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Just goes to show you how small the top is in streaming. Based on this data, and assuming twitch payouts are about a quarter the average streamer's income, abou

Just goes to show you how small the top is in streaming. Based on this data, and assuming twitch payouts are about a quarter the average streamer's income, about 300-400 twitch streamers get paid more than the total comp of senior staff engineers where I work. Let's be generous and say that these people have no staff to pay (false assumption, e.g. Pestily has stated that he pays hundreds of thousands on salaries for editors, moderators, social media people, etc.). There are far more people than that at my one company making this kind of money, not to mention all the other big tech companies and startups. That's just a long way of saying that if you wanna get rich, learn how to write code and talk to people. Way easier than becoming one of the top 3-400 streamers in the world.

tediousdemise 5y ago
Getting paid 7 figures for writing code? That is an anomaly and is not in line with reality. Just doing a cursory Google search for Senior Software Engineer salaries puts the average at ~122k [0], nowhere close to the amount one of those Twitch streamers makes. I wouldn't call it rich either, maybe middle class or upper-middle class at best. [0] https://www.indeed.com/career/senior-software-engineer/salaries https://www.indeed.com/career/senior-software-engineer/salar...
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  Remember that this data covers slightly more than two years of payouts. So under my (admittedly low-information) assumptions, streamer #400 gets 750k in revenue annually. Also, you linked to the wrong job title. I said "senior staff" software engineer, which where I work is two rungs above senior engineer. http://levels.fyi http://levels.fyi has comp estimates for a bunch of the big tech cos. $750k far from an unreasonable amount for someone to make in this line of work, and plenty of folks make a lot more than that.
- Infinitesimus 5y ago
  Some context incase you're not used to Bay Area Big Co. Compensation: 1. Indeed, Glassdoor and other mainstream sites are useless and at best report outdated base salaries. Use levels.fyi or teamblind.com for more realistic data. 2. 50% or more or the compensation at these companies is in RSUs. These companies have performed remarkably well over the past decade. Folks who have had exposure to their stocks as employees have done very well. 3. Half a million dollars a year (before refreshers, etc.) is entirely realistic at the Staff level and at Senior Staff, you're often looking at anything from $700K to low $1MM. For these companies, the scope and weight of someone at that level of work if impact across millions/billions of users and their actions can make or lose you similar amounts of money.
- earthscienceman 5y ago
  Only someone on this website would call 122k per year middle class. This is why America is divided. Even if you're the only breadwinner in your household this is solidly above the 85th percentile in income. That's practically the definition of upper class.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    To me upper class means you don't work.
    - RNCTX 5y ago
      No, upper class means you profit from underpaying other people for their work.
      - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
        Snarky, but I don't think you're wrong. People are generally paid based on how hard they are to replace, not by how much profit they generate. But in some markets, this results in people making terrible wages while the company makes tons of money, ie, Wal-mart and basically all the major fast food chains.
        RNCTX 5y ago
        Snark aside, it depends. Corporations are so used to applying arbitrary values to ephemeral things on their balance sheets that I think such a mentality seeps over into highly skilled employees in some cases. In other cases, the business's viability is determined by how many minimum wage (or better yet, off the books entirely) laborers can be obtained in a given week. See: every construction project in every US state, for example.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      So Bezos is middle class then? Questionably useful definition imo.

tediousdemise 5y ago

Getting paid 7 figures for writing code? That is an anomaly and is not in line with reality. Just doing a cursory Google search for Senior Software Engineer salaries puts the average at ~122k [0], nowhere close to the amount one of those Twitch streamers makes. I wouldn't call it rich either, maybe middle class or upper-middle class at best. [0] https://www.indeed.com/career/senior-software-engineer/salaries https://www.indeed.com/career/senior-software-engineer/salar...

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
Remember that this data covers slightly more than two years of payouts. So under my (admittedly low-information) assumptions, streamer #400 gets 750k in revenue annually. Also, you linked to the wrong job title. I said "senior staff" software engineer, which where I work is two rungs above senior engineer. http://levels.fyi http://levels.fyi has comp estimates for a bunch of the big tech cos. $750k far from an unreasonable amount for someone to make in this line of work, and plenty of folks make a lot more than that.
Infinitesimus 5y ago
Some context incase you're not used to Bay Area Big Co. Compensation: 1. Indeed, Glassdoor and other mainstream sites are useless and at best report outdated base salaries. Use levels.fyi or teamblind.com for more realistic data. 2. 50% or more or the compensation at these companies is in RSUs. These companies have performed remarkably well over the past decade. Folks who have had exposure to their stocks as employees have done very well. 3. Half a million dollars a year (before refreshers, etc.) is entirely realistic at the Staff level and at Senior Staff, you're often looking at anything from $700K to low $1MM. For these companies, the scope and weight of someone at that level of work if impact across millions/billions of users and their actions can make or lose you similar amounts of money.
earthscienceman 5y ago
Only someone on this website would call 122k per year middle class. This is why America is divided. Even if you're the only breadwinner in your household this is solidly above the 85th percentile in income. That's practically the definition of upper class.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  To me upper class means you don't work.
  - RNCTX 5y ago
    No, upper class means you profit from underpaying other people for their work.
    - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
      Snarky, but I don't think you're wrong. People are generally paid based on how hard they are to replace, not by how much profit they generate. But in some markets, this results in people making terrible wages while the company makes tons of money, ie, Wal-mart and basically all the major fast food chains.
      - RNCTX 5y ago
        Snark aside, it depends. Corporations are so used to applying arbitrary values to ephemeral things on their balance sheets that I think such a mentality seeps over into highly skilled employees in some cases. In other cases, the business's viability is determined by how many minimum wage (or better yet, off the books entirely) laborers can be obtained in a given week. See: every construction project in every US state, for example.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    So Bezos is middle class then? Questionably useful definition imo.