4 ms·

7-figure salaries have been a thing for quite a while at Facebook, Google and definitely at hedge funds. Right now, you can make a half million a year or more

7-figure salaries have been a thing for quite a while at Facebook, Google and definitely at hedge funds. Right now, you can make a half million a year or more if you're willing to optimize the low-level code in any of the major AI frameworks. If you publish a major conference paper, 7 figures is pretty easy to attain. You don't have to be in the 0.001% just the top 5%. That's hard work but it's doable. The only thing that's remotely fungible in AI is python-based data scientists who can do little more than port new data to existing models open sourced on GitHub. And even then they do pretty well because of the huge demand. I don't see that changing anytime soon. I believe expecting automated systems to replace data scientists is the same level of naivete as believing we'd reach L5 autonomy in a few years in 2014. Anthony Lewandowski was making 120 million dollars a year when he left Waymo. If you're an AI expert in the valley and you're not making at least $500k, you are one job hop away from doing so if you play your cards remotely right.

amelius 7y ago
> python-based data scientists who can do little more than port new data to existing models open sourced on GitHub The data-scientist is the new web-developer.
HenryKissinger 7y ago
> If you publish a major conference paper, 7 figures is pretty easy to attain. How does it work in practice? Let's say I just published a major conference paper. Where do I apply for my million dollar job? Who do I reach out to?
- nharada 7y ago
  You don't know? Usually at NeurIPS and CVPR the applications are next to the tea and coffee they put out in the mornings. Not sure about ICML.
  - HenryKissinger 7y ago
    I did not know about these conferences. I googled the first one and found a headline about how tickets sold out in minutes. Is this why? Because everyone attending hopes to get a 6 figures job?
    - nharada 7y ago
      I'm being facetious, this is not at all true. At my company, we typically look for multiple major publications and you certainly don't get a million dollar job out of it.
      - scottlegrand2 7y ago
        Then the people who come to your company could probably do better elsewhere if money is all they care about. You work at Cruise am I right? I know someone personally who worked at Cruise who was making 7 figures. That sort of compensation is just not that unusual anymore. But I've learned that money isn't everything the hard way. However, if you're whining about being underpaid, there's something you can do about it. There are plenty of solid reasons not to however especially if you enjoy your current gig and they're paying you sufficiently that you have a promising future. Money truly isn't everything.
        nharada 7y ago
        I don’t doubt that either people could do better elsewhere or that someone makes a million dollars, but it’s disingenuous to claim that “If you publish a major conference paper, 7 figures is pretty easy to attain” when this is not true by most measures. It might happen to some people but “pretty easy” implies most fresh PhDs could do this.
        scottlegrand2 7y ago
        I think you are embodying the notion "You miss all the shots you don't take." You're right that most fresh PhDs cannot do this (I did say top 5%). But I think we disagree as to why. You seem to think these positions do not exist and I know otherwise because I've been on both sides of the very same hiring process for which they do exist. The reason most new PhDs won't get them is because they lack the career experience to navigate the interview process to such a position. I'd love to see a world where someone teaches them those skills while they're still in academia. I sure could have used that. I also know because the day I left academia myself long ago was a major payday for me. Finally, I know because people like Andrei Karpathy pulled it off because of his excellent communication skills, intelligence and the right background. And people like Mu Li pulled it off by associating themselves with an academic who who helped found AWS AI and in his case he landed a principal engineering position straight out of school. That's the sort of position one usually only gets after one to two decades of job experience. Can we just agree to disagree here?
- scottlegrand2 7y ago
  The first thing you need to do is convince yourself you're worth that kind of money. Then when they ask you how much money you want during a job interview start talking about your peers in the industry making that kind of money. Finally make sure you're talking to multiple potential employers so you can play them against each other. Elon Musk gave that money to Ilya Sutskever because Google was probably paying him at least $1.5 million. Even if not, his share from the $60M DNNResearch acquhire (that's what got the whole ball rolling here) was probably worth far more than that. Sadly, you're really only worth what you can convince another person to believe you're worth. But then the USA is suffering through someone convincing an electoral majority of Americans he was the best and only choice to lead the country and that's just working out splendidly right?
ttlei 7y ago
Did i read that right? 120mils a year?!!!
- scottlegrand2 7y ago
  https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-anthony-levandowskis-120m-pay.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-...
  - Judgmentality 7y ago
    Saying he earned $120 MM a year when really that was a payout after multiple years of hitting agreed upon milestones - that's sort of like saying everybody makes millions a year at a company that just IPOed. He obviously made a lot of money, but you're exaggerating by almost an order of magnitude.
    - scottlegrand2 7y ago
      Whatever you do don't look up what Uber offered him to leave waymo...
      - Judgmentality 7y ago
        The $680 MM that was also contingent on milestones he never hit and thus was never paid? Not to mention that was distributed across other people as well, although he was supposed to get the vast majority. Also he's likely going to end up in jail because of what happened with that Uber fiasco. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-08-27/ex-google-engineer-anthony-levandowski-is-charged-with-trade-secrets-theft https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-08-27/ex-google-...
        scottlegrand2 7y ago
        That he turns out to be a scumbag seems orthogonal to his compensation. He would have gotten that money if he had delivered, no? That said, my exiting salary at some companies was dramatically higher than my salary when I joined because the stock had appreciated and so had my compensation. And if someone wants to hire me away that's the compensation they have to deal with, not my initial comp.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
laxatives 7y ago
Fat chance, there’s hundreds of papers and tens of thousands of attendees at NeurIPS every year. Less than 5% of these people will make 7 figures yearly.

amelius 7y ago

> python-based data scientists who can do little more than port new data to existing models open sourced on GitHub The data-scientist is the new web-developer.

HenryKissinger 7y ago

> If you publish a major conference paper, 7 figures is pretty easy to attain. How does it work in practice? Let's say I just published a major conference paper. Where do I apply for my million dollar job? Who do I reach out to?

nharada 7y ago
You don't know? Usually at NeurIPS and CVPR the applications are next to the tea and coffee they put out in the mornings. Not sure about ICML.
- HenryKissinger 7y ago
  I did not know about these conferences. I googled the first one and found a headline about how tickets sold out in minutes. Is this why? Because everyone attending hopes to get a 6 figures job?
  - nharada 7y ago
    I'm being facetious, this is not at all true. At my company, we typically look for multiple major publications and you certainly don't get a million dollar job out of it.
    - scottlegrand2 7y ago
      Then the people who come to your company could probably do better elsewhere if money is all they care about. You work at Cruise am I right? I know someone personally who worked at Cruise who was making 7 figures. That sort of compensation is just not that unusual anymore. But I've learned that money isn't everything the hard way. However, if you're whining about being underpaid, there's something you can do about it. There are plenty of solid reasons not to however especially if you enjoy your current gig and they're paying you sufficiently that you have a promising future. Money truly isn't everything.
      - nharada 7y ago
        I don’t doubt that either people could do better elsewhere or that someone makes a million dollars, but it’s disingenuous to claim that “If you publish a major conference paper, 7 figures is pretty easy to attain” when this is not true by most measures. It might happen to some people but “pretty easy” implies most fresh PhDs could do this.
        scottlegrand2 7y ago
        I think you are embodying the notion "You miss all the shots you don't take." You're right that most fresh PhDs cannot do this (I did say top 5%). But I think we disagree as to why. You seem to think these positions do not exist and I know otherwise because I've been on both sides of the very same hiring process for which they do exist. The reason most new PhDs won't get them is because they lack the career experience to navigate the interview process to such a position. I'd love to see a world where someone teaches them those skills while they're still in academia. I sure could have used that. I also know because the day I left academia myself long ago was a major payday for me. Finally, I know because people like Andrei Karpathy pulled it off because of his excellent communication skills, intelligence and the right background. And people like Mu Li pulled it off by associating themselves with an academic who who helped found AWS AI and in his case he landed a principal engineering position straight out of school. That's the sort of position one usually only gets after one to two decades of job experience. Can we just agree to disagree here?
scottlegrand2 7y ago
The first thing you need to do is convince yourself you're worth that kind of money. Then when they ask you how much money you want during a job interview start talking about your peers in the industry making that kind of money. Finally make sure you're talking to multiple potential employers so you can play them against each other. Elon Musk gave that money to Ilya Sutskever because Google was probably paying him at least $1.5 million. Even if not, his share from the $60M DNNResearch acquhire (that's what got the whole ball rolling here) was probably worth far more than that. Sadly, you're really only worth what you can convince another person to believe you're worth. But then the USA is suffering through someone convincing an electoral majority of Americans he was the best and only choice to lead the country and that's just working out splendidly right?

ttlei 7y ago

Did i read that right? 120mils a year?!!!

scottlegrand2 7y ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-anthony-levandowskis-120m-pay.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-...
- Judgmentality 7y ago
  Saying he earned $120 MM a year when really that was a payout after multiple years of hitting agreed upon milestones - that's sort of like saying everybody makes millions a year at a company that just IPOed. He obviously made a lot of money, but you're exaggerating by almost an order of magnitude.
  - scottlegrand2 7y ago
    Whatever you do don't look up what Uber offered him to leave waymo...
    - Judgmentality 7y ago
      The $680 MM that was also contingent on milestones he never hit and thus was never paid? Not to mention that was distributed across other people as well, although he was supposed to get the vast majority. Also he's likely going to end up in jail because of what happened with that Uber fiasco. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-08-27/ex-google-engineer-anthony-levandowski-is-charged-with-trade-secrets-theft https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-08-27/ex-google-...
      - scottlegrand2 7y ago
        That he turns out to be a scumbag seems orthogonal to his compensation. He would have gotten that money if he had delivered, no? That said, my exiting salary at some companies was dramatically higher than my salary when I joined because the stock had appreciated and so had my compensation. And if someone wants to hire me away that's the compensation they have to deal with, not my initial comp.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

laxatives 7y ago

Fat chance, there’s hundreds of papers and tens of thousands of attendees at NeurIPS every year. Less than 5% of these people will make 7 figures yearly.