The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay • Hacker News Board

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#111

Post by _ll5a » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:30 PM UTC

ceras wrote: post #104

krstck wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Effective Altruism community is working really hard to combat this. It's definitely a real problem. Jeff Kaufman has written a lot about this, and one argument that stood out to me was making very public commitments to charitable giving. You'll feel more compelled to keep donating if a large part of your public identity hinges upon it.

Do you know how well this actually works for people in practice? My friends, acquaintances, and coworkers know I'm frugal, but I avoid telling them it's because I donate a lot of my money. People can become very defensive and judgmental hearing about people who donate or are otherwise "do-gooders," and I just don't like that kind of attention.

Yeah - it's helpful to make public commitments about charitable giving if, e.g. you have a blog where you have enough space to explain the philosophical underpinnings of your need to publicly broadcast how much money you're giving away. Without that context, it can look like you're bragging about how much money you have.

We spend a lot of time agonizing over how much to tell "normal" people about what we're doing and the cost of being "weird". This isn't so much of a factor if you live in a nice EA hub like Oxford-Boston-San Francisco, but for those of us that don't....we're stuck with the internet.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#112

Post by jcarpio » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:30 PM UTC

willmacaskill wrote: post #21

Matt is a friend of mine, and someone who got career advice from what ultimately became 80,000 Hours, a startup non-profit I cofounded. I'm really happy to see the positive response on here; we've advised a lot of people to 'earn to give' and some people... let's say they aren't that happy about the idea that working in trading can be an ethical career. Anyone, if anyone feels inspired by the story and thinks they mi…

Ah, you wrote the piece: http://qz.com/57254/to-save-the-world-dont-get-a-job-at-a-ch...

What did you think of Brook Allen's response: http://qz.com/57807/dont-come-to-wall-street-for-the-money-e...

His point was that the actual making of money might actually cause more harm (fraud, etc) than the good your donations would do. I don't agree; objectively weighing the harm with the benefits is possible, as other comments have pointed out.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#113

Post by ceras » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

whatok wrote: post #11

fweespeech wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind, he does live in NY and works on Wall St so he likely needs $100k to live a decent middle class life tbh. ---- Since it doesn't want me to reply again [I'm submitting too fast] If you can support a family of 4 in NY with less than $100k while qualifying as middle class, I'm curious how you manage it. :) http://council.nyc.gov/html/action/acpdfs/middle_Class_squee... Fyi: Real median household income for…

That and he's in a field that has volatile pay and employment so extra nest egg is essential. Not sure how he builds up savings (probably lives very frugal) but props to him for donating half his pay.

I'm in a similar boat to this guy for income, location, and donation goals. I spend I can think of a few reasonable changes I could make to lower my expenses to The numbers will change when a family is involved, of course, but both the article guy and I (probably) have a long time to save up before that happens.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#114

Post by whatok » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

akgerber wrote: post #97

whatok wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and he's in a field that has volatile pay and employment so extra nest egg is essential. Not sure how he builds up savings (probably lives very frugal) but props to him for donating half his pay.

Living on $75k or so after-tax in NYC as a young single man isn't 'very frugal'. A nice room in a roommate situation can be had for $1000/mo, a very nice one for $2000, which totals $12k-$24k per year. Likewise a modest reasonably-located 1bedroom/studio can be had for $2000/mo. After that, the only mandatory expenses are $1000 or so a year for transportation and reasonable expenses for food, though much of that cost…

I'd argue that it's extremely frugal given the city's high cost of living and like I mentioned above, an industry where pay and employment is volatile. He could easily get laid off or paid down year over year through no fault of his own. Your living expenses do not leave much leftover in the way of savings, travel (kinda good to vacation in a high stress job), or even just experiencing what one of the greatest cities in the world has to offer.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#115

Post by ceras » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:50 PM UTC

How many here are pursuing a similar goal? Donating 5%, 10%, even 50% of their pre-tax income? I love the effective altruist movement - it's pretty much what I spend most of my time thinking and reading about - but this is a very touchy subject to discuss casually so I've never met people in real life (or in my industry) who are also into this.

My own goal is to give about 50% of lifetime earnings, though with the flexibility to scale that back to a floor of 20% in the event my income drops a lot (I'm at the mercy of tech salaries, and just not willing to jump to a career that destroys my work-life balance).

The tech industry is known for having a disproportionate amount of effective altruists, given how pragmatic and numerical the conclusion to donate to the most effective charities is.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#116

Post by ceras » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

SatvikBeri wrote: post #103

jtbigwoo wrote: post #37

I talked about this on HN a few years ago, but my friends and I planned to be this guy. In college we talked about all the money we'd make and how much we'd be able to donate. We all had a job offers for $32 - 42k/year. That was amazing! We were living on less than $1k/month in college. We had plans to give away 20%, 30%, or 50% of our income. We would barely even notice. Some of us even managed to do it for a few ye…

One thing that really helps is getting involved with the growing Effective Altruism movement. There are several effective altruists at Jane Street (where Matt works), as well as meetups in NYC (and most major cities in the USA) and being part of a community makes sticking to those ideals a lot easier. Also, note that 5% of your income donated to effective charities is still huge, and enough to save many lives during…

What meetups are there in NYC? I've been really into this topic for years now, but don't really know anyone else who is. Would be cool to change that.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#117

Post by driverdan » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:55 PM UTC

krstck wrote: post #67

jimbokun wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... let's say they aren't that happy about the idea that working in trading can be an ethical career." Well, it's at least worth having a discussion about. If you are in a career where you honestly think damage is being done by your activities, you need to weigh that against whatever good is being done with the money you earn and give away. What about the traders involved in the near-collapse of the global economy i…

From http://effective-altruism.com/ea/54/show_me_the_harm/ : "Finance is often taken to be the legal high earning career that’s most harmful to society. The average Goldman Sachs employee earns around $500,000 per year. If someone joined Goldman and donated half of his earnings to Against Malaria Foundation, that would be about enough to save 100 lives per year (or more accurately, saving 4000 QALYs), plus likely hav…

This is a false equivalence. Even assuming Goldman Sachs causes ongoing significant financial damage (something I'm not convinced of), you can't compare that directly to saving lives with an equivalent amount of money. Apples and oranges.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#118

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

crimsonalucard wrote: post #102

I'm ashamed to say I donate $0. It's the right thing to do, it's altruistic and I respect the people that do it; but I can't bring myself to care more about the rest of the world then I care about myself/my family. Am i the norm or the minority?

You and your family live in the rest of the world. It's not just altruistic, it's also rational for your own self interests. It's not mutually exclusive: That's a false dichotomy.

If you can't care about your community enough to donate something, then I think your values may need reexamining. Even if that something is donation of old clothes and used items instead of throwing everything away.

And finally, it's not about how many people donate and how many don't. It's the right thing to do, and asking if you're "the norm" is just looking for a justification. Do the right thing. Don't just be narrowly selfish.

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#119

Post by driverdan » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:59 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #31

jrlocke wrote: post #6

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I've always felt it selfish when people of means partake in 'aid trips' over sending money to an appropriate organization. If you care to help, leverage your abilities efficiently; make the money doing what you're best at, and let others administer the aid.

Since he's in the financial business, I'm wondering why he isn't leveraging the effect of "money makes more money" before donating. Isn't it better to invest that money first, before donating it? Take for example Bill Gates. If he had donated all his "surplus" money instead of building a business, he wouldn't have been able to donate the amount that he has; the amount wouldn't even be of the same order.

Is saving two lives in eight years worth more than saving one life today?

Re: The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay

#120

Post by driverdan » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 6:00 PM UTC

huac wrote: post #29

The money he earns has to come from somewhere - what benefits a hedge fund is not likely to benefit the 'disposable populations' [for lack of a better term] that one of the fund's traders is supporting. In other words, if your hedge fund makes money by betting against the 3rd World, then half of your salary is only going to go so far for karmic rebalancing.

> if your hedge fund makes money by betting against the 3rd World

What makes you think that's how they make their money?