There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#11

Post by jval » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 1:40 AM UTC

eli wrote: post #9

jpatokal wrote: post #3

The fundamental problem with a career in law is that you aren’t doing anything of value for society. I stopped reading there. Sure, there are scumbag lawyers out there, but telling eg. the EFF or Creative Commons, not to mention your average underpaid and overworked public defender, that they "aren't doing anything of value for society" is a bit rich.

Not to mention prosecuting Bad Guys who are totally guilty or suing people who totally deserve it.

Not to mention providing good commercial advice to help people manage relationships with co-workers, investors, clients etc etc...

I can't believe there are people out there who with confidence can declare that 1 million Americans are doing something that adds zero value to society.

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#12

Post by lolwutf » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 1:44 AM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #5

Ok, so what the fuck am I supposed to do? I'm 24, and I'm a CS grad student. I want to do research, or at least research&development. I can code plenty well; hell, I'm typing from the end of the workday at my sweet internship right now. But if you're going to tell me that even tech will leave me broke and unable to support a family at 35, what... what anything? Why anything? Why pretend I have career aspirations if a…

There's always management. That's my plan when I'm in my 40s/50s/tired of coding age, at least.

Otherwise, don't worry about it, because there's lots of people out there right now jumping around companies from year-to-year, doing that thing. It's the norm for an industry, right now.

There will be some conventional wisdom you can glean from colleagues, The Market, and your own heart/personal development, when the comes time for that.

You're young. You don't need all of the answers now, nor should you try to come up with them which would inevitably cause you madness.

Plus, there will always be the Googles/Apples/Microsofts, etc of the world. When you're ready for stability, move towards that pack.

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#13

Post by GuiA » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 1:48 AM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #10

nbouscal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One solution is to spend radically less than the average and save radically more. There are a few good blogs that strongly advocate this approach [1][2]. I won't claim that it's the right solution for you, but it is a solution. [1] http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ [2] http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

I'm already very frugal (haven't failed to put away 20% of my monthly income in savings for... quite a while now), have a Roth IRA to which I make maxed-out yearly contributions, have savings and investment accounts outside of that... blah blah blah. My net worth is embarrassingly large for my age. Thing is, unless I hit it big with something, that's going to eventually leave me the choice between being a financially…

> I'm already very frugal (haven't failed to put away 20% of my monthly income in savings for... quite a while now)

Try to bump it up by a few percent every month (cook at home, buy less useless shit, sell stuff to buy stuff, etc.). On a developer salary, you can easily put 50%+ aside every month if you're without kids/mortgage.

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#14

Post by nutball » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 1:50 AM UTC

resu wrote: post #7

Reading some of the other articles on this blog, this guy needs to realize he's not a unique snowflake and has no business giving 'life advice' to others. e.g. http://www.freedomtwentyfive.com/2013/03/where-does-it-end/

Guy's a far right 'neoreactionary.' Fuck him.

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#15

Post by pnathan » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 2:06 AM UTC

The big differentiator in careers that I see time and again is hustle. I rarely see people with hustle out of a job.

This is the mindset that ensures you will always have a job:

http://slyoyster.com/music/2010/50-cent-will-shovel-your-sno...

If I lost my job, I would start selling my skills & abilities the next day, working side jobs, whatever. Gotta hustle to make the ends meet.

You have to take a message to Garcia.

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#16

Post by derekp7 » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 2:06 AM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #10

nbouscal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One solution is to spend radically less than the average and save radically more. There are a few good blogs that strongly advocate this approach [1][2]. I won't claim that it's the right solution for you, but it is a solution. [1] http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ [2] http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

I'm already very frugal (haven't failed to put away 20% of my monthly income in savings for... quite a while now), have a Roth IRA to which I make maxed-out yearly contributions, have savings and investment accounts outside of that... blah blah blah. My net worth is embarrassingly large for my age. Thing is, unless I hit it big with something, that's going to eventually leave me the choice between being a financially…

Just to get some numbers out there, for people in our income range. Assuming you are able to save 25,000 a year, get 8% return on investments, and pay a marginal tax rate of 28% on the investment returns, you will have a shade over 1 Mil in 20 years. To make it a bit more realistic, if you save 15,000 per year and get 6% returns annually, it will take about 33 years. So you can either retire at 41 or 53 (assuming 1 Mil is enough to retire on).

Now if your investments can grow tax deferred (such as 401k), that puts the two "millionare" ages at 39 and 48, respectivelly. Of course, tax deferred just gives you the advantage of taxes not getting in the way while your fund is growing -- you still have to pay taxes on it when you withdraw. But if at that time you have all your assets (house, car, etc) paid for, you can live on a lower monthly income. So if you are married by that time, and keep your withdraws to less than 70,000 a year, you only pay 15% tax. Oh, and you have to wait till your mid 50's to start taking out of 401k without paying a 10% penalty. (which is why a smart strategy is to use 401k as just one of several investment saving strategies).

The real benefit of 401k is if your employer matches funds. This can essentially double your contributions. And since there is a built in rule that keeps you from taking it out till you are close to retirement age, it lessens the chance that you will take it out early and blow through it when you are younger.

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#17

Post by pnathan » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 2:08 AM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #10

nbouscal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One solution is to spend radically less than the average and save radically more. There are a few good blogs that strongly advocate this approach [1][2]. I won't claim that it's the right solution for you, but it is a solution. [1] http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ [2] http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

I'm already very frugal (haven't failed to put away 20% of my monthly income in savings for... quite a while now), have a Roth IRA to which I make maxed-out yearly contributions, have savings and investment accounts outside of that... blah blah blah. My net worth is embarrassingly large for my age. Thing is, unless I hit it big with something, that's going to eventually leave me the choice between being a financially…

Lots of people in the 24-30 zone are having kids and doing reasonable well. You do have to find a job that pays reasonable.

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#18

Post by praxulus » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 2:09 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #3

The fundamental problem with a career in law is that you aren’t doing anything of value for society. I stopped reading there. Sure, there are scumbag lawyers out there, but telling eg. the EFF or Creative Commons, not to mention your average underpaid and overworked public defender, that they "aren't doing anything of value for society" is a bit rich.

I think the argument is that the EFF wouldn't need to exist if there were far fewer lawyers in the world. I.e. those lawyers are just busy fixing the problems created by other lawyers.

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#19

Post by eli_gottlieb » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 2:30 AM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #13

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm already very frugal (haven't failed to put away 20% of my monthly income in savings for... quite a while now), have a Roth IRA to which I make maxed-out yearly contributions, have savings and investment accounts outside of that... blah blah blah. My net worth is embarrassingly large for my age. Thing is, unless I hit it big with something, that's going to eventually leave me the choice between being a financially…

> I'm already very frugal (haven't failed to put away 20% of my monthly income in savings for... quite a while now) Try to bump it up by a few percent every month (cook at home, buy less useless shit, sell stuff to buy stuff, etc.). On a developer salary, you can easily put 50%+ aside every month if you're without kids/mortgage.

I'm going to reply this above, too, but did you notice where I said graduate student?

Yeah, we don't get paid the kind of money where we can save 50% every month.

Re: There is No Such Thing as a “Safe” Career (2011)

#20

Post by eli_gottlieb » Thu, Sep 12, 2013, 2:33 AM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #16

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm already very frugal (haven't failed to put away 20% of my monthly income in savings for... quite a while now), have a Roth IRA to which I make maxed-out yearly contributions, have savings and investment accounts outside of that... blah blah blah. My net worth is embarrassingly large for my age. Thing is, unless I hit it big with something, that's going to eventually leave me the choice between being a financially…

Just to get some numbers out there, for people in our income range. Assuming you are able to save 25,000 a year, get 8% return on investments, and pay a marginal tax rate of 28% on the investment returns, you will have a shade over 1 Mil in 20 years. To make it a bit more realistic, if you save 15,000 per year and get 6% returns annually, it will take about 33 years. So you can either retire at 41 or 53 (assuming 1 M…

Again: I'm a graduate student. $15k/year USD is most of my annual income.

Mind, about 5,000 NIS/month netto is a pretty reasonable lower-middle class salary for a grad-student in Haifa, but it's not "save up for retirement and kids" money.

So let's just assume your post applied to everyone who actually does have a full-time development job earning nice huge sums of money and somehow finding low rents somewhere.