don't consider a system that semi-randomly catapults a few ivy leaguers from already-wealthy families into the ranks of billionaires to be a "true class mobility engine".

I do to some extent.

Class mobility at the highest echelons -- say hundred-thousandaires to millionaires or billionaires -- helps class mobility overall by introducing new ideas and by enriching people who still remember what it was like to not have near-infinite supplies of money and power.

If you have a society where the top echelons are locked down, it won't be long until this caste system trickles down to the rest of the culture.

It's not everything and class mobility at lower levels of society is probably more important, but it's not a bad thing either.

Re: Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

#87

Post by cat9 »

patio11 wrote: post #10
api wrote: post #7

Yes, in a few ways I am familiar with: (1) Finance. They make so much "free" money that they can afford to just pay massive salaries and not blink. You just have to be okay with doing things that basically add no value to anything. (2) As a very early employee in a hugely successful startup. But this is roulette, since most startups fail and some only succeed after so much dilution that your share ends up tiny. (3) W…

Google/Facebook both minted several thousand millionaires at IPO. The vast majority weren't CXAnything. I don't know whether the article is about income or wealth, but if one puts "big money" at, say, $250k of gross income, then it's clearly achievable in software. Options include a) get a job at AppAmaGooBookSoft and stay in it for 5~10 years or b) hang out your shingle as an independent consultant and charge $8k+ p…

Or $12k+ per week at 50% utilization. 75% utilization sounds a bit stressful.

For that matter, $8k+ per week at 50% utilization is still $165k at the same fudge factor for taxes & overhead. That's already well beyond my threshold for "I've increased this variable to the point that further increases are nice but not a primary motivator, and I'd rather that further optimization focus on quality of life as the primary variable."

Re: Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

#88

Post by chrisbennet »

api wrote: post #53
Plough_Jogger wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(2) As a very early employee in a hugely successful startup. But this is roulette, since most startups fail and some only succeed after so much dilution that your share ends up tiny. This is a very poor way of describing the risk / upside of joining a startup. In the aggregate, the odds of any randomly selected startup may present odds similar to roulette, but practically, you have the ability to choose who you work…

You're right, and I hit on that at the end. Problem is twofold: (1) You get the most by being a very early employee -- like #1 - #5. It's a hockey stick distribution here. The later you get in, the exponentially lower your stake will be. (2) The most successful startups are outliers. Getting in that early means you do not have a large team or a long track record to look at when making your decision. The big bucks wil…

"You are looking for feral unicorns that poop unpolished diamonds."

You made my day.

Re: Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

#89

Post by brational »

giuscri wrote: post #75
arbitrage314 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi giuscri! I work as a developer at a large company (e.g., think Google, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, IBM, etc.).

how did you get there?, i mean what is your career path? i'm a CS student, i would be very glad to listen to your story. i know it may sounds rude, but i'm sincere. if you want, send me an email to giuscri gmail com :)

If you check out reddit /r/cscareerquestions and do some searches you will find tons of information about this.

Re: Can you make “big money” as an employee in software?

#90

Post by ForHackernews »

api wrote: post #86
ForHackernews wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was mostly responding to your comment about class mobility. I don't consider a system that semi-randomly catapults a few ivy leaguers from already-wealthy families into the ranks of billionaires to be a "true class mobility engine".

I do to some extent. Class mobility at the highest echelons -- say hundred-thousandaires to millionaires or billionaires -- helps class mobility overall by introducing new ideas and by enriching people who still remember what it was like to not have near-infinite supplies of money and power. If you have a society where the top echelons are locked down, it won't be long until this caste system trickles down to the res…

I suppose I agree with you in theory, but in practice I'm not sure there's much difference in outlook going from being the child of a wealthy family who has many things given to him (or her, but let's be real, it's almost always a him) to then being a young-adult billionaire CEO who can easily buy many things.

Put another way, if you can now afford to buy a brand-new Ferrari, does it matter that you had to drive a three year old Lexus to high school?

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