9 ms·

So a tiny handful of top performers - plausibly few enough that you could fit them all on a schoolbus - in an ultra-hot technical field are raking in huge sums,

So a tiny handful of top performers - plausibly few enough that you could fit them all on a schoolbus - in an ultra-hot technical field are raking in huge sums, for the moment. Unless you are a top professor at an R1 research university or have a PhD from an R1 university studying under the other top minds in the field or are otherwise in the most elite fraction of the profession, it doesn't sound like this is particularly useful information for the average practicing or aspiring data-tician. What's the typical salary for someone with, say, a two-year professional masters?

make3 9y ago
They say that OpenAI are forced to disclose the salaries. Does anyone have a link to the source, to the document with the disclosed salaries? I'd be curious to see the range.
- gwern 9y ago
  See my comment.
- heyoni 9y ago
  On their tax returns, they have to name I think the 15 top earners' salaries as well as some key positions. You can look this up for just about any non-profit, including most if not all ivy leagues.
jseliger 9y ago
Also, the "nonprofit" part is less relevant than many assume. Nonprofits are more like businesses than most people realize: http://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-businesses-than-you-realize http://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-b...
- johnhenry 9y ago
  > Because nonprofits, like other businesses, ... Or, more accurately, non-profits are businesses.
- ramenmeal 9y ago
  Actually I'd say its relevant for the article. As it states, non-profits can't give out stock, so the salaries are larger.
tomrod 9y ago
From what I've seen, away from the coasts between $70k - $100k. PhD adds about 25k-40k to the figure, depending on industry.
- sndean 9y ago
  That's pretty consistent with what I've been told, for me (PhD, East coast, with essentially no experience): ~120k
- moresalarydata 9y ago
  Counterpoint: I'm a data scientist in the Midwest with a non-CS bachelor's degree, earning $125k base.
  - heyoni 9y ago
    Do bonuses make that much of a difference in data science?
    - tomrod 9y ago
      My post was base. My observation is existence and size of bonus depends critically on industry.
  - 773js 9y ago
    Not to put too fine a point on it, but Research Scientist in AI and Data Scientist are completely different jobs.
    - tomrod 9y ago
      Not always.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- shams93 9y ago
  Yeah I make 100k and live in Los Angeles sometimes I can't eat food I work remote so my coworkers outside cifornia don't have it too bad. But despite 30 years of experience I'm hardly worth enough to this society to let me eat food or have a roof over my head. 100k is about average for LA but at one point I had a job that paid me only 45k with no benefits demanding I generate a sentiment analysis system I literally had to stop eating to make my rent on that low pay. But in LA engineers are treated like worse than dogs, we have no social currency and if you work for an LA company they expect 140 hours for 40 hours pay far below market average.
salarydata 9y ago
$300k. I work at Google, have a few good papers, and a couple years of professional experience, and dropped out of grad school. TBH not really clear that I'm doing much better than peers without ML expertise.
- p1esk 9y ago
  Why did you drop out of grad school?
  - bobdole1234 9y ago
    I think he said "$300k".
    - ericjang 9y ago
      maybe she/he
      - 2_listerine_pls 9y ago
        or it
      - schrijver 9y ago
        singular they! (sorry for the downvotes)
      - belorn 9y ago
        I have always found that people defaults to themselves when they don't know the gender and there is little or no clues for it.
    - diN0bot 9y ago
      > I think she said "$300k". I laughed at the joke and upvoted you. And I frowned at the downvotes for the other comments. Friends, why do we turn into insecure conservative bullies when it comes to femininity? Why accept the implicit normalizing and othering of last century's favorite pronouns? Let's subvert the status quo!
mehrdadn 9y ago
I think the biggest surprise is that this is happening at nonprofits?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
7figures 9y ago
You have to actually be good at it, but I'm not famous, and I make over seven figures annually as an AI researcher at one of the big companies. True talent is extremely rare as well as lucrative. That said, I'm glad I turned down openAI's offer of only $200K. Yikes. Ilya is better than I am, but not 10x better.
- dibstern 9y ago
  Can you give indicators of how good you are? Just to help people understand what ‘good’ and sill getting 1M+ actually means
2spicy_thrwaway 9y ago
No grad school, no papers, 7ish years work experience, 260k base + 100k-ish stock

make3 9y ago

They say that OpenAI are forced to disclose the salaries. Does anyone have a link to the source, to the document with the disclosed salaries? I'd be curious to see the range.

gwern 9y ago
See my comment.
heyoni 9y ago
On their tax returns, they have to name I think the 15 top earners' salaries as well as some key positions. You can look this up for just about any non-profit, including most if not all ivy leagues.

jseliger 9y ago

Also, the "nonprofit" part is less relevant than many assume. Nonprofits are more like businesses than most people realize: http://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-businesses-than-you-realize http://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-b...

johnhenry 9y ago
> Because nonprofits, like other businesses, ... Or, more accurately, non-profits are businesses.
ramenmeal 9y ago
Actually I'd say its relevant for the article. As it states, non-profits can't give out stock, so the salaries are larger.

tomrod 9y ago

From what I've seen, away from the coasts between $70k - $100k. PhD adds about 25k-40k to the figure, depending on industry.

sndean 9y ago
That's pretty consistent with what I've been told, for me (PhD, East coast, with essentially no experience): ~120k
moresalarydata 9y ago
Counterpoint: I'm a data scientist in the Midwest with a non-CS bachelor's degree, earning $125k base.
- heyoni 9y ago
  Do bonuses make that much of a difference in data science?
  - tomrod 9y ago
    My post was base. My observation is existence and size of bonus depends critically on industry.
- 773js 9y ago
  Not to put too fine a point on it, but Research Scientist in AI and Data Scientist are completely different jobs.
  - tomrod 9y ago
    Not always.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
shams93 9y ago
Yeah I make 100k and live in Los Angeles sometimes I can't eat food I work remote so my coworkers outside cifornia don't have it too bad. But despite 30 years of experience I'm hardly worth enough to this society to let me eat food or have a roof over my head. 100k is about average for LA but at one point I had a job that paid me only 45k with no benefits demanding I generate a sentiment analysis system I literally had to stop eating to make my rent on that low pay. But in LA engineers are treated like worse than dogs, we have no social currency and if you work for an LA company they expect 140 hours for 40 hours pay far below market average.

salarydata 9y ago

$300k. I work at Google, have a few good papers, and a couple years of professional experience, and dropped out of grad school. TBH not really clear that I'm doing much better than peers without ML expertise.

p1esk 9y ago
Why did you drop out of grad school?
- bobdole1234 9y ago
  I think he said "$300k".
  - ericjang 9y ago
    maybe she/he
    - 2_listerine_pls 9y ago
      or it
    - schrijver 9y ago
      singular they! (sorry for the downvotes)
    - belorn 9y ago
      I have always found that people defaults to themselves when they don't know the gender and there is little or no clues for it.
  - diN0bot 9y ago
    > I think she said "$300k". I laughed at the joke and upvoted you. And I frowned at the downvotes for the other comments. Friends, why do we turn into insecure conservative bullies when it comes to femininity? Why accept the implicit normalizing and othering of last century's favorite pronouns? Let's subvert the status quo!

mehrdadn 9y ago

I think the biggest surprise is that this is happening at nonprofits?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

7figures 9y ago

You have to actually be good at it, but I'm not famous, and I make over seven figures annually as an AI researcher at one of the big companies. True talent is extremely rare as well as lucrative. That said, I'm glad I turned down openAI's offer of only $200K. Yikes. Ilya is better than I am, but not 10x better.

dibstern 9y ago
Can you give indicators of how good you are? Just to help people understand what ‘good’ and sill getting 1M+ actually means

2spicy_thrwaway 9y ago

No grad school, no papers, 7ish years work experience, 260k base + 100k-ish stock