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This is fairly normal for certain "glamour" industries. Back in the day when it was relevant, MTV was infamous for paying people almost nothing, for no other re

This is fairly normal for certain "glamour" industries. Back in the day when it was relevant, MTV was infamous for paying people almost nothing, for no other reason than they could because MTV had a coolness factor associated with it that people sought. Same is generally true for a lot of the entertainment industry.

jedberg 5y ago
Apple still uses that line to underpay people. Their compensation is famously lower than all the other FAANG companies.
- sgerenser 5y ago
  Is that really true? Levels.fyi shows Apple right about inline with GOOG, FB and AMZN and significantly higher than MSFT for mid to senior levels.
  - kenhwang 5y ago
    Supposedly its harder getting equivalent levels at AAPL.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    Everyone I know who moved from another FAANG took a pay cut (and everyone who left Apple to another FAANG got a fat raise). So my data is anecdotal but consistent. Also MSFT isn't part of FAANG.
    - mtrpcic 5y ago
      > Until 2017, FANG was limited to Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet. Another variant of this acronym is "FANGAM," which includes Microsoft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FAANG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FAANG I think Microsoft is up there and competitive in the same landscape, and calling out their lack of inclusion in the original acronym is just pedantic. Everything discussed in this thread applies just as much to MSFT as it does to any of the other FAANG companies.
      - Kranar 5y ago
        It's not pedantic, MSFT does not pay as much as other FAANG companies. MSFT isn't by any means a bad company to work for, but it's not in the same league. F: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-En... A: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engi... A: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Apple/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Apple/salaries/Software-Engin... N: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng... G: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... M: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Microsoft/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Microsoft/salaries/Software-E...
        oblio 5y ago
        https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook,Microsoft,Netflix,Amazon,Google&track=Software%20Engineer https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook,Microsoft,Netflix,A... Easier to use.
      - johnnyanmac 5y ago
        pedantic, tangential rant: I still don't understand why people include Netflix in that calibur. From what I heard and researched, Netflix doesn't hire junior talent and their scope of work is a fraction of Microsoft/Apple/Google. If competitive pay is the only distinction here, I'm sure we can expand that acronym to include a dozen more tech companies
    - novok 5y ago
      Basically google and FB pay the best, and then msft, amazon and apple are second tier as far as compensation goes. Twitter, square, uber, netflix, linked-in, pinterest, dropbox, airbnb, etc are all middle-big sized and are fairly variable comp wise.
      - FartyMcFarter 5y ago
        I thought Netflix paid more than Google / FB (from online hearsay).
        blaser-waffle 5y ago
        My understanding is that the 'Flix pays straight cash -- big ole sacks of money twice a month. The other orgs pay in things like bonuses or RSUs. Total comp may be as good or higher, but those aren't locked in a specific rate the way a direct deposit to your bank account is; e.g. you could get less bonus, or the stock price could drop, etc.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  Apple also famously hires from non-prestigious schools compared to the “elitism” at FB and Google. I have been in meetings at Apple with multiple people and not one of them was from an elite school (remember schools from Iowa and other parochial places). In contrast at FB and Google there were all the elite schools like Caltech, Stanford, MIT amply represented. I am not sure if Apple deliberately targeted such “lesser” schools or was just less elitist in the hiring process and the filters associated with it. The salary expectations from Auburn (where Tim Cook is from) is a lot less than from say UC Berkeley or Stanford.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    I suspect that this is not just about paying a bit less salary. Steve Jobs is known to value liberal arts and non-formal education talents which might have become part of the Apple culture. After all, being MIT or Stanford means that you passed specific type of filter but that filter might not be the silver bullet and even bring monoculture. Despite the fact that the elite schools have elite opportunities, more often than not, the most impactful things don't come from elite alumni.
  - TrackerFF 5y ago
    A lot of previously elitist companies have discovered that top %1 candidates from most schools are pretty similar. And since hiring is much easier today, they're more open to looking around.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    Steve Jobs never cared personally much about that, he dropped out from a less know school, worked menial jobs and traveled the world. Wozniak even managed to be expelled from Colorado for hacking the university system. For them, their colleges were not their entire life experience and social life when they founded apple. It is very different from Brin and Page, that basically catapulted from campus to become billionaires. Their life experience before becoming founders was entirely shaped by Stanford, their identity tied to it. It makes sense that their company reflects this.
asdff 5y ago
The coolness glamour factor in the entertainment industry goes away when you've been a PA for 10 years. That being said, there are a lot of industries and fields where you spend like your entire 20s just treading water and suffering, and only after that when you emerge, bloodied and standing on the pile of your burned out former coworkers, do you get a crack at the lifestyle you envisioned that profession being like as a kid when you began the process of cementing yourself into this life. As a kid I thought this included some obvious jobs, but now as an adult I realize a lot of professions are like this. Some of my doctor and lawyer friends have been dealt the worst hands of all.
- rewgs 5y ago
  Film composer here. Your description is spot-on.
golemotron 5y ago
It's not just glamour. There's an argument that teacher salaries are low because people find it more rewarding than a lot of other work.
- davidgould 5y ago
  So by this theory people must really love janitorial and fast food work.
  - 22c 5y ago
    I don't think that commenter was saying that lower pay = more rewarding work, but that more rewarding work = satisfied with lower pay. I know this certainly to be true for people I know who work in conservation.
  - golemotron 5y ago
    Nope. That's affirming the consequent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    If I could be 16 and be paid to teach, I sure would "love" teaching.
- majjgepolja 5y ago
  I might be downvoted to hell, but it's more likely because of same supply-demand thing. Teacher is not a high skilled job, not to mention most teachers are outright bad at their jobs thus not producing much value anyway.
  - blaser-waffle 5y ago
    Bollocks. Most teaching requires as much training as several other degrees. I'm a solution engineer and only made it here with a BA in English. I learned a lot of code, but I haven't had to much else formally. My wife is a teacher, and she has to jump through hoops for a teaching certificate, do regular, on-going re-certs, and be covered in basic first aid. Plus there is a shit-ton of other issues to stay abreast of, like mandatory reporter status -- on top of learning new teaching tools, like integrating with the tablets they use in science class. I spend 4 hours a day in meetings, and 3 hours a day doing basic code stuff that a fairly bright 17 year old could figure out. Her job is WAYYYY harder than mine. > Teacher is not a high skilled job, not to mention most teachers are outright bad at their jobs thus not producing much value anyway. Attitudes like this are why the state of education in the US is abysmal.

jedberg 5y ago

Apple still uses that line to underpay people. Their compensation is famously lower than all the other FAANG companies.

sgerenser 5y ago
Is that really true? Levels.fyi shows Apple right about inline with GOOG, FB and AMZN and significantly higher than MSFT for mid to senior levels.
- kenhwang 5y ago
  Supposedly its harder getting equivalent levels at AAPL.
- jedberg 5y ago
  Everyone I know who moved from another FAANG took a pay cut (and everyone who left Apple to another FAANG got a fat raise). So my data is anecdotal but consistent. Also MSFT isn't part of FAANG.
  - mtrpcic 5y ago
    > Until 2017, FANG was limited to Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet. Another variant of this acronym is "FANGAM," which includes Microsoft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FAANG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FAANG I think Microsoft is up there and competitive in the same landscape, and calling out their lack of inclusion in the original acronym is just pedantic. Everything discussed in this thread applies just as much to MSFT as it does to any of the other FAANG companies.
    - Kranar 5y ago
      It's not pedantic, MSFT does not pay as much as other FAANG companies. MSFT isn't by any means a bad company to work for, but it's not in the same league. F: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-En... A: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engi... A: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Apple/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Apple/salaries/Software-Engin... N: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng... G: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... M: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Microsoft/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Microsoft/salaries/Software-E...
      - oblio 5y ago
        https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook,Microsoft,Netflix,Amazon,Google&track=Software%20Engineer https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook,Microsoft,Netflix,A... Easier to use.
    - johnnyanmac 5y ago
      pedantic, tangential rant: I still don't understand why people include Netflix in that calibur. From what I heard and researched, Netflix doesn't hire junior talent and their scope of work is a fraction of Microsoft/Apple/Google. If competitive pay is the only distinction here, I'm sure we can expand that acronym to include a dozen more tech companies
  - novok 5y ago
    Basically google and FB pay the best, and then msft, amazon and apple are second tier as far as compensation goes. Twitter, square, uber, netflix, linked-in, pinterest, dropbox, airbnb, etc are all middle-big sized and are fairly variable comp wise.
    - FartyMcFarter 5y ago
      I thought Netflix paid more than Google / FB (from online hearsay).
      - blaser-waffle 5y ago
        My understanding is that the 'Flix pays straight cash -- big ole sacks of money twice a month. The other orgs pay in things like bonuses or RSUs. Total comp may be as good or higher, but those aren't locked in a specific rate the way a direct deposit to your bank account is; e.g. you could get less bonus, or the stock price could drop, etc.
1cvmask 5y ago
Apple also famously hires from non-prestigious schools compared to the “elitism” at FB and Google. I have been in meetings at Apple with multiple people and not one of them was from an elite school (remember schools from Iowa and other parochial places). In contrast at FB and Google there were all the elite schools like Caltech, Stanford, MIT amply represented. I am not sure if Apple deliberately targeted such “lesser” schools or was just less elitist in the hiring process and the filters associated with it. The salary expectations from Auburn (where Tim Cook is from) is a lot less than from say UC Berkeley or Stanford.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  I suspect that this is not just about paying a bit less salary. Steve Jobs is known to value liberal arts and non-formal education talents which might have become part of the Apple culture. After all, being MIT or Stanford means that you passed specific type of filter but that filter might not be the silver bullet and even bring monoculture. Despite the fact that the elite schools have elite opportunities, more often than not, the most impactful things don't come from elite alumni.
- TrackerFF 5y ago
  A lot of previously elitist companies have discovered that top %1 candidates from most schools are pretty similar. And since hiring is much easier today, they're more open to looking around.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  Steve Jobs never cared personally much about that, he dropped out from a less know school, worked menial jobs and traveled the world. Wozniak even managed to be expelled from Colorado for hacking the university system. For them, their colleges were not their entire life experience and social life when they founded apple. It is very different from Brin and Page, that basically catapulted from campus to become billionaires. Their life experience before becoming founders was entirely shaped by Stanford, their identity tied to it. It makes sense that their company reflects this.

asdff 5y ago

The coolness glamour factor in the entertainment industry goes away when you've been a PA for 10 years. That being said, there are a lot of industries and fields where you spend like your entire 20s just treading water and suffering, and only after that when you emerge, bloodied and standing on the pile of your burned out former coworkers, do you get a crack at the lifestyle you envisioned that profession being like as a kid when you began the process of cementing yourself into this life. As a kid I thought this included some obvious jobs, but now as an adult I realize a lot of professions are like this. Some of my doctor and lawyer friends have been dealt the worst hands of all.

rewgs 5y ago
Film composer here. Your description is spot-on.

golemotron 5y ago

It's not just glamour. There's an argument that teacher salaries are low because people find it more rewarding than a lot of other work.

davidgould 5y ago
So by this theory people must really love janitorial and fast food work.
- 22c 5y ago
  I don't think that commenter was saying that lower pay = more rewarding work, but that more rewarding work = satisfied with lower pay. I know this certainly to be true for people I know who work in conservation.
- golemotron 5y ago
  Nope. That's affirming the consequent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  If I could be 16 and be paid to teach, I sure would "love" teaching.
majjgepolja 5y ago
I might be downvoted to hell, but it's more likely because of same supply-demand thing. Teacher is not a high skilled job, not to mention most teachers are outright bad at their jobs thus not producing much value anyway.
- blaser-waffle 5y ago
  Bollocks. Most teaching requires as much training as several other degrees. I'm a solution engineer and only made it here with a BA in English. I learned a lot of code, but I haven't had to much else formally. My wife is a teacher, and she has to jump through hoops for a teaching certificate, do regular, on-going re-certs, and be covered in basic first aid. Plus there is a shit-ton of other issues to stay abreast of, like mandatory reporter status -- on top of learning new teaching tools, like integrating with the tablets they use in science class. I spend 4 hours a day in meetings, and 3 hours a day doing basic code stuff that a fairly bright 17 year old could figure out. Her job is WAYYYY harder than mine. > Teacher is not a high skilled job, not to mention most teachers are outright bad at their jobs thus not producing much value anyway. Attitudes like this are why the state of education in the US is abysmal.