Earlier quoted context omitted.
But, looking in from the outside, it's the subset which everyone not already in it appears to desire on some level to join.
Is it possible your experience isn't representative?
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This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
91–100 of 182 posts
Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
But, looking in from the outside, it's the subset which everyone not already in it appears to desire on some level to join.
Is it possible your experience isn't representative?
I'd say it is very probable. But I don't think that means the satire has no value.
Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course, discretionary income and salary are not the same thing. If you are a developer in the valley paying to live in Palo Alto, driving a BMW, etc. you too could choose to have a lot more discretionary income.
Yes, rents are part of the price of the ticket to work in SV, and as such does not constitute discretionary income. The extra cash you spend to drive a BMW instead of a five year old Nissan definitely most certainly does.
Yes, but even how much you pay for rent can be controlled, if you choose to.
You can easily find a room in an apartment for less than 1000 $/mo anywhere in the bay. It won't be a nice room if you choose to live in, say SoMa, but it's housing. So you could argue anything over that is "discretionary".
Obviously, many people would consider such a living situation unacceptable. But in the most general sense, it is still a choice.
Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
#94Sounds like a horrible person living a horrible life in a way that will never affect me in any way. I'm okay with this.
Reading things like this makes me glad I've stayed in the Midwest.
Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
$60k is more than 88% of Americans make in total income. Having that for discretionary spending would place you well within the top 1-2% of Americans, regardless of how much or how little your living expenses are.
The top 1% of earners make $450k/year [1]. Although they obviously spend a lot [2], at some point discretionary income gets pretty blurry. I'd hope any reasonable society would consider they have a lot more than $60k at their discretion, though. I make about a third of that, putting me just barely in the top 10%, and have more than $60k at my discretion. Wealth inequality is pretty insane in this country. [1] http://…
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Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
$60k is more than 88% of Americans make in total income. Having that for discretionary spending would place you well within the top 1-2% of Americans, regardless of how much or how little your living expenses are.
Living expenses make up the majority of most people's living expenses, and this person owns the house they live in, which means it's possible their expenses aren't that high to begin with. They imply as much in their post. So it's possible their salary is like $70-75k. The median salary in the US is $52k. In light of that, I, too, would call his salary "decently high".
> Living expenses make up the majority of most people's living expenses
True, true.
Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
#97This is so sad, especially the part in the beginning about hiring a nanny to watch their kids as they grow up. You can't get those memories and time back.
But hey, you have a WiFi coffee maker and Roomba.
Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it in the US ? In the UK to be a nanny, childminder or work in a nursery you have specific regulation and qualification required. A babysitter requires nothing, it can and generally is some teenage kid. The difference with all 3 is where the child go. Nursery has special dedicated facilities to take care of several children, number limited by the number of employee and size. A childminder will take care of 1 to 3…
Here in Spain I know a family that hired a young girl "au pair" (in their case a Polish girl who wanted to learn Spanish). The father told me they paid her about 400 euros/month + food and accommodation, so it's not something prohibitively expensive.
Given that is half of the salary of many people in the peninsula and above the Portuguese minimum wage, it looks expensive to me.
I mean, that only medium level and upper classes can afford it.
Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that a lot of posters here don't even realize it is satire speaks more to the point than anything.
"You skim the HN comments about life in the valley. You haven't bothered to read the article so you do not realize it's a satire. You decide to comment anyway." "Six minutes of continuously refreshing the page later, you get a reply from a throwaway account calling you out for not even skimming the article. You contemplate deleting your comment but decide that would look even worse. You then wonder why you don't set…
"You re-open the article and confirm that the string 'HN comments' in fact does not appear in the article you skimmed."
Meta.
Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley
#100This is so sad, especially the part in the beginning about hiring a nanny to watch their kids as they grow up. You can't get those memories and time back. But hey, you have a WiFi coffee maker and Roomba.
What's with the current cultural obsession with spending every single moment with ones children? How can this possibly be healthy for the children (never mind the parents)?