Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary • Hacker News Board

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#131

Post by lrobb » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 10:14 PM UTC

IanCal wrote: post #29

lrobb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the parable of the mexican fisherman: An executive from America was standing at the pier of a Mexican village, taking a much needed vacation. It was his first in more than 10 years. He noticed a small boat docked with just one fisherman on board. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The executive complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took…

The fisherman laughed, and a few years later there was a shortage of fish, and his family suffered having not built up any reserves of money or assets. The parable of the fisherman is basically the Ant and the Grasshopper told up until some time before winter. Exaggerated obviously, but then parables always are, that's why they are almost useless.

in my version the fisherman had a nest-egg and a supportive village, killjoy... ;)

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#132

Post by justinhj » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 10:28 PM UTC

alex_c wrote: post #59

justinhj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need to sell a lot of bread to make even an average US game programmers salary. The reason being that the work is creative and technically skilled. There are fewer people able to do it and that pushes up salaries. Like any industry there are exploitative employers, but it's just a case of finding or making a good place to work. The video game business is constantly changing in terms of the types of games people…

I don't have numbers to back this up, but I strongly suspect your average hotdog cart sells more hotdogs per day than your average indie or solo game developer sells iPhone games per day. A new street food vendor only competes with other food vendors in the area. A new game developer competes globally, against both established studios and hobbyists happy to work for free because it's fun. You have people who want to…

Inherent reason to me would be that the skills of food vendors are more common and easily acquired than those of game developers. I have a BSc in CS and over 10 years experience. This guy learned to make bread from his girlfriend and opened a stand shortly after. You're probably unfamiliar with the game industry beyond popular articles and headlines, but I can assure you tha demand for qualified engineers is very high. At least in the parts of the industry that are profitable. i.e not the millions of bedroom coders or cheap labour that pump out mediocre games.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#133

Post by justinhj » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 10:32 PM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #117

justinhj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need to sell a lot of bread to make even an average US game programmers salary. The reason being that the work is creative and technically skilled. There are fewer people able to do it and that pushes up salaries. Like any industry there are exploitative employers, but it's just a case of finding or making a good place to work. The video game business is constantly changing in terms of the types of games people…

Salary distributions in the video game industry are starting to look a lot like salaries in the movie and TV industries. The bottom tends to pay peanuts and demand long hours, because there's an oversupply of willing applicants relative to the demand for low-level talent. (The question "Who wants to make games/movies/TV shows for a living?!" will always be exciting enough to attract entry level applicants by the boat…

People outside the industry make these kind of generalisations all the time but in practise it's nonsense. Sure millions of kids may want to be video programmers, but very few are qualified (i.e: can program well enough and have sufficient CS background to cope with the job.

Where I work we have a good mix of veterans and recent graduates. Typically they are from top North American Universities including Stanford and Waterloo.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#134

Post by justinhj » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 10:36 PM UTC

jdmichal wrote: post #53

justinhj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need to sell a lot of bread to make even an average US game programmers salary. The reason being that the work is creative and technically skilled. There are fewer people able to do it and that pushes up salaries. Like any industry there are exploitative employers, but it's just a case of finding or making a good place to work. The video game business is constantly changing in terms of the types of games people…

Are you implying that cooking is not a creative and technically skilled employ? Because I'm sure there are several people that would be glad to argue that point with you. I mean, sure, a line cook or something? Maybe not. But someone running their own food stand, responsible for everything from the menu to presentation?

There are skills involved, and I wouldn't say they were lesser than those needed for programming. But in the same vein, I'd say spending a few days learning to make bread to sell in a cart does not compare to the years it takes to become a competent programmer.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#135

Post by justinhj » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 10:36 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #76

justinhj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need to sell a lot of bread to make even an average US game programmers salary. The reason being that the work is creative and technically skilled. There are fewer people able to do it and that pushes up salaries. Like any industry there are exploitative employers, but it's just a case of finding or making a good place to work. The video game business is constantly changing in terms of the types of games people…

Yup. And it's quite difficult to figure out how to efficiently sell that much bread (or hotdogs, or shaobing). But once you do, you're in business. You miss the key part of the equation though. More people want to make video games than want to sell street food...

See my other replies. Many less people can make video games than want to.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#136

Post by jerryhuang100 » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 11:41 PM UTC

bluekite2000 wrote: post #102

JPKab wrote: post #3

The streetfood business is awful in the long term. I hope he can quickly move into a brick and mortar restaurant. Depending on the municipality, streetfood vendors get nailed by all sorts of random fines, get shunted around to various "permitted areas" which may or may not have lots of foot traffic, and the worst part: the low barrier to entry. Competitors can come in super quickly, and when they do, they can lower t…

A vendor moving from a street stand to a restaurant is essentially what lean startup is. I wrote a post about a coconut man on the steamy sidewalk of saigon here. http://datdiary.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/lean-startup-vietna...

It's not even a big news to make a fortune by selling street food in Asia. Personally I know a family selling Pan-fried Stuffed Buns as street vendors in Taipei about 25 years ago. After 5 years or so they earned their buildings and moved in to a brick and mortar place in a neighborhood that's equivalent to the UES in NYC. Their business is still standing today, with three or more items on their menu. I would say they pretty much embed the "lean startup" spirit by surrounding their MVP, Pan-fried Stuffed Buns, from the beginning.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#137

Post by pcl » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 12:14 AM UTC

bandy wrote: post #87

pcl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long-term disability coverage has been part of all the insurance plans I've had over the years in the US. I assume that it's pretty common across US insurance plans, at least for full-time employees. Such coverage pays some percentage of your salary for many years from the beginning of a long-term disability. I think that both of those numbers vary widely from plan to plan.

Provided you have insurance in the first place. (The rest of this post is seemingly invalid in California:) Contractor? No, you don't get insurance. Don't you have COBRA? You can't afford that? Well, golly, better hope that you don't get sick.

Indeed. The GP's question was about "American employees", which I interpreted as "full-time employees at a company in the USA".

Contractors are subject to the health care plans of the company they work for (or whatever they buy on the individual market, if they are self-employed). Part-time employees (less than 30 hours per week, IIRC, although that's probably state-by-state) also receive different treatment. Some companies have started to manage hours to have more part-time workers instead of fewer full-time workers as a means to game the heath care laws: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/06/w...

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#138

Post by LekkoscPiwa » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 12:45 AM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #126

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #27

The average age of the US farmer is 58. In Japan it is 68. There is less and less land available for agriculture. Less and less fresh water (agriculture uses 90% of fresh water in the US). The weather gets worse by the year to produce food. On the other hand there are more and more people in the world. So supply is diminishing while demand is high. That's why food is more and more expensive almost every quarter. All…

If by farmer, you mean someone who works on a farm, but doesn't own it, it's laughable to suggest that they will ever be making a lot of money. If by farmer you mean someone with millions of dollars of capital invested in farmland, it's not accurate to compare them to a run of the mill software developer. As with all industries in a capitalist economy, the people with the capital are the ones making most of the money…

You don't need to be a farmer neccessarily. Like the guy from the article who has a food stand. You may partake in the agriculture industry in many different ways. I wonder if anybody ever has went to a farmer and asked him what is the single most annoying thing he has to deal with and tried to create start-up around a proposed solution to this annoyance. People do it all the time to get ideas about what is needed on the market. Who would go to the middle of Minesota to ask? Could be worth the effort vs. writing another Facebook game that's supposed to make money on ads - is all Im saying.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#139

Post by msandford » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 1:07 AM UTC

marvin wrote: post #124

TDL wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I would say closer to a year, but some would disagree. Less than 6 months is not enough, especially for freelance/consulting types.

Hell, make it at least a year. If you can't plan this far ahead, either your expenses are too high or you're doing something that is not sustainable. At least a year should be a long-term goal if you're doing something which is at all exposed to random acts of God.

> At least a year should be a long-term goal if you're doing something which is at all exposed to random acts of God.

You mean like being a human being who is currently alive on the planet Earth?

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#140

Post by jval » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 1:55 AM UTC

I feel like there's a lot of articles like this, which kinda make it seem like life is easy as an entrepreneur, or that successful business just happen. I feel like this mentality is behind the explosion in early stage financings relative to late stage financings.

I know that as an early stage founder that I am part of the problem, but I often stop to think about whether what I'm doing is really that valuable or if I should just join another company in growth phase. I think the 100th engineer at Facebook would have had a lot more impact than most of the failed founders today.

I just think that being a founder is a harsh experience that you have to learn from many times over in order to get right, and that even when things go well there's no guarantee of a money pot at the end of the rainbow. I think you really need to have motivations other than cash to truly convince yourself that what you're working on is worth waking up for every day.

I think if you have that motivation inside you then being a founder is a great experience. Thinking you should just leave your job for an instant moneypot is just silly though, IMHO.