4 ms·

The article mentions..."Not every engineer is a Stanford CS grad at Google making $200,000 a year....The median salary for American IT workers is $81,000"

sidlls 9y ago
In SV one doesn't have to be any of those things to earn $200k/yr. It might not be super common but it's hardly an extreme outlier.
pmoriarty 9y ago
The median family income in the US is about $60k[1], and most Americans have less than $1000 in savings.[2] Way too many SV employees are completely out of touch with just how privileged they are. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United... [2] - https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/how-much-americans-at-have-in-their-savings-accounts.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/how-much-americans-at-have-i...
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  SV costs of living is also completely out of touch with the rest of America.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I'm not sure privileged is the right word. I mean, they have to work hard at learning the skills and keeping skills up to date. It's not just given to them. Perhaps fortunate to pick a good, growing career maybe.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    I'm sure privileged is the right word. Coming from an impoverished past, I'm certainly very privileged to have been born with the intelligence to go through a physics PhD, have had the guidance of teachers and educators who saw the potential, and am now able to earn ~$200k/yr. These are all lucky coincidences that most are not privileged to have had.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      So in this case, privilege and luck are synonymous?
    - Clubber 9y ago
      That doesn't fit easily into the definition. I mean I guess if you think nature / God granted you intelligence, but nature grants lot of people intelligence. The fact that you had good teachers and were impoverished is more luck than privilege. Privileged doesn't typically mean luck, it means advantages granted to you because of social class or parents and whatnot. I mean I guess you could stretch it to mean luck. >a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
  - pmoriarty 9y ago
    There is earned privilege and unearned privilege. You can work hard and "earn" whatever privilege you have. That won't make you any less privileged. Someone far less privileged than you are could also be working far harder than you are.
- cblock811 9y ago
  My decision to leave a career where I made very little (hospitality), teach myself software engineering, and then make this transition successful was...work, not privilege.
  - lilactown 9y ago
    You had the opportunity and means to do so. That's a privilege many are not afforded, due to various circumstances. Privilege isn't a bad thing. Acknowledging it shouldn't take away from the fact that you had to work really hard, maybe harder than many others, to get to where you are.
    - cblock811 9y ago
      Sure, but I feel like people just throw that word around so much that it glosses over the fact that people did work hard to get to where they are. Maybe I just have privilege fatigue after hearing it at conferences, meetups, work, forums, etc.
  - pmoriarty 9y ago
    Privilege is not necessarily something you're born with (though some are certainly born very privileged). Starting from very little one could achieve great privilege. Endless stacks of motivational books and accounts of self-made men bear constant witness to this.
- Swizec 9y ago
  > The median family income in the US is about $60k[1], and most Americans have less than $1000 in savings.[2] As a mostly out of touch techie: How does that scale with living expenses? Do average people in SF have more than $1000 in savings because their living expenses are also that much higher? I come from a relatively unrich area in Europe and when I had $1000 in savings over there, I felt super rich and like nothing can touch me. Now I'm in SF and I have 20x more savings, but feel like I'm one small catastrophe away from homeless.

sidlls 9y ago

In SV one doesn't have to be any of those things to earn $200k/yr. It might not be super common but it's hardly an extreme outlier.

pmoriarty 9y ago

The median family income in the US is about $60k[1], and most Americans have less than $1000 in savings.[2] Way too many SV employees are completely out of touch with just how privileged they are. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United... [2] - https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/how-much-americans-at-have-in-their-savings-accounts.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/how-much-americans-at-have-i...

Apocryphon 9y ago
SV costs of living is also completely out of touch with the rest of America.
Clubber 9y ago
I'm not sure privileged is the right word. I mean, they have to work hard at learning the skills and keeping skills up to date. It's not just given to them. Perhaps fortunate to pick a good, growing career maybe.
- sidlls 9y ago
  I'm sure privileged is the right word. Coming from an impoverished past, I'm certainly very privileged to have been born with the intelligence to go through a physics PhD, have had the guidance of teachers and educators who saw the potential, and am now able to earn ~$200k/yr. These are all lucky coincidences that most are not privileged to have had.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    So in this case, privilege and luck are synonymous?
  - Clubber 9y ago
    That doesn't fit easily into the definition. I mean I guess if you think nature / God granted you intelligence, but nature grants lot of people intelligence. The fact that you had good teachers and were impoverished is more luck than privilege. Privileged doesn't typically mean luck, it means advantages granted to you because of social class or parents and whatnot. I mean I guess you could stretch it to mean luck. >a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  There is earned privilege and unearned privilege. You can work hard and "earn" whatever privilege you have. That won't make you any less privileged. Someone far less privileged than you are could also be working far harder than you are.
cblock811 9y ago
My decision to leave a career where I made very little (hospitality), teach myself software engineering, and then make this transition successful was...work, not privilege.
- lilactown 9y ago
  You had the opportunity and means to do so. That's a privilege many are not afforded, due to various circumstances. Privilege isn't a bad thing. Acknowledging it shouldn't take away from the fact that you had to work really hard, maybe harder than many others, to get to where you are.
  - cblock811 9y ago
    Sure, but I feel like people just throw that word around so much that it glosses over the fact that people did work hard to get to where they are. Maybe I just have privilege fatigue after hearing it at conferences, meetups, work, forums, etc.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  Privilege is not necessarily something you're born with (though some are certainly born very privileged). Starting from very little one could achieve great privilege. Endless stacks of motivational books and accounts of self-made men bear constant witness to this.
Swizec 9y ago
> The median family income in the US is about $60k[1], and most Americans have less than $1000 in savings.[2] As a mostly out of touch techie: How does that scale with living expenses? Do average people in SF have more than $1000 in savings because their living expenses are also that much higher? I come from a relatively unrich area in Europe and when I had $1000 in savings over there, I felt super rich and like nothing can touch me. Now I'm in SF and I have 20x more savings, but feel like I'm one small catastrophe away from homeless.