5 ms·

Don't be silly. She wrote that her friend, "could easily bring in a low six-figure income" If you save wisely, you can retire just fine after a career at a te

Don't be silly. She wrote that her friend, "could easily bring in a low six-figure income" If you save wisely, you can retire just fine after a career at a tech company making 2-3x the US median salary. And most companies have good health coverage for the cancer. She is talking about the pressure to make $10M or more through a startup, not getting the money to retire comfortably.

kscaldef 16y ago
> And most companies have good health coverage for the cancer. Well... kinda. One of the dirty little secrets of employer-provided group health care is that when you have one person whose health care costs vastly exceed the average, there's enormous pressure to get that person out of the "group". I've know companies where someone got cancer and the premiums for the whole company doubled the next year.
- orangecat 16y ago
  Geez. I never thought about that scenario, but it makes perfect sense. So much for the one possible advantage of employer-based health insurance.
  - nerfhammer 16y ago
    Here's a disturbing tale of this scenario playing out: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/7/751100/-How-I-lost-my-health-insurance-at-the-hairstylists http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/7/751100/-How-I-los...
- jimbokun 16y ago
  This is a good economic explanation for why national health care systems should outperform employer based (or any other) systems. You can't get a larger pool of people to spread risk around, under a single legal framework, than an entire nation state.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Once you look at the numbers, you realize that beyond a certain size it doesn't matter much. The standard deviation of health care costs for a company scales like 1/sqrt(# employees). Once (sigma cost) / sqrt(# of employees) << (mean cost), there is little advantage to having a bigger pool.
  - kscaldef 16y ago
    It's not really about the overall performance or cost of coverage. The advantage, in this case, of national health care is that you can't be kicked out of the "group" (i.e. fired because you're raising the insurance premiums for the whole company), and there's no concept of "uninsurable".
timr 16y ago
"If you save wisely, you can retire just fine after a career at a tech company making 2-3x the US median salary." This is a theory at this point...and it's not a well-tested theory. I don't know many people who have actually retired from a lifetime (i.e. 30+ year) career in tech. Considering that the software industry (as we know it) is only about 30 years old, it's hard to draw long-term conclusions.
- boucher 16y ago
  The specific career is not relevant. Any person who has retired after making 3x the median US salary is evidence in this scenario.
  - timr 16y ago
    If the median programmer leaves the industry after 10 years, career choice matters a great deal; making 3 times as much for 1/4th the time isn't a net win.
- btilly 16y ago
  ...the software industry (as we know it) is only about 30 years old... Uh, what? The software industry is a lot older than that. The largest companies today by revenue are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_global_software_companies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_global_soft... and it is instructive to go down the list. Of the 10 listed, 2 have been selling software since the 50s (in the case of Accenture admittedly as part of another company), 1 in the 60s, and 3 in the 70s. So over half are over 30 years old. Wikipedia claims that the first company founded to provide software products and services was Computer Usage Company in 1955. The software industry expanded in the 1960s. Since then it seems to me to have been growing exponentially since. By the early 70s there was already enough accumulated experience for veterans to write classics like The Mythical Man-Month and The Psychology of Computer Programming. Incidentally I know multiple people who have retired from a lifetime career in tech. They seem to be in a similar position to other retired professionals.
  - 16y ago
iron_ball 16y ago
You're still going to be hired for tech jobs at 50? Not from what I hear.
pvdm 16y ago
Wait. What tech company would hire you if you already have cancer ? Just ask Brian Reid. http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/08/google_age_discrimination_case.php http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/08/google_age_discr...

kscaldef 16y ago

> And most companies have good health coverage for the cancer. Well... kinda. One of the dirty little secrets of employer-provided group health care is that when you have one person whose health care costs vastly exceed the average, there's enormous pressure to get that person out of the "group". I've know companies where someone got cancer and the premiums for the whole company doubled the next year.

orangecat 16y ago
Geez. I never thought about that scenario, but it makes perfect sense. So much for the one possible advantage of employer-based health insurance.
- nerfhammer 16y ago
  Here's a disturbing tale of this scenario playing out: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/7/751100/-How-I-lost-my-health-insurance-at-the-hairstylists http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/7/751100/-How-I-los...
jimbokun 16y ago
This is a good economic explanation for why national health care systems should outperform employer based (or any other) systems. You can't get a larger pool of people to spread risk around, under a single legal framework, than an entire nation state.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Once you look at the numbers, you realize that beyond a certain size it doesn't matter much. The standard deviation of health care costs for a company scales like 1/sqrt(# employees). Once (sigma cost) / sqrt(# of employees) << (mean cost), there is little advantage to having a bigger pool.
- kscaldef 16y ago
  It's not really about the overall performance or cost of coverage. The advantage, in this case, of national health care is that you can't be kicked out of the "group" (i.e. fired because you're raising the insurance premiums for the whole company), and there's no concept of "uninsurable".

timr 16y ago

"If you save wisely, you can retire just fine after a career at a tech company making 2-3x the US median salary." This is a theory at this point...and it's not a well-tested theory. I don't know many people who have actually retired from a lifetime (i.e. 30+ year) career in tech. Considering that the software industry (as we know it) is only about 30 years old, it's hard to draw long-term conclusions.

boucher 16y ago
The specific career is not relevant. Any person who has retired after making 3x the median US salary is evidence in this scenario.
- timr 16y ago
  If the median programmer leaves the industry after 10 years, career choice matters a great deal; making 3 times as much for 1/4th the time isn't a net win.
btilly 16y ago
...the software industry (as we know it) is only about 30 years old... Uh, what? The software industry is a lot older than that. The largest companies today by revenue are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_global_software_companies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_global_soft... and it is instructive to go down the list. Of the 10 listed, 2 have been selling software since the 50s (in the case of Accenture admittedly as part of another company), 1 in the 60s, and 3 in the 70s. So over half are over 30 years old. Wikipedia claims that the first company founded to provide software products and services was Computer Usage Company in 1955. The software industry expanded in the 1960s. Since then it seems to me to have been growing exponentially since. By the early 70s there was already enough accumulated experience for veterans to write classics like The Mythical Man-Month and The Psychology of Computer Programming. Incidentally I know multiple people who have retired from a lifetime career in tech. They seem to be in a similar position to other retired professionals.
- 16y ago

iron_ball 16y ago

You're still going to be hired for tech jobs at 50? Not from what I hear.

pvdm 16y ago

Wait. What tech company would hire you if you already have cancer ? Just ask Brian Reid. http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/08/google_age_discrimination_case.php http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/08/google_age_discr...