For the Love of Money • Hacker News Board

Re: For the Love of Money

#141

Post by whatgoodisaroad » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:49 AM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #58

“I don’t have the brain capacity to think about the system as a whole. All I’m concerned with is how this affects our company.” I wonder how many people really understand the system as whole. From the outside, it looks like a complex natural phenomenon that we don't really understand and don't control.

It reminds me of that old quote from Baron Rothschild (popularized, I think, by Ben Bernanke):

> Baron Rosthschild was once heard to say that he knew of only two men who really understood gold -- an obscure clerk in the Bank of France and one of the directors of the Bank of England. "Unfortunately," he added, "they disagree."

http://goo.gl/7EUCx

Re: For the Love of Money

#142

Post by bigbang » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:57 AM UTC

joseph_cooney wrote: post #133

bigbang wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a typical path from dev->trader? Should one join a hedge fund as a programmer and then step up the ladder?

A friend of mine works in a trading company. He said all the traders want to become devs, because it is the only skill that they've seen up close that translates outside of the mad-house of trading, and they (the traders) all know eventually their number will be up.

Perhaps, lack of understanding on my side, but what does "their number will be up" mean? From what I've heard, it's most often the case that developers want to move into trading.

Re: For the Love of Money

#143

Post by 31reasons » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 2:08 AM UTC

JDulin wrote: post #123

31reasons wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it seems you are better off working in a profession with a very clear quantifiable performance metrics. Software development is not one of them unless you work for your own company. I am curious about making a list of professions that have quantifiable performance metrics. 1.Sales and Marketing 2.SEO 3.Bloggers 4 ..

As always, there's an old and insightful pg essay on these economics: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html The trivial conclusion is that starting your own company is how to be accurately rewarded for your work. But that assumes there's no way to better measure employee performance. It seems like measuring it for engineers and programmers is an impossibly hard problem (At least, that's implied from all of the well-r…

I am sure if there was profit to be made from these kind of performance metrics for Programming, you would see entire industry spring up to solve that problem.

Re: For the Love of Money

#144

Post by 31reasons » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 2:10 AM UTC

debergalis wrote: post #119

31reasons wrote: post #83

I am just wondering, are these Wall Street traders smarter than an average techie working in Silicon Valley ? Are they so irreplaceable that they are offered so much salary and bonuses ? It just doesn't seem right. I am afraid to even ask for 150k salary in SV for the same amount of cerebral work.

It's pretty simple. Work at a pizza shop, get a lot of free pizza. Work w/ people's money, ...

By that analogy, Can I get free mobile advertising if I work at Facebook or free Adwords at Google ?

Re: For the Love of Money

#145

Post by 31reasons » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 2:12 AM UTC

joseph_cooney wrote: post #133

bigbang wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a typical path from dev->trader? Should one join a hedge fund as a programmer and then step up the ladder?

A friend of mine works in a trading company. He said all the traders want to become devs, because it is the only skill that they've seen up close that translates outside of the mad-house of trading, and they (the traders) all know eventually their number will be up.

You mean "Mad house of trading" = Millions of dollars in bonuses.

Re: For the Love of Money

#146

Post by ilaksh » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 2:24 AM UTC

We need to change the structure/paradigm to make so much inequality technically infeasible.

Re: For the Love of Money

#147

Post by peterpathname » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 2:34 AM UTC

CreakyParrot wrote: post #43

TL;DR: He used to use drugs and booze to deal with his insecurities. Then he used money. Now he (apparently) uses the attention that comes from telling everyone how wise and honorable he has become.

so? good for him. I think it's an inescapable reality of the human condition: we suffer an irresolvable emptiness. we make different choices about how to fill the unfillable hole. I think his choice to fill his by spreading hard-won wisdom and describing a path to honour is a smart solution to a problem we all face.

Re: For the Love of Money

#148

Post by peterpathname » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 2:37 AM UTC

king_jester wrote: post #54

mindcrime wrote: post #28

Yay, more villifying "Wall Street" and fueling the "Wall Street vs. Main Street" fire, and suggesting that it's somehow noble or good to not want to be rich. I think everybody should want to be rich. I've tried poverty and in my opinion - it sucks. It sucks big, steaming donkey balls. The desire to make more money, to improve one's "lot in life" and to succeed, this is a Good Thing. Because a few assholes go too far…

> The desire to make more money, to improve one's "lot in life" and to succeed, this is a Good Thing. One of the key points of this essay is that making more money doesn't necessarily improve one's quality of life. The author clearly talks about at age 25 being financially secure and wealthy, so his pursuit of additional wealth wasn't really about an increase in quality of life. > You can be rich and unhappy, or poor…

I don't think it's possible. We live in a finite world. All my wealth comes from someone else's poverty.

Re: For the Love of Money

#149

Post by peterpathname » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 2:38 AM UTC

KiwiCoder wrote: post #70

read wrote: post #69

What stood out for me was this sentence: From a distance I can see what I couldn’t see then Why is it that when you are close you're unable to see something for what it is?

perspective

or parallax ... I always confuse the two.

Re: For the Love of Money

#150

Post by judk » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 2:54 AM UTC

phillmv wrote: post #23

tkiley wrote: post #16

I was a derivatives trader, and it occurred to me the world would hardly change at all if credit derivatives ceased to exist. Not so nurse practitioners. Is this statement (from the article) true? I'm under the impression that financial innovations throughout history have generally spurred capital investment. Innovations like fractional-reserve lending have made bankers&investors wealthy, but also spurred spending on…

It's sorta up for debate. My understanding, which is tiny and very limited, is that you can think of the role of finance operators as "liquidity providers". They're the grease in the wheels of capitalism; by either providing access to capital (via loans, or investment) or by matching buyers with sellers. A classical example is you're a farmer that wants to hedge the risk that your crop will fail due to random weather…

If you only place limit/stop orders, and are willing to wait for a trading partner, you don't pay the HFT for liquidity. If you place a market order, you are buying liquidity. HFT is simply a private tax on the ignorant and stupid.