6 ms·

Uh, no. This adage is very very true. Sure, you can get a comfortable six figure salary, but that is by no stretch of the imagination "affluent". I'm defining

by dvt 10y ago

Uh, no. This adage is very very true. Sure, you can get a comfortable six figure salary, but that is by no stretch of the imagination "affluent". I'm defining rich as making 7 figures a year. I think that's a pretty fair assessment. You'll never get that working for someone else (especially as an engineer), barring extenuating circumstances. High equity employee #1 or co-founder is the way to go. High risk, high reward.

blahi 10y ago
You will get affluent in 10-20 years. That's my point. You get rich slowly, not quickly. And wealth is not defined by how much money you make, but by how much money you have.
- dvt 10y ago
  You will probably not become a millionaire unless you have no family, you never get laid off/let go, and your salary scales with inflation. There are other considerations as well, including cost of living (most high salary jobs are in high-cost areas), liabilities (debt), and so forth. If you want to get rich (again, 7-figure range), this just doesn't seem like a good bet to make. My personal slant on things is that even if you do become a millionaire, let's say in your 60s, who cares? The point is to get rich while you can still enjoy your money. There's no virtue in being buried with your treasure.
  - TrickedOut 10y ago
    Well said. Also, when most of us are 60 (20yrs? 30yrs?) a million wont be worth that much.
morgante 10y ago
A 7 figure annual income is setting the affluent definition very high. You can work at Google for a decade and end up a multi-millionaire, with enough money to retire to most places in the US. From your other comment, it seems like you haven't done the analysis on this. Top companies are routinely paying $200k-300k these days. That's enough to save a million dollars over a decade even if you have a family.
- dvt 10y ago
  $200k-$300k in places like San Francisco and Menlo Park. Clearly, you don't understand how cost of living works. Also, to make that much, you need to be at around a level of SDE3/tech lead, which is by no means easy (a decade of making low six-figures & some political panache). See this top answer on Quora, for a pretty detailed analysis: https://www.quora.com/Will-I-be-able-to-become-a-millionaire-by-working-at-a-big-Software-company-like-Google-Facebook-Microsoft-etc-all-my-life https://www.quora.com/Will-I-be-able-to-become-a-millionaire... You might be able to become a millionaire in 25 years assuming a frugal lifestyle and no big life event costs, but that's optimistic.
  - morgante 10y ago
    You can argue all you want, but I understand how cost of living works plenty well. SV is expensive but not so expensive that it wipes out $200k in income. If you're careful about expenses you can easily put away tens of thousands annually. This is backed up by own personal experience as a developer in NYC (hardly a low cost area). I expect to have a million dollars saved up within a decade and I certainly haven't relied on political panache to get there.
    - dvt 10y ago
      Sorry for seeming incredulous, but if you're saying that you're saving 100k a year in NYC, then you must be making like 400k or living in a cardboard box. Even with a 300k salary, you could only save 10k a month if you only had 5k worth of monthly expenses (3-4k is easily rent in NYC). And keep in mind that making 300k-400k is not typical.
      - morgante 10y ago
        I make substantially less than 400k and I assure you that I do not live in a cardboard box. $5k is high for monthly expenses. I rented a single bedroom in Manhattan for $1850 and you can save even more if you're willing to live with roommates. I'm not sure what I can do to convince you I'm not lying, but consider that median household income is less than $100k in both SV and NY. If the average person can get by on <$100k, why wouldn't you be able to save tons of money if you're making $200k? I have friends getting by on $40k in NYC. Can you imagine how easy it is to save if you match your lifestyle to theirs? Of course, it's not going to buy you a luxury lifestyle. But personally I'd rather maintain a high savings rate than live in a glitzy apartment and spend thousands on bottle service.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
Have you seen the thing about how there are no rich Americans?[1] No matter how big my house and expensive my car, I'm not rich, heavens no, that guy over there has a bigger house and a shinier car, he's rich. And of course he'll tell you the same thing. $200k/year is most definitely rich by the standards of most of America. If you think that's silly, hang out with someone who makes $30,000 a year and think about how much $200,000 would change their lives. [1]http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/03/03/how_americans_define_rich_somebody_who_has_more_money_than_they_do.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/03/03/how_americans...

by dvt 10y ago

blahi 10y ago

You will get affluent in 10-20 years. That's my point. You get rich slowly, not quickly. And wealth is not defined by how much money you make, but by how much money you have.

dvt 10y ago
You will probably not become a millionaire unless you have no family, you never get laid off/let go, and your salary scales with inflation. There are other considerations as well, including cost of living (most high salary jobs are in high-cost areas), liabilities (debt), and so forth. If you want to get rich (again, 7-figure range), this just doesn't seem like a good bet to make. My personal slant on things is that even if you do become a millionaire, let's say in your 60s, who cares? The point is to get rich while you can still enjoy your money. There's no virtue in being buried with your treasure.
- TrickedOut 10y ago
  Well said. Also, when most of us are 60 (20yrs? 30yrs?) a million wont be worth that much.

morgante 10y ago

A 7 figure annual income is setting the affluent definition very high. You can work at Google for a decade and end up a multi-millionaire, with enough money to retire to most places in the US. From your other comment, it seems like you haven't done the analysis on this. Top companies are routinely paying $200k-300k these days. That's enough to save a million dollars over a decade even if you have a family.

dvt 10y ago
$200k-$300k in places like San Francisco and Menlo Park. Clearly, you don't understand how cost of living works. Also, to make that much, you need to be at around a level of SDE3/tech lead, which is by no means easy (a decade of making low six-figures & some political panache). See this top answer on Quora, for a pretty detailed analysis: https://www.quora.com/Will-I-be-able-to-become-a-millionaire-by-working-at-a-big-Software-company-like-Google-Facebook-Microsoft-etc-all-my-life https://www.quora.com/Will-I-be-able-to-become-a-millionaire... You might be able to become a millionaire in 25 years assuming a frugal lifestyle and no big life event costs, but that's optimistic.
- morgante 10y ago
  You can argue all you want, but I understand how cost of living works plenty well. SV is expensive but not so expensive that it wipes out $200k in income. If you're careful about expenses you can easily put away tens of thousands annually. This is backed up by own personal experience as a developer in NYC (hardly a low cost area). I expect to have a million dollars saved up within a decade and I certainly haven't relied on political panache to get there.
  - dvt 10y ago
    Sorry for seeming incredulous, but if you're saying that you're saving 100k a year in NYC, then you must be making like 400k or living in a cardboard box. Even with a 300k salary, you could only save 10k a month if you only had 5k worth of monthly expenses (3-4k is easily rent in NYC). And keep in mind that making 300k-400k is not typical.
    - morgante 10y ago
      I make substantially less than 400k and I assure you that I do not live in a cardboard box. $5k is high for monthly expenses. I rented a single bedroom in Manhattan for $1850 and you can save even more if you're willing to live with roommates. I'm not sure what I can do to convince you I'm not lying, but consider that median household income is less than $100k in both SV and NY. If the average person can get by on <$100k, why wouldn't you be able to save tons of money if you're making $200k? I have friends getting by on $40k in NYC. Can you imagine how easy it is to save if you match your lifestyle to theirs? Of course, it's not going to buy you a luxury lifestyle. But personally I'd rather maintain a high savings rate than live in a glitzy apartment and spend thousands on bottle service.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

Have you seen the thing about how there are no rich Americans?[1] No matter how big my house and expensive my car, I'm not rich, heavens no, that guy over there has a bigger house and a shinier car, he's rich. And of course he'll tell you the same thing. $200k/year is most definitely rich by the standards of most of America. If you think that's silly, hang out with someone who makes $30,000 a year and think about how much $200,000 would change their lives. [1]http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/03/03/how_americans_define_rich_somebody_who_has_more_money_than_they_do.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/03/03/how_americans...