8 ms·
how does he pay the bills? and how about health insurance?
by m1n1 8y ago
how does he pay the bills? and how about health insurance?
- p1esk 8y agoHe worked at Google for four years.
- mywittyname 8y agoYeah, I bet he has at least $1MM in liquid assets banked on top of what income he earns through his projects.
- imbusy111 8y agoI assume you are being sarcastic. How do you put off $1M in assets with a $200k median salary in four years? $200k x 4 x 65% is just $520k without even any expenses paid such as the ~$72k you would have paid for a room in a shared apartment.
- monktastic1 8y ago350k isn't uncommon for a senior SWE at Google. In a state with no income tax (such as WA), it's not unreasonable to estimate he takes home 250k (71%). Suppose he spends $60k a year, leaving him $190k/year to bank. Given the performance of the S&P 500 in the last four years, that could be a million today.
- marssaxman 8y agoI don't know where these numbers come from. I made a gross salary of $140k the year I worked at Google as a senior engineer, and I made some extra money via 401k matching too. $190k would definitely have been more than my entire income, that's for sure. It's hard to imagine that salaries have more than doubled in the six years since then. And... spending only $60k a year, living in Seattle? Yeah, maybe if you live like a monk, or you really enjoy commuting in from distant suburbs.
- monktastic1 8y agoI was a senior swe in Seattle myself. The total comp range is enormous. Despite my handle, I didn't exactly live like a monk. 2k a luxury high rise and 3k for everything else felt positively princely (though the city has become more expensive since I left).
- bradlys 8y ago$5000/month in Seattle is well more than doable. I live off <$4k in regular expenses, live alone in the bay area, and still drive a luxury car. When I was in Seattle, I lived off of $1000/month, lived on my own, and had my own car. That was about 4 years ago. Google compensation is also incredibly high. $140k is less total comp than what many new grads get at Google.
- gowld 8y agoDid you forget that you have RSUs? $60K is plenty for a single person. Working for more than 1 years helps, too, if you sold your stock before it appreciated, since 4-year vest forces you to not sell for 1-3 more years.
- marssaxman 8y agoI made as much money on Google RSUs as I've made on every other form of equity offered as part of a "total comp" package over the course of my career, which is to say, nada. Total comp is bullshit, no matter how enthusiastically the recruiters try to convince you otherwise; salary is all that matters.
- 347067 8y agoStupid question, but since Google is a public company couldn't you lock in a certain profit on your RSUs with options in a private account? Or are you talking about the restrictions on vesting are meant to make them worthless for most employees because they'll be forfeited on some draconian technicality before exercising? I remember on Bogleheads people talking about how to reduce the risk of investing in something like an ESPP to avoid an Enron scenario, and the consensus was using options in a private account so that you get a definite payoff.
- throwawayok 8y agoWell, in addition to salary, he would have also gotten a bonus and stock. The bonus might be $50K/year, and then maybe another $100K/year in stock. The number of shares in the stock grant would have been computed at the date he started -- 5 years ago, GOOG was around $440/share, so at today's price, the shares would be worth $245K/year, assuming he held onto them as they vested. So, that adds up to around $495K/year, or maybe $300K after tax. With $50K/year in expenses, you're left with $250K/year, or $1M over 4 years.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ironjunkie 8y agothose numbers are on the high side, but yes indeed. Also all those calculations are completely forgetting that money is a time-sensitive value. If invested wisely, the first $ from 4 years ago would be 1.7$ today if invested into a typical low cost SP500
- mercutio2 8y agoYou lose your unvested RSUs when you leave (so divide your RSU calculations by 2 to start with), and the later grants would be at higher prices and thus have experienced less growth, so your envelope math is off by enough to not be good envelope math. On the other hand, $100k is by no means the largest RSU grant you can get, so, basically, we have no damn idea. Overall it’s pretty silly to speculate about someone’s net worth unless they’re excited to talk about it. But the larger point that high performing senior engineers at megacorps can make way more than people outside the megacorp world imagine is true and surprisingly contoversial on HN.
- monktastic1 8y agoThe grant is normally over 4 years, so it would all have vested. And there's only one grant in question, so no higher prices to account for.
- mtlynch 8y agoThis is the correct answer.
- RikNieu 8y agoRight? My blog post on the same subject would be more on the lines of "freak out about how to have a roof over my head next month and not have my family's health insurance cancelled..."
- icedchai 8y agoI'm guessing you don't have any savings or investments? You might want to plan ahead more than your next pay check. Investigate financial independence / retire early (FIRE.)
- toovs 8y agolol easy to say for those with cash
- icedchai 8y agoIt's real tough getting cash in this industry, isn't it? Start investing now. In 10 years you'll have a small fortune.
- RikNieu 8y agoNot everyone earns Valley salaries. Especially not those outside the US in third-world countries. And some, like myself had their life savings wiped out when life got cute. Anyway, glad OP has the opportunity to do what he's doing. Didn't mean to sidetrack the conversation. Just always find it amazing how we all live in vastly different worlds.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pkaye 8y agoYes I guess that works as long as a sudden bout of cancer or some other chronic illness doesn't turn your world around. Suddenly all the "plan to retire in X years" come into question. Will I be still living in X years? Will I be able to continue working and investing till then? Or will I have burn through all my savings? True financial independence doesn't come till you can weather such a storm and most people are not is such a position.
- eanzenberg 8y agomoney
- anoncoward111 8y agodisclaimer: i'm a health insurance broker if you have non-poverty-level income, you can buy a policy for about $300-500 a month through most state exchanges if you have poverty-level income (no stock dividends, no capital gains, havent worked w2 job in years), then you can qualify for Medicaid another option is to open a 1-2 employee LLC or LLP and buy small group health insurance. typically these plans are about $5-7k a year and have somewhat reasonable deductibles and somewhat reasonable out of pocket maxes. at the very least, a $100,000 appendix surgery will only cost you $7,000 max, and then you are covered for all other medical expenses for the rest of the year
- ataturk 8y agoWhen I was between jobs last year, I did not find any "$300-500" per month. No! I ended up doing COBRA and spending $1400/month, which is a mortgage! Had I found more reasonable health insurance I would not have jumped at the first offer I got and put myself in the situation I am in now. Shit, at $500/mo for health ins. I could have actually stayed inside my budget and really improved my career. Now I'm sitting here, it's a year later, and I'm a year older, and still wondering how the hell to pull of the next decade of employment (or whatever).
- mtlynch 8y agoI'm living off savings from Google and jobs prior to Google. Google had really high comp and I don't spend very much money outside of the fact that I live in Manhattan, so I have about 2-3 years of runway from that stockpile of savings. My health insurance is $470 for a basic high deductible plan.
- Thespian2 8y agoThis is a fundamental problem with Health Insurance being primarily tied to employment. Many older devs, with families to take care of, would experiment this way with health insurance better than what is currently available outside of employer-provided versions.