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Misleading article and headline; a few celebrity researchers in high-up positions make this much. You can probably find some chemists who make $1M too if they h

Misleading article and headline; a few celebrity researchers in high-up positions make this much. You can probably find some chemists who make $1M too if they have made it to executive positions. Most AI researchers in industry make a lot of money, $200k+, but that is not so outrageous in the context of big tech companies. And in fact the vast majority of AI researchers are making $20k-$30k a year, because they are graduate students.

Railsify 7y ago
And if they live in California 200k does not seem like a lot.
- maccard 7y ago
  Assuming 4k/month on rent, your leftover pay after taxes and rent is more than most senior engineers gross in the rest of the US/Western Europe. 200k is a lot.
- jstummbillig 7y ago
  If the context simply is "median California household income", then it should seem like a lot, because it really still is a lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_locations_by_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_locations_b...
  - ModernMech 7y ago
    $200k in the bay area is like $90k where I'm from. It's a decent living, but if you've got a family it's not exactly upper class.
    - ryanSrich 7y ago
      If you have a family it’s not possible. Home prices average close to $1m. You’d have to save an entire years salary PRE tax to afford the down payment. That will take years and years to save. If you’re raising a family you’ll likely need two $200k incomes to afford a house, and even then, it’ll take at least 2 years to save for the down payment. The Bay Area is for college kids and millionaires. That’s it.
      - toast0 7y ago
        20% down is a rule of thumb, and a requirement to avoid mortgage insurance, but it is not a requirement for lending. My credit union will do loans of up to 95% loan to value for $1.5M to first time homeowners or 90% loan to value up to $1.5M if you don't meet the first time qualifications. [1] I'm sure other volume lenders in the bay area have similar lending standards and programs. [1] https://www.starone.org/first-time-home-buyer/ https://www.starone.org/first-time-home-buyer/
        ryanSrich 7y ago
        It's a financial mistake to not put 20% down. Not only are you hit with $500+/month in PMI, you have almost negative equity into the house when you buy it. Meaning if you have to sell on short notice you're either completely underwater having to pay back cap gains, or you're just breaking even. That's not an ideal situation and if you don't understand the mechanics going in, you'll find yourself in a world of hurt in an economic downturn.
        opportune 7y ago
        If you truly don't have the money for the down payment, the math of mortgage+insurance+property taxes+pmi+deductions might still work out to be in your favor over renting
        nostrademons 7y ago
        It's pretty unlikely in the Bay Area. There are fairly large distortions in the local market (because of Prop 13, zoning, wealth inequality, and small home supply in general) that usually make renting significantly more affordable than buying in general. See eg. this $1.9M home (estimated payment $9000/month, not including PMI) vs. this $4900/month equivalent: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/910-San-Marcos-Cir-Mountain-View-CA-94043/19511543_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/910-San-Marcos-Cir-Mounta... https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/pen/apa?min_bedrooms=3 https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/pen/apa?min_bedrooms=3 (Also note that the $1.9M home is currently assessed at $170K, so the current owners are paying < 10% the roughly $15K/year in taxes that the buyer would be.)
    - stochastic_monk 7y ago
      Off-topic: Reminds me of "Half a mil in twenties like a billion where I'm from." On-topic: that's misleading; once you pay fixed costs, you have a lot more latitude for discretionary income. Not everything is the same ratio more expensive in the Bay Area.
      - wil421 7y ago
        What happens when you have a family? A MacBook Pro costs the same but does childcare? How about a home with a reasonable commute, good schools, and is large enough for a single family?
xenocyon 7y ago
Also, it's not unusual for star professionals in other fields to make that much at nonprofits. E.g. neurosurgeons can often make that much at nonprofit hospitals. And if one gets into executive comp at a large nonprofit, a million a year is no big deal. But there is a large variance in the nonprofit world, and it's more common for a PhD in CS to earn something like $60K at research nonprofits. Other nonprofit employees - social workers, for instance - have it even worse, earning not much more than minimum wage with Masters degrees. Sadly, many nonprofits capitalize on the idealism of applicants to compensate for poor comp and grueling working conditions. So the word 'nonprofit' really doesn't convey much information; it all depends on specifics.
- puranjay 7y ago
  Star *anything" is a path to millions. Star athletes and musicians are obvious examples, but even star jugglers or puppeteers probably make a killing. Very misleading article
  - candiodari 7y ago
    Exactly. The problem with this field is that if you want to see what you'd have to do to be a star researcher in AI. You'd have to be top-10 amongst 20.000 or so machine learning PhDs. This is not a reasonable aspiration. Plus I would argue that although Ilya Sutskever did a ridiculous amount of effort and then got lucky, 2 two others were at best interested academics on the sidelines for most of their careers, then got lucky with a grad student. There's at least 1000 who did similar effort to Ilya (let's say half as much, which is still triple what any reasonable person would find reasonable), way more than the 2 other named examples, yet have no hope at all of ever achieving his level of recognition, including several of the students who really did most of the work the 2 others got recognition for.
    - opportune 7y ago
      You also have to do a PhD, and make sure you get a good adviser/good department, and get lucky enough for nothing bad to happen to your adviser and department, and be very careful with how you spend your time (if you spend a lot of time on something that doesn't end up being fruitful, that's opportunity cost that other top researchers might have turned into a breakout publication and now you are behind). And you make like $30k/year while in grad school and might experience some pretty bad mental health due to stress. Of course, the average/above-average case isn't terrible. I think non-famous AI researchers are still getting hired into $400-500k/year at FAANG at "senior" level, it's just that you would be making roughly the same amount of money if you just went directly into software engineering at a FAANG out of undergrad and did above-average at promotions. To me, that makes it not really make sense to go into AI research (especially now, when it's a hot topic and you have a 3-5 year wait to get your PhD) unless it's something you are genuinely interested in. For purely career reasons, it doesn't seem much better than just going right into software engineering.
jseliger 7y ago
Nonprofits are more like businesses than people realize: https://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-businesses-than-you-realize/ https://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-... and they pay market rates. Maybe some people will accept someone less for the sake of working at a nonprofit but very few people will accept substantial paycuts over the long term
- usaar333 7y ago
  I've generally found nonprofits pay well below market in exchange for doing social good. Universities are the most obvious example, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative being another
wintorez 7y ago
Thank you!

Railsify 7y ago

And if they live in California 200k does not seem like a lot.

maccard 7y ago
Assuming 4k/month on rent, your leftover pay after taxes and rent is more than most senior engineers gross in the rest of the US/Western Europe. 200k is a lot.
jstummbillig 7y ago
If the context simply is "median California household income", then it should seem like a lot, because it really still is a lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_locations_by_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_locations_b...
- ModernMech 7y ago
  $200k in the bay area is like $90k where I'm from. It's a decent living, but if you've got a family it's not exactly upper class.
  - ryanSrich 7y ago
    If you have a family it’s not possible. Home prices average close to $1m. You’d have to save an entire years salary PRE tax to afford the down payment. That will take years and years to save. If you’re raising a family you’ll likely need two $200k incomes to afford a house, and even then, it’ll take at least 2 years to save for the down payment. The Bay Area is for college kids and millionaires. That’s it.
    - toast0 7y ago
      20% down is a rule of thumb, and a requirement to avoid mortgage insurance, but it is not a requirement for lending. My credit union will do loans of up to 95% loan to value for $1.5M to first time homeowners or 90% loan to value up to $1.5M if you don't meet the first time qualifications. [1] I'm sure other volume lenders in the bay area have similar lending standards and programs. [1] https://www.starone.org/first-time-home-buyer/ https://www.starone.org/first-time-home-buyer/
      - ryanSrich 7y ago
        It's a financial mistake to not put 20% down. Not only are you hit with $500+/month in PMI, you have almost negative equity into the house when you buy it. Meaning if you have to sell on short notice you're either completely underwater having to pay back cap gains, or you're just breaking even. That's not an ideal situation and if you don't understand the mechanics going in, you'll find yourself in a world of hurt in an economic downturn.
        opportune 7y ago
        If you truly don't have the money for the down payment, the math of mortgage+insurance+property taxes+pmi+deductions might still work out to be in your favor over renting
        nostrademons 7y ago
        It's pretty unlikely in the Bay Area. There are fairly large distortions in the local market (because of Prop 13, zoning, wealth inequality, and small home supply in general) that usually make renting significantly more affordable than buying in general. See eg. this $1.9M home (estimated payment $9000/month, not including PMI) vs. this $4900/month equivalent: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/910-San-Marcos-Cir-Mountain-View-CA-94043/19511543_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/910-San-Marcos-Cir-Mounta... https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/pen/apa?min_bedrooms=3 https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/pen/apa?min_bedrooms=3 (Also note that the $1.9M home is currently assessed at $170K, so the current owners are paying < 10% the roughly $15K/year in taxes that the buyer would be.)
  - stochastic_monk 7y ago
    Off-topic: Reminds me of "Half a mil in twenties like a billion where I'm from." On-topic: that's misleading; once you pay fixed costs, you have a lot more latitude for discretionary income. Not everything is the same ratio more expensive in the Bay Area.
    - wil421 7y ago
      What happens when you have a family? A MacBook Pro costs the same but does childcare? How about a home with a reasonable commute, good schools, and is large enough for a single family?

xenocyon 7y ago

Also, it's not unusual for star professionals in other fields to make that much at nonprofits. E.g. neurosurgeons can often make that much at nonprofit hospitals. And if one gets into executive comp at a large nonprofit, a million a year is no big deal. But there is a large variance in the nonprofit world, and it's more common for a PhD in CS to earn something like $60K at research nonprofits. Other nonprofit employees - social workers, for instance - have it even worse, earning not much more than minimum wage with Masters degrees. Sadly, many nonprofits capitalize on the idealism of applicants to compensate for poor comp and grueling working conditions. So the word 'nonprofit' really doesn't convey much information; it all depends on specifics.

puranjay 7y ago
Star *anything" is a path to millions. Star athletes and musicians are obvious examples, but even star jugglers or puppeteers probably make a killing. Very misleading article
- candiodari 7y ago
  Exactly. The problem with this field is that if you want to see what you'd have to do to be a star researcher in AI. You'd have to be top-10 amongst 20.000 or so machine learning PhDs. This is not a reasonable aspiration. Plus I would argue that although Ilya Sutskever did a ridiculous amount of effort and then got lucky, 2 two others were at best interested academics on the sidelines for most of their careers, then got lucky with a grad student. There's at least 1000 who did similar effort to Ilya (let's say half as much, which is still triple what any reasonable person would find reasonable), way more than the 2 other named examples, yet have no hope at all of ever achieving his level of recognition, including several of the students who really did most of the work the 2 others got recognition for.
  - opportune 7y ago
    You also have to do a PhD, and make sure you get a good adviser/good department, and get lucky enough for nothing bad to happen to your adviser and department, and be very careful with how you spend your time (if you spend a lot of time on something that doesn't end up being fruitful, that's opportunity cost that other top researchers might have turned into a breakout publication and now you are behind). And you make like $30k/year while in grad school and might experience some pretty bad mental health due to stress. Of course, the average/above-average case isn't terrible. I think non-famous AI researchers are still getting hired into $400-500k/year at FAANG at "senior" level, it's just that you would be making roughly the same amount of money if you just went directly into software engineering at a FAANG out of undergrad and did above-average at promotions. To me, that makes it not really make sense to go into AI research (especially now, when it's a hot topic and you have a 3-5 year wait to get your PhD) unless it's something you are genuinely interested in. For purely career reasons, it doesn't seem much better than just going right into software engineering.

jseliger 7y ago

Nonprofits are more like businesses than people realize: https://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-businesses-than-you-realize/ https://seliger.com/2012/09/02/why-nonprofits-are-more-like-... and they pay market rates. Maybe some people will accept someone less for the sake of working at a nonprofit but very few people will accept substantial paycuts over the long term

usaar333 7y ago
I've generally found nonprofits pay well below market in exchange for doing social good. Universities are the most obvious example, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative being another

wintorez 7y ago

Thank you!