5 ms·

Honestly, I was looking at these thinking how under-paid they are. I contract for a company in a much lower cost of living area and I'm making more than the ave

by steverb 16y ago

Honestly, I was looking at these thinking how under-paid they are. I contract for a company in a much lower cost of living area and I'm making more than the average Googler. I honestly don't understand why anyone would work for someone else for peanuts.

myth_drannon 16y ago
There is a difference between a contractor with 20 years of experience and a kid straight out of college.
JabavuAdams 16y ago
Dude, let's get real here. 100k + is not peanuts. It's higher than the median household income. There's a very real premium to working on cool stuff.
- mmt 16y ago
  Median of which households? Although I believe the Bay Area's[1] "high cost of living" is frequently exaggerated, I also believe, however, that it can't be dismissed. If I had to put a number on it, it would be $10-$30k annually. [1] The location of all employees at each company may be applying a selection bias, since I don't believe Facebook has more than a tiny fraction of its employees outside of the Bay Area, whereas the same cannot be said of Google.
  - JabavuAdams 16y ago
    All of those are substantive arguments. I was objecting to the use of the term "peanuts", which is derisive and dismissive -- as though this salary is not even worthy of consideration. Only 6.5% of US workers make 100K or more, according to this: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24100K+income http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24100K+income It's either just colourful language, or indicates that the writer is out of touch with reality.
    - mmt 16y ago
      That didn't even occur to me, that you'd find the term problematic. I just interpreted as colorful language. I find the denominator of the entire US[1] to be somewhat misleading, as I said. More importantly, however, I found the emphasis to be on the working for someone else, not the magnitude of the salary. Perhaps even more importantly, the high annual salary may translate to a low hourly rate, especially with a long commute and on-call duty. For some, this may be such a substantial reduction in quality of life, that the salary is low enough to resemble a legume. [1]Do all US workers in the above denominator include self-employed contractors?

by steverb 16y ago

myth_drannon 16y ago

There is a difference between a contractor with 20 years of experience and a kid straight out of college.

JabavuAdams 16y ago

Dude, let's get real here. 100k + is not peanuts. It's higher than the median household income. There's a very real premium to working on cool stuff.

mmt 16y ago
Median of which households? Although I believe the Bay Area's[1] "high cost of living" is frequently exaggerated, I also believe, however, that it can't be dismissed. If I had to put a number on it, it would be $10-$30k annually. [1] The location of all employees at each company may be applying a selection bias, since I don't believe Facebook has more than a tiny fraction of its employees outside of the Bay Area, whereas the same cannot be said of Google.
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  All of those are substantive arguments. I was objecting to the use of the term "peanuts", which is derisive and dismissive -- as though this salary is not even worthy of consideration. Only 6.5% of US workers make 100K or more, according to this: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24100K+income http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24100K+income It's either just colourful language, or indicates that the writer is out of touch with reality.
  - mmt 16y ago
    That didn't even occur to me, that you'd find the term problematic. I just interpreted as colorful language. I find the denominator of the entire US[1] to be somewhat misleading, as I said. More importantly, however, I found the emphasis to be on the working for someone else, not the magnitude of the salary. Perhaps even more importantly, the high annual salary may translate to a low hourly rate, especially with a long commute and on-call duty. For some, this may be such a substantial reduction in quality of life, that the salary is low enough to resemble a legume. [1]Do all US workers in the above denominator include self-employed contractors?