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Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

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

#71

Post by Mikeb85 »

I used to work in the food industry, in fine dining restaurants (which are notorious for long hours, hard work, and mediocre pay).

Alot of my friends left to start food trucks, street stands, etc... Keep in mind where I live (a cold part of Canada), you can realistically only sell street food for 4-6 months out of the year. They would all make $60,000 to $100,000 in a season, and now a few of them have brick and mortar restaurants to their name.

I worked a street food stand for a festival awhile back, we made $3000 in a day (split 2 ways).

Street food doesn't scale too well, and there are a whole slew of downsides, but if you can figure out an efficient way to make tasty food, you can make a lot of money and there's only a small barrier to starting out (likely less start up cost in China).

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

#72

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

_delirium wrote: post #43
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…

I'd be interested in the source of the U.S. figure. My guess is that this is only looking at independent farmers. But they produce a declining share of agricultural output. What's the average age of an Archer Daniels Midland employee?

just google the figure. Jim Rogers uses it in the interviews all the time, so when you are at it, google him and his stand on the future of the agriculture too.

As easy as supply & demand. App Store Supply & Demand is such that you get apps for free. Food industry Supply & Demand is such that a cup of coffee can be at 3-5 bucks. Just paid 20usd for an organic chicken. And that's cheap! Really does taste different (much better).

So? Coding an iPhone app for free because it's cool? I know agriculture doesn't have any of the "cool" factor some of the people are looking for, but you know what? Working for free isn't cool. Selling chickens 20usd/piece or coffee 4usd/cup probably is. And if you can't make it in the agriculture world - the government will keep subsidizing you forever.

What not to like about it ?

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

#73

Post by Mikeb85 »

parfe wrote: post #62

I really dislike these type of stories. Basically saying "Investor buys lotto ticket; outperforms DJIA by 5 billion percent." Or a more realistic example, the stories that flow when gas prices spike. Like the person with the diesel engine running off waste grease from restaurants. It's nice this person found a profitable niche but the concept itself doesn't lend itself to even linear growth.

Obviously if an investor was that bad, they shouldn't be an investor.

Running a diesel engine off waste oil is a great idea, more people should be doing it.

And no, food businesses don't scale well, but that's ok, because if you're efficient, and your food is good, you can make a decent living for your whole life.

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

#75

Post by rdouble »

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #72
_delirium wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in the source of the U.S. figure. My guess is that this is only looking at independent farmers. But they produce a declining share of agricultural output. What's the average age of an Archer Daniels Midland employee?

just google the figure. Jim Rogers uses it in the interviews all the time, so when you are at it, google him and his stand on the future of the agriculture too. As easy as supply & demand. App Store Supply & Demand is such that you get apps for free. Food industry Supply & Demand is such that a cup of coffee can be at 3-5 bucks. Just paid 20usd for an organic chicken. And that's cheap! Really does taste different (mu…

It's important to watch what trader/pundits like Jim Rogers actually do, not just listen to what he says. He's made a big deal about the current and future commodities boom, but he's also running a group of commodities funds. He makes bold claims about how Balliol MBAs should be buying farms instead of going into other industries, but he does not own any farms. He moved his young daughter to Singapore so that she could become fluent in Mandarin, he did not move her to Minnesota so that she could learn how to farm soybeans. It's always going to be better to be the commodities trader who controls a market than it is to be the producer of that commodity. If you watch what he has done, rather than what he says... you want to move to Singapore to broker commodities to the emerging asian markets, not move to Fresno to start an orchard.

Regarding "why" people may choose to make iPhone apps instead of farming. It's almost impossible to get started up in agriculture for someone who hasn't inherited a farm. Farmland where I'm from is over $10K per acre at the moment. You need millions of dollars just to buy the land. Then you need millions of dollars to buy all the equipment. Also, subsidies only happen for cash crops and commodities like milk and pork, you don't get subsidies for organic chicken and vegetables.

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

#76

Post by Mikeb85 »

justinhj wrote: post #47
alex_c wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that really sad? More people need food than games. More people want to make games than sell street food. The food business is brutally hard work, and I have a lot of respect for anyone doing it (well). There's no a priori reason why game programmers should be rewarded more than street food vendors.

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...

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

#78

Post by Patrick_Devine »

My first job out of college was writing Super Nintendo games in Vancouver. My starting salary was $28.5K/year in 1994. Had I have been working 40 hour work weeks, this would have been a reasonable salary, but for 80 hours a week (which is closer to what I was working), it was less than McDonalds paid at the time.

The difference is upwards mobility. It's hard moving up the corporate ladder while flipping burgers. It was not so hard to turn the game programming job into a lucrative career in software development.

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

#80

Post by maglos »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #78

My first job out of college was writing Super Nintendo games in Vancouver. My starting salary was $28.5K/year in 1994. Had I have been working 40 hour work weeks, this would have been a reasonable salary, but for 80 hours a week (which is closer to what I was working), it was less than McDonalds paid at the time. The difference is upwards mobility. It's hard moving up the corporate ladder while flipping burgers. It w…

Moving up might have been true in 94 but what about now? How soon are you planning on retiring/dieing?
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