13 ms·

The Gods on Hacker News

348 points by ivm 6y ago

kenforthewin 6y ago
After starting to read HN regularly I noticed most of these types of comments are just posturing. Like any forum, the loudest people tend to be the ones that desire/require the most validation from their peers.
- rriepe 6y ago
  Yep it's locker room talk.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  Yep, and you’ll find that kind of posturing everywhere, just like the personality that tends to do it. The scale of it carries some pretty great comedy, though.
- lwigo 6y ago
  It's a way to stand out in a field crowded with junior and mid tier developers. Show up and talk a big game, and certain other people will listen and assume you're an amazing asset. Not required and perhaps jaded, but it also helps if you have even a tiny semblance of an influencer lifestyle or a type of WeWorkian God complex. I had a guy tell me once that "if you're not making at least $250k a year, then you failed as a developer". That was his honest life and career advice. It's depressing.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    The depressing advice I once recieved from a previous manager: "Not everyone has the potential to be more than a midlevel developer."
  - jbay808 6y ago
    > "if you're not making at least $250k a year, then you failed as a developer" This is a trope that runs through HN that gets frustrating sometimes. There's often a follow-up comment along the lines of "Only 250k? A fresh grad in the bay area can expect that much in salary, but if you're even average, total comp should be at least double that to be competitive!"
- m-i-l 6y ago
  > the loudest people tend to be the ones that desire/require the most validation from their peers I have a theory that IT is split into "doers", i.e. the people who do things, and "talkers", i.e. the people who talk about doing things. By definition, you hear from the talkers more, perhaps because the doers are too busy actually doing things, and to your point there are times when the talkers can sound dismissive of the doers, for whatever reason. But in HN's defence, you do hear more from actual doers here than perhaps anywhere else.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    I can see that. I would probably be on here a lot less if I had an interesting job.
  - jb1991 6y ago
    What you described is certainly not unique just to the IT industry.
- seibelj 6y ago
  I installed an app called “Blind” which is an anonymous social network for SV software engineers. The amount of self doubt, envy, complaining about not being able to work FAANG / feeling underpaid despite working at FAANG is exhausting. So many people in this industry have a toxic mentality.
  - necubi 6y ago
    Blind self-selects for the worst of these attitudes (in addition to the general shittiness of almost any anonymous community). I would not take this as representative of SV. The private forum for my company is amazingly toxic.
  - hengri 6y ago
    Blind is terrible. I think only the toxic ones stick around though. I doubt most people are like this.
  - cvhashim 6y ago
    Blind is full jerks. Don’t take their advice as gospel.
- HeyHoJoe 6y ago
  I’m convinced that most of the users on this site are sitting in their house that they rent with eight other people in their underwear eating beans out of a can.
  - tom_ 6y ago
    Well, $450,000 a year doesn't get you far in the bay area.
    - seattle_spring 6y ago
      It only gets you a ~1.5m mortgage, extremely high savings rate, access to private schools, all while living in one of the most beautiful and desirable metropolitan areas in the world. Basically poverty, in other words.
      - HeyHoJoe 6y ago
        Quiet you, back to eating your beans.
        kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        He gets to have artisinal fair trade beans.
      - bradlys 6y ago
        And what does a $1.5m mortgage get you in the peninsula? Maybe 1000-1200sqft? How lavish... You don't get an extremely high savings rate either in terms of ratios (unless you live a very economical lifestyle (small apartments/rooms, old/no car, etc.)).
        seattle_spring 6y ago
        Monthly take-home pay for $450k is ~$21k in California Monthly mortgage payment for $1.5m is ~$6.5k Remaining money for literally everything else, almost none of which is more expensive in California: $17.5k, or $210k per year. You could eat out every single night and buy a new BMW twice a year, and still save more than 20% of your take-home pay. Not only that, but we're talking about salaries for ONE SINGLE PERSON. Married in tech? We're talking a $900k annual salary. Calling this lifestyle "very economical" is so insanely out of touch with how most people live their lives, it's no wonder tech people are hated as completely out of touch. Edit: Changed $24k to $21k, the calculator I used didn't include state taxes even though California was the chosen state.
etherio 6y ago
I'm not sure it's that these people are "gods" living with unimaginable amounts of money but it might just be an exaggerated form of flexing. That could explain why the comments are often out of touch with the post at hand - their goal isn't to provide insight with that comment, but more to show off.
- ceres 6y ago
  I would understand this kind of posturing on Facebook or Instagram, where at least you have pictures and videos to back up your flex on your followers. But why do it on an anonymous forum where no one knows you nor will remember your username after the few seconds they read your comment?
  - etherio 6y ago
    HN is far from anonymous and this type of validation is just about being seen, not making a solid, lasting impression.
  - krapp 6y ago
    > But why do it on an anonymous forum where no one knows you nor will remember your username after the few seconds they read your comment? Because this forum is attached to a billion dollar Silicon Valley investment firm and Very Important People might wander past the water cooler, and people want to signal their affinity with the Cool Kids tribe. Because there's this impression, deserved or not, that being on Hacker News marks you as one of the intellectual, cultural and technical elites. Or that it would if you tried hard enough.
ravedave5 6y ago
I am involved in developer hiring process and I see soooo many resumes with failed startups and failed side projects. Achieving any level of decent, persistent MRR and the ability to actually cash out is impressive and a major accomplishment. Nobody talks about the thousands and thousands of failures. So yes you should be very happy with $1000 MRR.
spacedcowboy 6y ago
TIL I'm a "god". Apparently the quiet type, because I don't make the comments the author is referring to. looks around It sure doesn't feel like heaven around here... In fact, it's been a bit hot, recently...
- pwinnski 6y ago
  ...I don't make the comments the author is referring to And yet here we are.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ggghhhfff 6y ago
    Indeed
  - happytoexplain 6y ago
    That's a little unfair. The parent is making a meta comment.
    - pwinnski 6y ago
      You are absolutely right. It was unfair, and I am sorry, spacedcowboy!
- titanomachy 6y ago
  Being in the global 0.1% or whatever doesn't necessarily make you feel rich or privileged, if you live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and have similar wealth to most people you know. You still end up competing hard for things that are limited in your locality: desirable housing, prestigious opportunities, a desirable partner, the best schools for your kids. Traveling can help build perspective. Maybe someday moving somewhere less competitive.
  - oftenwrong 6y ago
bot41 6y ago
$500k a year is unbelievable to me (so is $200k)
- _fat_santa 6y ago
  At my last job I worked alongside a guy that made $160/hr as a contractor which if you work 50 weeks out of the year at 40hrs a week, works out to $320k. This wasn't at a FAANG, and this wasn't in the Bay Area. The guy was a stellar developer but he didn't have a PhD or anything and was only 5-7 years out of school. We got to talking one day and he said that the only reason he's making so much is that he was at the right place at the right time, he worked for this place before and they asked him to come back, and offered an insane rate to do so. Making $200k to $500k in the industry isn't hard (the actual work). The hard part is finding a company that needs someone of your skill level and are willing to pay whatever they need to. Finding that job is going to be the really hard part.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    >At my last job I worked alongside a guy that made $160/hr as a contractor which if you work 50 weeks out of the year at 40hrs a week, works out to $320k. $320k as a contractor works out to $160k per year if you're comparing to a W2 salary working directly for the employer, which takes into account taxes, health insurance premiums, job security, unemployment insurance premiums, 401k, HSA, Dependent care FSA, and tons of other tax benefits of W2 income. Not to mention you usually get 4+ weeks off as a salaried employee, and probably have to work fewer hours in total.
  - ahelwer 6y ago
    Billable hours != full time hours. Clocking 8 billable hours a day is actually pretty difficult. Think about how many hours of actual solid work you get done a day - for most devs I know, it's 4, maybe 6 or even (rarely) 8 on a day when they're really pushing for something. Those are your billable hours. Futzing around on twitter or HN, eating lunch, making yourself a snack: not billable hours. Contractors also rarely have a level of stability where they can work every week. Things crop up - your periodic contract renewal takes a week or two to get approved by legal, stuff like that. These factors are broadly why hourly contracting rates can get pretty high.
diehunde 6y ago
If you really want to see people humble-bragging about their salaries go to Blind.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  isn't there a different term for that? 'Humble' and 'look at the number of zeros in my salary' don't strike me as a good match :) Maybe just bragging.
  - saghm 6y ago
    The term is intentionally oxymoronic: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Humble%20Brag https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Humble%20Bra...
    - me_me_me 6y ago
      It is oxymoronic, but I would say it suppose to be used for someone bragging about good deeds in a way to uplift their character. "Oh I am so tired I spend whole saturday helping X charity" Saying I make 2x of what you do is just bragging.
      - saghm 6y ago
        In this case, I think the humblebrag is claiming that the money they make isn't that much. To lift an example from the article, it could be something like "my side project only made $1,000 per month, so it wasn't worth continuing to work on".
        me_me_me 6y ago
        Yeah, I think I can get behind that statement. Its also true $1000 per month is not worth the effort /s :)
  - cercatrova 6y ago
    Humble bragging was used sarcastically in the comment above. It's just bragging.
grawprog 6y ago
Personally, i've always had the opposite thought to all this. Where else can I as one of the non-gods of HN, go to argue with millionaires and billionaires, discuss things with them and be treated the same as them in conversation just based on the things I say? HN's always seemed like a fairly equalizing place to me. As long as you can form a constructive, useful comment, your post will sit right next to people who make insane amounts of money, and be regarded equally based on its own merits. There's no way in hell many of the people I've talked to on here about a bunch of different things would ever have those conversations with me, or any conversation probably, in person.
- RikNieu 6y ago
  Excellent point. We get to hear from and learn from people we never have been able to here.
- marktangotango 6y ago
  I was disappointed by the content of the article as well, I was hoping for something about the incredible amount of insight and wisdom offered freely, as well as the give an take you allude to.
- xur17 6y ago
  > HN's always seemed like a fairly equalizing place to me. As long as you can form a constructive, useful comment, your post will sit right next to people who make insane amounts of money, and be regarded equally based on its own merits. I wonder what causes this - perhaps it's the lack of emphasis on the poster's name (small text, light grey vs profile picture, bold name, etc)?
  - ravi-delia 6y ago
    I'm willing to bet it's a combination of that, the anonymity of most users, the userbase in general, and somewhat opinionated moderation. Whatever it is, I'm glad it exists.
- rcconf 6y ago
  I've had the same experience. I always see side projects at the top of the front page and many of these projects are not making $1k MRR, or even $100 MRR, but they're on the front page because everyone knows how difficult it is to make and launch a side project here. I love this community. Yes we have big expectations, yes we all want to do great-things and you see the extremes of that when you see the comments that $1k MRR is not that good. You also see comments that 1000 Inserts Per Second is not that good. It gives you perspective on the amazing people here; who have big dreams and big expectations and I would not want it any other way.
amelius 6y ago
It's not the people, it's the entire atmosphere. With companies like Zoom and Uber reaching marketcaps of like $100B within one or two years, can you really expect the people who are capable of building the technical infrastructure of these companies to feel proud of/satisfied with an income of $1k/mo?
draw_down 6y ago
I think it's unfortunate people reacted to this point in the way that the author has. At least for me, all I'm saying is, look at everything this guy had to go through! And look what his payout is. It's not pissing on the payout, or the guy's effort, or saying he's a mark. It's acknowledging that most businesses don't even get that far, so this is the good case. Meanwhile, you can sit down and make the same money in less time, taking what I would wager to be a significantly larger number of naps. And it doesn't involve magic, or being a big-cheese VP, or any of this other stuff people say. Now, obviously not everyone is cut out to be an employee, let alone an employee at a big tech co. Nothing wrong with being an entrepreneur, if that fits the cut of your jib better. It's just to say, let's be honest about the risk/reward situation here. It's not high-risk, high-reward compared to getting a big tech job. It's high risk and middling reward. The job route is much less risk with an equal or greater reward. Why is it so horrible to say this??
- fizwhiz 6y ago
  Obligatory: https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ I realize the spectrum isn't limited to startups vs bigCo's (you can be self-employed as a consultant etc.) but the numbers are almost always met with disbelief. Just look at this HN thread where people are accusing each other of being liars or "lazy".
  - draw_down 6y ago
    Yeah, we’re all lying or flexing or whatever. OK, suit yourself. It’s too bad people think this way, but as I said in an earlier comment, you’re not hurting anyone but yourself if you do. If building a $1k MRR business is so much more important to you then do it, go nuts.
jeremysalwen 6y ago
I think a lot of posters assume that their audience lives in the US, and more specifically in a high cost of living coastal city like SF or NYC. What "a lot" of money is varies dramatically based on where you live. Take a look at how much it costs to [rent a room](https://sfbay.craigslist.org/d/rooms-shares/search/roo https://sfbay.craigslist.org/d/rooms-shares/search/roo) in San Francisco, the cheapest possible housing option for an individual without a family. If you are working full time on a business that has 1k monthly revenue, your income will be less than 1/3 of minimum wage. On the other hand, in many places in the world as OP pointed out, 1k a month would be enough to live a comfortable lifestyle.
- augusto-moura 6y ago
  Yes, dollars are really valorized outside of their countries, $1000 is a heck of a lot in most developing countries. I can buy a new freaking car with $5000
  - Flex247A 6y ago
    I live in a third world country, can confirm.
Jaruzel 6y ago
I think it's fair to say that the 80/20 rule applies here. 80% of us are on fair wages for our skill set, and are mostly in semi-comfortable jobs, and are mostly OK with that. The other 20%... well good on you, but not everyone is cut out for working 20 hour days, 7 days a week for months on end on a startup that may or may not make any money. Personally, as long as I can feed myself, pay my bills, and look after my family, I'm happy. Also for me, only having to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, is a bonus.
- tchalla 6y ago
  I think, 20% is too a very high number.
- titanomachy 6y ago
  I'd like to push back gently on the notion that you have to work some kind of insane hours to reach the upper tiers of software engineer compensation. While getting a job at the large "prestigious" companies is very competitive, once you get the job it doesn't take any particularly heroic effort to maintain it.
  - thechao 6y ago
    My one great skill, so far, has been to wisely choose fantastic managers at random. I’d strongly suggest everyone randomly choose a series of great managers.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      I'm not sure if this is a sarcastic remark but I don't think your past managers will dictate your entry into FAANG very much? A lot of it is based off of the technical interviews and less about if you know someone in the company. Admittedly, I know people who have gotten in almost purely off of their personal reputation/former managers.
      - thechao 6y ago
        My past manager moved to a FAANG, and had that FAANG recruit me nonstop for two years.
tchalla 6y ago
MRR - Monthly Recurring Revenue, in case anyone else is wondering.
paganel 6y ago
I've been on this website for a very long time and one of my main rules of thumb is to avoid almost all discussions regarding compensation + VC money + start-ups and the like, it's pretty doable.
devilduck 6y ago
I love HN but reading the comments is sometimes the most eye rolling thing I could possibly imagine doing. Devoid of humor and personality in favor of some kind of robotic logic-only approach. I get some people want it to be purely academic but it's a public forum and is inherently non-academic. And that doesn't even mention the "impartial" moderation. It's no wonder HN commenters get made fun of mercilessly outside of HN.
opportune 6y ago
This is ridiculous, there are hundreds of thousands of engineers making these large sums of money and it’s not an exclusive crowd. The amount of work it takes to get a midlevel FAANG or similar job is a lot less than to start a business. I honestly think people think it’s “otherworldly” or similarly impossible for themselves because they don’t have the confidence to try, or have some extenuating restriction that makes it feel unattainable. Of course the author is right that a $3.7m exit is non-trivial and that $1k MRR is not a bad place to start but it’s crazy to call people making larger amounts of money as employees “gods” and likely a disservice to oneself to use that kind of language to make them seem like some far away, impossible to reach or understand group.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
  "Hundreds of thousands" at >$500k/yr? Care to share which orifice you pulled that number from?
  - opportune 6y ago
    If I sum up the number of engineers at Google/FB/Apple/Amazon/Netflix I’m already there and if I include engineers from successful unicorns and decacorns, plus older big companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Intuit I’ve added way more people although probably not in the $500k range unless they are like directors. Then there are other groups like HFT/Prop trading/Hedge Funds but those are probably only a few thousand or maybe ten thousand. Sorry, I meant these companies have experienced (10-20 years) engineers at $500k where younger employees could expect to rise up to that level, not that every employee at these companies are making $500k.
    - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
      > If I sum up the number of engineers at Google/FB/Apple/Amazon/Netflix I’m already there If you sum up the number of engineers at FAANGs assuming they average $500k/y you are already... plain wrong.
      - 6y ago
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6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
> [$500k] far outstrips what I can reasonably expect to earn in a decade, and I'm a developer working for a fintech startup with a good couple of years under my belt. Is he saying that $50k/year far outstrips what he can reasonably expect to earn as a fintech dev? If so, he's at least as much of an outlier as the $500k/year folks on the other end. For better or worse, HN is a SF Bay Area centric forum. U.S. centric beyond that. All the discussion of whats normal needs to be understood through that lens. It's the digital equivalent to coming to SF and saying $50k/yr is crazy high. Sure, but not where you're standing/typing to. (I'm not saying $500k is normal, nor that his other statements are off)
- aphextron 6y ago
  >Is he saying that $50k/year far outstrips what he can reasonably expect to earn as a fintech dev? If so, he's at least as much of an outlier as the $500k/year folks on the other end. From what I can tell, this is pretty common for continental Europe. It's the one thing keeping me from leaving the US at this point. For whatever reason, their pay is total crap. Particularly when you include taxes. My take home pay as an uneducated mediocre javascript monkey in the US is probably 3x the average highly skilled senior engineer with a CS degree in the EU.
  - josepmdc 6y ago
    Yes, I'm from Spain and here a senior dev gets paid around 50-60k. That would be the salary for a junior dev or even an intern in the US. As I junior dev I get paid 26k and it is considered quite high.
    - myrandomcomment 6y ago
      Just wondering how does that work out to cover your cost of living? For example how much is rent, food, etc.? I live in the Bay Area and my home owners insurance (fires, earthquakes), property taxes, etc. are that much. Very much looking to leave this area in 2022.
      - 6y ago
cwkoss 6y ago
> That annual salary far outstrips what I can reasonably expect to earn in a decade, and I'm a developer working for a fintech startup with a good couple of years under my belt. For most people in the world, $500K pa is a preposterous amount of money. There are developers at fintech startups making $50k/year? After 10 years of employement? Maybe the author is just being superlative here, but I find this surprising. Yes $500k a year is a very high salary, but 1/10th of that is a pretty low salary for an experienced developer - particularly for the latter half of that decade. Depends on skill level, but I'd suggest any developer making less than (70k + 10k * years of experience) take some interviews to check if they are working for below market rate.
- deleted 6y ago
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kache_ 6y ago
This website is an embarrassment
ktpsns 6y ago
So here is a story about Germany, a standard western country: I recently started in IT freelancing and the loans are crazy compared to most other jobs in this country. It depends a bit on the clients, but in the finance sector 1000€/day are standard. Many colleagues tell me they would not work for less then 100€/hour. Coming from academia where you are lucky with a 2000€/month postdoc position, this is insane. It feels completely detached from the rest of society. Even a professor, judge or director doesn't make more then 8000€/month (netto).
- palae 6y ago
  I thought most postdocs in Germany were on TV-L 13? That should be at least around 2500€ net, right? If you're at 100%, of course, but I would think most postdocs are.
  - ktpsns 6y ago
    Yes, you are right. Academia is subject to a wag agreement and 100% E-13 corresponds to roughly 4000€ gross (brutto) and 2370€ net. Cf. http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/allg/ http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/allg/
- roel_v 6y ago
  When you are contracting, e1000/day doesn't tranlate into ((552) - 25) 1000 * 0.6 net income in the way a salaried position does. If you only just started contracting, beware of thinking that it does...
  - ktpsns 6y ago
    Can you explain me the overhead costs you have when contracting? Of course you have to pay for your office and equipment yourself. You also might have to pay (more) for health and social insurance, depending on the country where you live in. The same applies for tax (such as VAT). Also, you have to deal with holidays and off-time for yourself. But given that, what more is the difference between contracting and being employed?
corytheboyd 6y ago
Wait I thought the comment the author is picking apart was about $1k MRR for a startup company. That’s much much much different than $1k MRR for a side project.
- Havoc 6y ago
  Exactly. Any kind of money is great for a side project. Startup implies putting food on the table. Still the author is clearly not from a 1st world country. And at direct conversion rates anything first world is crazy money. Been there done that. My starting yearly salary was like 5k usd - that won’t get you far in most 1st world
- boffinism 6y ago
  Yeah, the comment he's criticising explicitly says $1k mrr for a side project is impressive
  - segmondy 6y ago
    Thank you, I was the person that was quoted. The title was startups after 12-24months and my comment is highlighting that's not much for a startup after such a duration, unless they did mean a side project...
troughway 6y ago
The “gods” of Y Combinator are developers working for well established companies? And these are people looking down upon someone turning an idea into recurring revenue on their own accord? So much for the hacker and start up culture there fellas. These are the comments that should be downvoted for being obnoxiously unhelpful, but they’re propped up as “God”-like. I guess this is why a lot of quality old timers left HN.
throwaway713 6y ago
Bragging about salaries is always annoying; however, it was one of those braggy comments that led me to reconsider my own job so that I ended up working for a FANG company. I had previously just used Glassdoor to check salaries and did not realize it was not giving an accurate picture of the total, more recent compensation offered at these companies. When I realized how much lower my income was compared to what was possible, it motivated me to start practicing and interviewing. I would have never known if it weren't for those posts.
- nilkn 6y ago
  I agree with this. These comments are toxic and sometimes rude, but they also expose a world that many folks don't realize exists (including myself 2-3 years ago).
  - giantg2 6y ago
    I realize it exists, and also realize that I'll never be a part of it. And that's ok, even if it makes me feel shitty.
    - vorpalhex 6y ago
      Money is a tool, and like any other tool it may or may not be useful to you. If you want to be a digital nomad on a little boat sailing about then you need much less money than someone who wants to build a mansion and drive a ferrari. Money does not indicate how valuable you are as a person, it indicates your ability to optimize for money generation. Or put another way, money won't make you happy, don't let the lack of it make you unhappy.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        "don't let the lack of it make you unhappy." It doesn't... that's my wife's job.
- cvhashim 6y ago
  LinkedIn has a feature now called LinkedIn salaries if I recall. Pretty cool to get metrics of salaries around your area and at companies you may have interest in. Gives you a decent picture of the pay scale for your job.
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ljm 6y ago
This is what the old Shit HN Says[0] Twitter feed should be about! [0] https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says
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song 6y ago
> That's $600 per month. Extra. From a thing on the side. > I realise that I live in one of those cheap, unappealing parts of the world, but that kinda money would easily cover me and my family's rent every month, and then some. Do you realise how much of a mental weight that can take off a persons shoulders? To know rent is covered over and above your day-job earnings? Well yes, exactly that's the issue with comparing salaries without thinking of cost of living. I live in a smallish apartment that's most likely smaller than the OP but pay 4k usd a month for rent. It changes your point of view of what's decent compensation and does mean that to cover the typical expenses, I have to have a much higher salary than in a lot of countries... It's all relative, is living in a high cost of living environment nice? Yes, in my case because I'm careful and still try to save a lot of my income but it does require me to take certain type of jobs and reduces my ability to take risks. It also comes with a probably less enviable work/life balance..
hamilyon2 6y ago
For some people 100 billion is apparently not much money https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21097736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21097736
lapaz17 6y ago
Yet my friend who is PHd on AI at EPFL makes 3k per month (his role idol is Aziz Sancar,whose parents do not know how to read and write, has Nobel prize [0]). Humanity will be doomed because of this attitude. Those who have kids will be sworn by their next generation however money you made. Contributions to colleges is not same putting money in PHd's pockets.Do I become rude if I say fuck all of these FAANG's oversalaries? [0]https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/aziz-sancardan-turkiyeye-mesaj-30262686 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
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thewebcount 6y ago
I'm a FAANG engineers making a bunch of money, and I mostly agree with what he's saying in this piece. $1,000 MRR is great! I'm starting up a side project and hope to make $100MRR in the first year. (I don't want to spend all of my free time on it, but want to give it a go.) Before working for FAANG, I had my own business. I was able to pay myself a salary that supported me and my spouse (who also worked) in the MidWest, and it was an exhausting 24/7 job. (I literally answered a tech support call at 3AM on occasion.) Any positive amount of money coming in is great! FWIW, I make the kind of money he's talking about and I still think that an extra $600/mo. is useful. I just refinanced my mortgage to save ~$400/mo. I'm probably going to move to a different internet provider because mine jacked up prices. It's not at all ridiculous to think that it's good to save money no matter how much you make. (You do have to weigh the amount of time it takes to save the money, though. As you make more, you tend to be less willing to spend a lot of time on doing things to save smaller amounts of money.)
- dusted 6y ago
  You literally earn 6 times my salary, and I bought my first house, paid cash, no loans after saving a bit a few years. How do you even manage to burn so much money?
rvn1045 6y ago
FAANG engineers aren't necessarily working on the most interesting or most challenging problems. Having worked at a FAANG I know several FAANG engineers making $300k+ while working less than 10-15 hours a week. Doing the work at these FAANG companies is the easy part. Getting a job there is the harder part. And you generally have to fit a certain profile (target school, age range, geography etc) to be given a shot at an interview. Tech companies are generally a lot less exclusive than other higher paying industries like wall street though, and you can still score an interview at a FAANG even without the right kind of profile.
naveen99 6y ago
Wow first time being called a God! I’d like to thank my 7th grade math teacher... truly speechless !!!
- naveen99 6y ago
  The epidemic of mental illness isn’t from an abundance of arrogance, it’s from an abundance of low self esteem, anxiety, and depression. most people’s egos are very fragile. No need to bust their bubble prematurely, except to correct technical and serious inaccuracies / understanding of the world for their own benefit.
dusted 6y ago
I agree, making something and actually selling is can be really damn hard. Actually, making something and giving it away for free and having people use it, still damn hard. I made a few games that I'm giving away for free, open source and all.. They're not that bad, still , almost nobody knows about them or plays them, and they're in most major linux distributions too.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bagacrap 6y ago
It doesn't seem like the author's reading past the first line of the comment. The HN commenter says 1kMRR from a side project is indeed impressive. Immediately after, the author states "$1000 per month from a side project is considered meh." The entire article is responding to a straw man. FWIW the original article the comment came from was about 1k MRR startups. I think if you treat it like a startup, you better be making more than 1k/mo after a couple years (or, alternately, losing 100M per month) to be considered impressive.
1290cc 6y ago
It may be a bit frustrating to read but it helped me to understand the true value of the work I was doing and what others are being compensated. I remember my first job age 20 working for a startup that developed an early version of Twitter but designed for neighbors (this was around 2001). I had to write drivers for a GSM module, write a server to process incoming/outgoing SMS messages, write an API into an SMS-C, build a website for users to interact and administer on. Do it all in java/linux as we had zero investment to buy anything. For all of this I was paid minimum wage (<$250/month) and had zero equity. It was only through forums like this that I discovered how horrifically exploited I was. This was a long time ago and the founder had no business sense but was smart technically. Business shutdown after 2 years and I went onto bigger and better things. One thing I will say is that silicon valley pays better than anywhere else I've lived in the world (Asia, Africa, Europe).

348 points by ivm 6y ago

After starting to read HN regularly I noticed most of these types of comments are just posturing. Like any forum, the loudest people tend to be the ones that desire/require the most validation from their peers.

rriepe 6y ago
Yep it's locker room talk.
52-6F-62 6y ago
Yep, and you’ll find that kind of posturing everywhere, just like the personality that tends to do it. The scale of it carries some pretty great comedy, though.
lwigo 6y ago
It's a way to stand out in a field crowded with junior and mid tier developers. Show up and talk a big game, and certain other people will listen and assume you're an amazing asset. Not required and perhaps jaded, but it also helps if you have even a tiny semblance of an influencer lifestyle or a type of WeWorkian God complex. I had a guy tell me once that "if you're not making at least $250k a year, then you failed as a developer". That was his honest life and career advice. It's depressing.
- giantg2 6y ago
  The depressing advice I once recieved from a previous manager: "Not everyone has the potential to be more than a midlevel developer."
- jbay808 6y ago
  > "if you're not making at least $250k a year, then you failed as a developer" This is a trope that runs through HN that gets frustrating sometimes. There's often a follow-up comment along the lines of "Only 250k? A fresh grad in the bay area can expect that much in salary, but if you're even average, total comp should be at least double that to be competitive!"
m-i-l 6y ago
> the loudest people tend to be the ones that desire/require the most validation from their peers I have a theory that IT is split into "doers", i.e. the people who do things, and "talkers", i.e. the people who talk about doing things. By definition, you hear from the talkers more, perhaps because the doers are too busy actually doing things, and to your point there are times when the talkers can sound dismissive of the doers, for whatever reason. But in HN's defence, you do hear more from actual doers here than perhaps anywhere else.
- giantg2 6y ago
  I can see that. I would probably be on here a lot less if I had an interesting job.
- jb1991 6y ago
  What you described is certainly not unique just to the IT industry.
seibelj 6y ago
I installed an app called “Blind” which is an anonymous social network for SV software engineers. The amount of self doubt, envy, complaining about not being able to work FAANG / feeling underpaid despite working at FAANG is exhausting. So many people in this industry have a toxic mentality.
- necubi 6y ago
  Blind self-selects for the worst of these attitudes (in addition to the general shittiness of almost any anonymous community). I would not take this as representative of SV. The private forum for my company is amazingly toxic.
- hengri 6y ago
  Blind is terrible. I think only the toxic ones stick around though. I doubt most people are like this.
- cvhashim 6y ago
  Blind is full jerks. Don’t take their advice as gospel.
HeyHoJoe 6y ago
I’m convinced that most of the users on this site are sitting in their house that they rent with eight other people in their underwear eating beans out of a can.
- tom_ 6y ago
  Well, $450,000 a year doesn't get you far in the bay area.
  - seattle_spring 6y ago
    It only gets you a ~1.5m mortgage, extremely high savings rate, access to private schools, all while living in one of the most beautiful and desirable metropolitan areas in the world. Basically poverty, in other words.
    - HeyHoJoe 6y ago
      Quiet you, back to eating your beans.
      - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        He gets to have artisinal fair trade beans.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      And what does a $1.5m mortgage get you in the peninsula? Maybe 1000-1200sqft? How lavish... You don't get an extremely high savings rate either in terms of ratios (unless you live a very economical lifestyle (small apartments/rooms, old/no car, etc.)).
      - seattle_spring 6y ago
        Monthly take-home pay for $450k is ~$21k in California Monthly mortgage payment for $1.5m is ~$6.5k Remaining money for literally everything else, almost none of which is more expensive in California: $17.5k, or $210k per year. You could eat out every single night and buy a new BMW twice a year, and still save more than 20% of your take-home pay. Not only that, but we're talking about salaries for ONE SINGLE PERSON. Married in tech? We're talking a $900k annual salary. Calling this lifestyle "very economical" is so insanely out of touch with how most people live their lives, it's no wonder tech people are hated as completely out of touch. Edit: Changed $24k to $21k, the calculator I used didn't include state taxes even though California was the chosen state.

etherio 6y ago

I'm not sure it's that these people are "gods" living with unimaginable amounts of money but it might just be an exaggerated form of flexing. That could explain why the comments are often out of touch with the post at hand - their goal isn't to provide insight with that comment, but more to show off.

ceres 6y ago
I would understand this kind of posturing on Facebook or Instagram, where at least you have pictures and videos to back up your flex on your followers. But why do it on an anonymous forum where no one knows you nor will remember your username after the few seconds they read your comment?
- etherio 6y ago
  HN is far from anonymous and this type of validation is just about being seen, not making a solid, lasting impression.
- krapp 6y ago
  > But why do it on an anonymous forum where no one knows you nor will remember your username after the few seconds they read your comment? Because this forum is attached to a billion dollar Silicon Valley investment firm and Very Important People might wander past the water cooler, and people want to signal their affinity with the Cool Kids tribe. Because there's this impression, deserved or not, that being on Hacker News marks you as one of the intellectual, cultural and technical elites. Or that it would if you tried hard enough.

ravedave5 6y ago

I am involved in developer hiring process and I see soooo many resumes with failed startups and failed side projects. Achieving any level of decent, persistent MRR and the ability to actually cash out is impressive and a major accomplishment. Nobody talks about the thousands and thousands of failures. So yes you should be very happy with $1000 MRR.

spacedcowboy 6y ago

TIL I'm a "god". Apparently the quiet type, because I don't make the comments the author is referring to. looks around It sure doesn't feel like heaven around here... In fact, it's been a bit hot, recently...

pwinnski 6y ago
...I don't make the comments the author is referring to And yet here we are.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ggghhhfff 6y ago
  Indeed
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  That's a little unfair. The parent is making a meta comment.
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    You are absolutely right. It was unfair, and I am sorry, spacedcowboy!
titanomachy 6y ago
Being in the global 0.1% or whatever doesn't necessarily make you feel rich or privileged, if you live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and have similar wealth to most people you know. You still end up competing hard for things that are limited in your locality: desirable housing, prestigious opportunities, a desirable partner, the best schools for your kids. Traveling can help build perspective. Maybe someday moving somewhere less competitive.
- oftenwrong 6y ago

bot41 6y ago

$500k a year is unbelievable to me (so is $200k)

_fat_santa 6y ago
At my last job I worked alongside a guy that made $160/hr as a contractor which if you work 50 weeks out of the year at 40hrs a week, works out to $320k. This wasn't at a FAANG, and this wasn't in the Bay Area. The guy was a stellar developer but he didn't have a PhD or anything and was only 5-7 years out of school. We got to talking one day and he said that the only reason he's making so much is that he was at the right place at the right time, he worked for this place before and they asked him to come back, and offered an insane rate to do so. Making $200k to $500k in the industry isn't hard (the actual work). The hard part is finding a company that needs someone of your skill level and are willing to pay whatever they need to. Finding that job is going to be the really hard part.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  >At my last job I worked alongside a guy that made $160/hr as a contractor which if you work 50 weeks out of the year at 40hrs a week, works out to $320k. $320k as a contractor works out to $160k per year if you're comparing to a W2 salary working directly for the employer, which takes into account taxes, health insurance premiums, job security, unemployment insurance premiums, 401k, HSA, Dependent care FSA, and tons of other tax benefits of W2 income. Not to mention you usually get 4+ weeks off as a salaried employee, and probably have to work fewer hours in total.
- ahelwer 6y ago
  Billable hours != full time hours. Clocking 8 billable hours a day is actually pretty difficult. Think about how many hours of actual solid work you get done a day - for most devs I know, it's 4, maybe 6 or even (rarely) 8 on a day when they're really pushing for something. Those are your billable hours. Futzing around on twitter or HN, eating lunch, making yourself a snack: not billable hours. Contractors also rarely have a level of stability where they can work every week. Things crop up - your periodic contract renewal takes a week or two to get approved by legal, stuff like that. These factors are broadly why hourly contracting rates can get pretty high.

diehunde 6y ago

If you really want to see people humble-bragging about their salaries go to Blind.

me_me_me 6y ago
isn't there a different term for that? 'Humble' and 'look at the number of zeros in my salary' don't strike me as a good match :) Maybe just bragging.
- saghm 6y ago
  The term is intentionally oxymoronic: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Humble%20Brag https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Humble%20Bra...
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    It is oxymoronic, but I would say it suppose to be used for someone bragging about good deeds in a way to uplift their character. "Oh I am so tired I spend whole saturday helping X charity" Saying I make 2x of what you do is just bragging.
    - saghm 6y ago
      In this case, I think the humblebrag is claiming that the money they make isn't that much. To lift an example from the article, it could be something like "my side project only made $1,000 per month, so it wasn't worth continuing to work on".
      - me_me_me 6y ago
        Yeah, I think I can get behind that statement. Its also true $1000 per month is not worth the effort /s :)
- cercatrova 6y ago
  Humble bragging was used sarcastically in the comment above. It's just bragging.

grawprog 6y ago

Personally, i've always had the opposite thought to all this. Where else can I as one of the non-gods of HN, go to argue with millionaires and billionaires, discuss things with them and be treated the same as them in conversation just based on the things I say? HN's always seemed like a fairly equalizing place to me. As long as you can form a constructive, useful comment, your post will sit right next to people who make insane amounts of money, and be regarded equally based on its own merits. There's no way in hell many of the people I've talked to on here about a bunch of different things would ever have those conversations with me, or any conversation probably, in person.

RikNieu 6y ago
Excellent point. We get to hear from and learn from people we never have been able to here.
marktangotango 6y ago
I was disappointed by the content of the article as well, I was hoping for something about the incredible amount of insight and wisdom offered freely, as well as the give an take you allude to.
xur17 6y ago
> HN's always seemed like a fairly equalizing place to me. As long as you can form a constructive, useful comment, your post will sit right next to people who make insane amounts of money, and be regarded equally based on its own merits. I wonder what causes this - perhaps it's the lack of emphasis on the poster's name (small text, light grey vs profile picture, bold name, etc)?
- ravi-delia 6y ago
  I'm willing to bet it's a combination of that, the anonymity of most users, the userbase in general, and somewhat opinionated moderation. Whatever it is, I'm glad it exists.
rcconf 6y ago
I've had the same experience. I always see side projects at the top of the front page and many of these projects are not making $1k MRR, or even $100 MRR, but they're on the front page because everyone knows how difficult it is to make and launch a side project here. I love this community. Yes we have big expectations, yes we all want to do great-things and you see the extremes of that when you see the comments that $1k MRR is not that good. You also see comments that 1000 Inserts Per Second is not that good. It gives you perspective on the amazing people here; who have big dreams and big expectations and I would not want it any other way.

amelius 6y ago

It's not the people, it's the entire atmosphere. With companies like Zoom and Uber reaching marketcaps of like $100B within one or two years, can you really expect the people who are capable of building the technical infrastructure of these companies to feel proud of/satisfied with an income of $1k/mo?

draw_down 6y ago

I think it's unfortunate people reacted to this point in the way that the author has. At least for me, all I'm saying is, look at everything this guy had to go through! And look what his payout is. It's not pissing on the payout, or the guy's effort, or saying he's a mark. It's acknowledging that most businesses don't even get that far, so this is the good case. Meanwhile, you can sit down and make the same money in less time, taking what I would wager to be a significantly larger number of naps. And it doesn't involve magic, or being a big-cheese VP, or any of this other stuff people say. Now, obviously not everyone is cut out to be an employee, let alone an employee at a big tech co. Nothing wrong with being an entrepreneur, if that fits the cut of your jib better. It's just to say, let's be honest about the risk/reward situation here. It's not high-risk, high-reward compared to getting a big tech job. It's high risk and middling reward. The job route is much less risk with an equal or greater reward. Why is it so horrible to say this??

fizwhiz 6y ago
Obligatory: https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ I realize the spectrum isn't limited to startups vs bigCo's (you can be self-employed as a consultant etc.) but the numbers are almost always met with disbelief. Just look at this HN thread where people are accusing each other of being liars or "lazy".
- draw_down 6y ago
  Yeah, we’re all lying or flexing or whatever. OK, suit yourself. It’s too bad people think this way, but as I said in an earlier comment, you’re not hurting anyone but yourself if you do. If building a $1k MRR business is so much more important to you then do it, go nuts.

jeremysalwen 6y ago

I think a lot of posters assume that their audience lives in the US, and more specifically in a high cost of living coastal city like SF or NYC. What "a lot" of money is varies dramatically based on where you live. Take a look at how much it costs to [rent a room](https://sfbay.craigslist.org/d/rooms-shares/search/roo https://sfbay.craigslist.org/d/rooms-shares/search/roo) in San Francisco, the cheapest possible housing option for an individual without a family. If you are working full time on a business that has 1k monthly revenue, your income will be less than 1/3 of minimum wage. On the other hand, in many places in the world as OP pointed out, 1k a month would be enough to live a comfortable lifestyle.

augusto-moura 6y ago
Yes, dollars are really valorized outside of their countries, $1000 is a heck of a lot in most developing countries. I can buy a new freaking car with $5000
- Flex247A 6y ago
  I live in a third world country, can confirm.

Jaruzel 6y ago

I think it's fair to say that the 80/20 rule applies here. 80% of us are on fair wages for our skill set, and are mostly in semi-comfortable jobs, and are mostly OK with that. The other 20%... well good on you, but not everyone is cut out for working 20 hour days, 7 days a week for months on end on a startup that may or may not make any money. Personally, as long as I can feed myself, pay my bills, and look after my family, I'm happy. Also for me, only having to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, is a bonus.

tchalla 6y ago
I think, 20% is too a very high number.
titanomachy 6y ago
I'd like to push back gently on the notion that you have to work some kind of insane hours to reach the upper tiers of software engineer compensation. While getting a job at the large "prestigious" companies is very competitive, once you get the job it doesn't take any particularly heroic effort to maintain it.
- thechao 6y ago
  My one great skill, so far, has been to wisely choose fantastic managers at random. I’d strongly suggest everyone randomly choose a series of great managers.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    I'm not sure if this is a sarcastic remark but I don't think your past managers will dictate your entry into FAANG very much? A lot of it is based off of the technical interviews and less about if you know someone in the company. Admittedly, I know people who have gotten in almost purely off of their personal reputation/former managers.
    - thechao 6y ago
      My past manager moved to a FAANG, and had that FAANG recruit me nonstop for two years.

tchalla 6y ago

MRR - Monthly Recurring Revenue, in case anyone else is wondering.

paganel 6y ago

I've been on this website for a very long time and one of my main rules of thumb is to avoid almost all discussions regarding compensation + VC money + start-ups and the like, it's pretty doable.

devilduck 6y ago

I love HN but reading the comments is sometimes the most eye rolling thing I could possibly imagine doing. Devoid of humor and personality in favor of some kind of robotic logic-only approach. I get some people want it to be purely academic but it's a public forum and is inherently non-academic. And that doesn't even mention the "impartial" moderation. It's no wonder HN commenters get made fun of mercilessly outside of HN.

opportune 6y ago

This is ridiculous, there are hundreds of thousands of engineers making these large sums of money and it’s not an exclusive crowd. The amount of work it takes to get a midlevel FAANG or similar job is a lot less than to start a business. I honestly think people think it’s “otherworldly” or similarly impossible for themselves because they don’t have the confidence to try, or have some extenuating restriction that makes it feel unattainable. Of course the author is right that a $3.7m exit is non-trivial and that $1k MRR is not a bad place to start but it’s crazy to call people making larger amounts of money as employees “gods” and likely a disservice to oneself to use that kind of language to make them seem like some far away, impossible to reach or understand group.

SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
"Hundreds of thousands" at >$500k/yr? Care to share which orifice you pulled that number from?
- opportune 6y ago
  If I sum up the number of engineers at Google/FB/Apple/Amazon/Netflix I’m already there and if I include engineers from successful unicorns and decacorns, plus older big companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Intuit I’ve added way more people although probably not in the $500k range unless they are like directors. Then there are other groups like HFT/Prop trading/Hedge Funds but those are probably only a few thousand or maybe ten thousand. Sorry, I meant these companies have experienced (10-20 years) engineers at $500k where younger employees could expect to rise up to that level, not that every employee at these companies are making $500k.
  - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
    > If I sum up the number of engineers at Google/FB/Apple/Amazon/Netflix I’m already there If you sum up the number of engineers at FAANGs assuming they average $500k/y you are already... plain wrong.
    - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

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6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

> [$500k] far outstrips what I can reasonably expect to earn in a decade, and I'm a developer working for a fintech startup with a good couple of years under my belt. Is he saying that $50k/year far outstrips what he can reasonably expect to earn as a fintech dev? If so, he's at least as much of an outlier as the $500k/year folks on the other end. For better or worse, HN is a SF Bay Area centric forum. U.S. centric beyond that. All the discussion of whats normal needs to be understood through that lens. It's the digital equivalent to coming to SF and saying $50k/yr is crazy high. Sure, but not where you're standing/typing to. (I'm not saying $500k is normal, nor that his other statements are off)

aphextron 6y ago
>Is he saying that $50k/year far outstrips what he can reasonably expect to earn as a fintech dev? If so, he's at least as much of an outlier as the $500k/year folks on the other end. From what I can tell, this is pretty common for continental Europe. It's the one thing keeping me from leaving the US at this point. For whatever reason, their pay is total crap. Particularly when you include taxes. My take home pay as an uneducated mediocre javascript monkey in the US is probably 3x the average highly skilled senior engineer with a CS degree in the EU.
- josepmdc 6y ago
  Yes, I'm from Spain and here a senior dev gets paid around 50-60k. That would be the salary for a junior dev or even an intern in the US. As I junior dev I get paid 26k and it is considered quite high.
  - myrandomcomment 6y ago
    Just wondering how does that work out to cover your cost of living? For example how much is rent, food, etc.? I live in the Bay Area and my home owners insurance (fires, earthquakes), property taxes, etc. are that much. Very much looking to leave this area in 2022.
    - 6y ago

cwkoss 6y ago

> That annual salary far outstrips what I can reasonably expect to earn in a decade, and I'm a developer working for a fintech startup with a good couple of years under my belt. For most people in the world, $500K pa is a preposterous amount of money. There are developers at fintech startups making $50k/year? After 10 years of employement? Maybe the author is just being superlative here, but I find this surprising. Yes $500k a year is a very high salary, but 1/10th of that is a pretty low salary for an experienced developer - particularly for the latter half of that decade. Depends on skill level, but I'd suggest any developer making less than (70k + 10k * years of experience) take some interviews to check if they are working for below market rate.

deleted 6y ago
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kache_ 6y ago

This website is an embarrassment

ktpsns 6y ago

So here is a story about Germany, a standard western country: I recently started in IT freelancing and the loans are crazy compared to most other jobs in this country. It depends a bit on the clients, but in the finance sector 1000€/day are standard. Many colleagues tell me they would not work for less then 100€/hour. Coming from academia where you are lucky with a 2000€/month postdoc position, this is insane. It feels completely detached from the rest of society. Even a professor, judge or director doesn't make more then 8000€/month (netto).

palae 6y ago
I thought most postdocs in Germany were on TV-L 13? That should be at least around 2500€ net, right? If you're at 100%, of course, but I would think most postdocs are.
- ktpsns 6y ago
  Yes, you are right. Academia is subject to a wag agreement and 100% E-13 corresponds to roughly 4000€ gross (brutto) and 2370€ net. Cf. http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/allg/ http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/allg/
roel_v 6y ago
When you are contracting, e1000/day doesn't tranlate into ((552) - 25) 1000 * 0.6 net income in the way a salaried position does. If you only just started contracting, beware of thinking that it does...
- ktpsns 6y ago
  Can you explain me the overhead costs you have when contracting? Of course you have to pay for your office and equipment yourself. You also might have to pay (more) for health and social insurance, depending on the country where you live in. The same applies for tax (such as VAT). Also, you have to deal with holidays and off-time for yourself. But given that, what more is the difference between contracting and being employed?

corytheboyd 6y ago

Wait I thought the comment the author is picking apart was about $1k MRR for a startup company. That’s much much much different than $1k MRR for a side project.

Havoc 6y ago
Exactly. Any kind of money is great for a side project. Startup implies putting food on the table. Still the author is clearly not from a 1st world country. And at direct conversion rates anything first world is crazy money. Been there done that. My starting yearly salary was like 5k usd - that won’t get you far in most 1st world
boffinism 6y ago
Yeah, the comment he's criticising explicitly says $1k mrr for a side project is impressive
- segmondy 6y ago
  Thank you, I was the person that was quoted. The title was startups after 12-24months and my comment is highlighting that's not much for a startup after such a duration, unless they did mean a side project...

troughway 6y ago

The “gods” of Y Combinator are developers working for well established companies? And these are people looking down upon someone turning an idea into recurring revenue on their own accord? So much for the hacker and start up culture there fellas. These are the comments that should be downvoted for being obnoxiously unhelpful, but they’re propped up as “God”-like. I guess this is why a lot of quality old timers left HN.

throwaway713 6y ago

Bragging about salaries is always annoying; however, it was one of those braggy comments that led me to reconsider my own job so that I ended up working for a FANG company. I had previously just used Glassdoor to check salaries and did not realize it was not giving an accurate picture of the total, more recent compensation offered at these companies. When I realized how much lower my income was compared to what was possible, it motivated me to start practicing and interviewing. I would have never known if it weren't for those posts.

nilkn 6y ago
I agree with this. These comments are toxic and sometimes rude, but they also expose a world that many folks don't realize exists (including myself 2-3 years ago).
- giantg2 6y ago
  I realize it exists, and also realize that I'll never be a part of it. And that's ok, even if it makes me feel shitty.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    Money is a tool, and like any other tool it may or may not be useful to you. If you want to be a digital nomad on a little boat sailing about then you need much less money than someone who wants to build a mansion and drive a ferrari. Money does not indicate how valuable you are as a person, it indicates your ability to optimize for money generation. Or put another way, money won't make you happy, don't let the lack of it make you unhappy.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      "don't let the lack of it make you unhappy." It doesn't... that's my wife's job.
cvhashim 6y ago
LinkedIn has a feature now called LinkedIn salaries if I recall. Pretty cool to get metrics of salaries around your area and at companies you may have interest in. Gives you a decent picture of the pay scale for your job.

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ljm 6y ago

This is what the old Shit HN Says[0] Twitter feed should be about! [0] https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says

deleted 6y ago

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song 6y ago

> That's $600 per month. Extra. From a thing on the side. > I realise that I live in one of those cheap, unappealing parts of the world, but that kinda money would easily cover me and my family's rent every month, and then some. Do you realise how much of a mental weight that can take off a persons shoulders? To know rent is covered over and above your day-job earnings? Well yes, exactly that's the issue with comparing salaries without thinking of cost of living. I live in a smallish apartment that's most likely smaller than the OP but pay 4k usd a month for rent. It changes your point of view of what's decent compensation and does mean that to cover the typical expenses, I have to have a much higher salary than in a lot of countries... It's all relative, is living in a high cost of living environment nice? Yes, in my case because I'm careful and still try to save a lot of my income but it does require me to take certain type of jobs and reduces my ability to take risks. It also comes with a probably less enviable work/life balance..

hamilyon2 6y ago

For some people 100 billion is apparently not much money https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21097736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21097736

lapaz17 6y ago

Yet my friend who is PHd on AI at EPFL makes 3k per month (his role idol is Aziz Sancar,whose parents do not know how to read and write, has Nobel prize [0]). Humanity will be doomed because of this attitude. Those who have kids will be sworn by their next generation however money you made. Contributions to colleges is not same putting money in PHd's pockets.Do I become rude if I say fuck all of these FAANG's oversalaries? [0]https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/aziz-sancardan-turkiyeye-mesaj-30262686 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

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thewebcount 6y ago

I'm a FAANG engineers making a bunch of money, and I mostly agree with what he's saying in this piece. $1,000 MRR is great! I'm starting up a side project and hope to make $100MRR in the first year. (I don't want to spend all of my free time on it, but want to give it a go.) Before working for FAANG, I had my own business. I was able to pay myself a salary that supported me and my spouse (who also worked) in the MidWest, and it was an exhausting 24/7 job. (I literally answered a tech support call at 3AM on occasion.) Any positive amount of money coming in is great! FWIW, I make the kind of money he's talking about and I still think that an extra $600/mo. is useful. I just refinanced my mortgage to save ~$400/mo. I'm probably going to move to a different internet provider because mine jacked up prices. It's not at all ridiculous to think that it's good to save money no matter how much you make. (You do have to weigh the amount of time it takes to save the money, though. As you make more, you tend to be less willing to spend a lot of time on doing things to save smaller amounts of money.)

dusted 6y ago
You literally earn 6 times my salary, and I bought my first house, paid cash, no loans after saving a bit a few years. How do you even manage to burn so much money?

rvn1045 6y ago

FAANG engineers aren't necessarily working on the most interesting or most challenging problems. Having worked at a FAANG I know several FAANG engineers making $300k+ while working less than 10-15 hours a week. Doing the work at these FAANG companies is the easy part. Getting a job there is the harder part. And you generally have to fit a certain profile (target school, age range, geography etc) to be given a shot at an interview. Tech companies are generally a lot less exclusive than other higher paying industries like wall street though, and you can still score an interview at a FAANG even without the right kind of profile.

naveen99 6y ago

Wow first time being called a God! I’d like to thank my 7th grade math teacher... truly speechless !!!

naveen99 6y ago
The epidemic of mental illness isn’t from an abundance of arrogance, it’s from an abundance of low self esteem, anxiety, and depression. most people’s egos are very fragile. No need to bust their bubble prematurely, except to correct technical and serious inaccuracies / understanding of the world for their own benefit.

dusted 6y ago

I agree, making something and actually selling is can be really damn hard. Actually, making something and giving it away for free and having people use it, still damn hard. I made a few games that I'm giving away for free, open source and all.. They're not that bad, still , almost nobody knows about them or plays them, and they're in most major linux distributions too.

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bagacrap 6y ago

It doesn't seem like the author's reading past the first line of the comment. The HN commenter says 1kMRR from a side project is indeed impressive. Immediately after, the author states "$1000 per month from a side project is considered meh." The entire article is responding to a straw man. FWIW the original article the comment came from was about 1k MRR startups. I think if you treat it like a startup, you better be making more than 1k/mo after a couple years (or, alternately, losing 100M per month) to be considered impressive.

1290cc 6y ago

It may be a bit frustrating to read but it helped me to understand the true value of the work I was doing and what others are being compensated. I remember my first job age 20 working for a startup that developed an early version of Twitter but designed for neighbors (this was around 2001). I had to write drivers for a GSM module, write a server to process incoming/outgoing SMS messages, write an API into an SMS-C, build a website for users to interact and administer on. Do it all in java/linux as we had zero investment to buy anything. For all of this I was paid minimum wage (<$250/month) and had zero equity. It was only through forums like this that I discovered how horrifically exploited I was. This was a long time ago and the founder had no business sense but was smart technically. Business shutdown after 2 years and I went onto bigger and better things. One thing I will say is that silicon valley pays better than anywhere else I've lived in the world (Asia, Africa, Europe).