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It's interesting to me how many people miss the other big shift that can increase their earning potential: from labor to capitalist. The ceiling is effectively

It's interesting to me how many people miss the other big shift that can increase their earning potential: from labor to capitalist. The ceiling is effectively unlimited for this. A good manager might make double what a good IC under them does, but the shareholder makes orders of magnitude more. The essence of capitalism is shifting resources from unproductive uses to productive ones, and they operate on global markets, which gives them unprecedented leverage. Capitalism is a skill just like management, and just like management, it consists of a number of subskills. How do you know what the market will value? How can you evaluate the competitive landscape? How do you make yourself aware of technological developments and new suppliers that might affect cost structures? How do you recognize emerging complements? How do you ensure the legal structures of your agreement make sure that you share in the profits of your investment? The interesting thing is that developing these skills early, in high school and college, helps dramatically even if you don't have any capital to invest. Because you can apply the same questions toward the company you contribute your labor to, and then bargain for stock instead of cash. A junior developer who joined Coinbase in 2016 made a lot more than a manager who joined Facebook.

gnarcoregrizz 5y ago
Great point. One issue with your last paragraph though, is when trying to select a company to work for from an equity/ownership standpoint, there isn't the option of diversifying a career. You can only work at once place, so you put all your eggs in one basket. In hindsight, sure, you would make better money at coinbase rather than facebook, but it's essentially going long on one stock with your time rather than capital. The owners and capitalists have been the winners, at least in my lifetime. Investing has been de-risked enough through monetary and political policy that it's a good bet. A good example of monetary policy is low interest rates. The ability to borrow capital and take "risks" hasn't been cheaper. A political policy to encourage investment is for example the 401k - most wage earner's retirement funds go straight to the capital markets. Even public employees retirement funds ride the capital markets with optimistic outlooks. I suppose that makes most Americans capitalists whether they want to be or not, so my argument has come full circle, but that money bubbles up to the people up top, since they make the compounding gains and have access to inside markets. Personally, A few times I've made more money from ownership and investment than from my labor. It certainly is a valid approach to a career.
- nostrademons 5y ago
  There is over time, just not at once. You gain much more information working at a company than you have from the outside. If it sucks, quit and go to a better one. It's that willingness to cut your losers that many people don't have. Lots of folks are miserable in their jobs (you see a number in this thread) but then perform all sorts of rationalizations on why it has to be that way. It doesn't: if you're miserable, that's your brain telling you that it's the wrong place, and you should go put in some effort to find the right place.
  - gnarcoregrizz 5y ago
    Good points, but realistically speaking the tech job market is illiquid. "Cutting your losers" isn't possible for 95% of developers, especially if they want to work for ("invest in") unicorn startups and big tech. It's an incredibly competitive market with a month-long interview hazing processes with seemingly random results.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    > If it sucks, quit and go to a better one. Again - easier said than done. It’s easy to say, “just quit and go to the unicorn that will make you mega rich”. It’s much harder to actually do it. I’ve worked at a variety of places. All the way from research, seed, various rounds of funding, to going public, public companies, and long term enterprise. No one was any good at predicting whether these companies were going to make me rich. The people I know who got rich were just lucky - that’s about it. They weren’t good at selecting companies or figuring out ideas. They just got lucky. Spend enough time talking to people in SV and you get one thing above all - survivor bias is real and alive.

gnarcoregrizz 5y ago

Great point. One issue with your last paragraph though, is when trying to select a company to work for from an equity/ownership standpoint, there isn't the option of diversifying a career. You can only work at once place, so you put all your eggs in one basket. In hindsight, sure, you would make better money at coinbase rather than facebook, but it's essentially going long on one stock with your time rather than capital. The owners and capitalists have been the winners, at least in my lifetime. Investing has been de-risked enough through monetary and political policy that it's a good bet. A good example of monetary policy is low interest rates. The ability to borrow capital and take "risks" hasn't been cheaper. A political policy to encourage investment is for example the 401k - most wage earner's retirement funds go straight to the capital markets. Even public employees retirement funds ride the capital markets with optimistic outlooks. I suppose that makes most Americans capitalists whether they want to be or not, so my argument has come full circle, but that money bubbles up to the people up top, since they make the compounding gains and have access to inside markets. Personally, A few times I've made more money from ownership and investment than from my labor. It certainly is a valid approach to a career.

nostrademons 5y ago
There is over time, just not at once. You gain much more information working at a company than you have from the outside. If it sucks, quit and go to a better one. It's that willingness to cut your losers that many people don't have. Lots of folks are miserable in their jobs (you see a number in this thread) but then perform all sorts of rationalizations on why it has to be that way. It doesn't: if you're miserable, that's your brain telling you that it's the wrong place, and you should go put in some effort to find the right place.
- gnarcoregrizz 5y ago
  Good points, but realistically speaking the tech job market is illiquid. "Cutting your losers" isn't possible for 95% of developers, especially if they want to work for ("invest in") unicorn startups and big tech. It's an incredibly competitive market with a month-long interview hazing processes with seemingly random results.
- bradlys 5y ago
  > If it sucks, quit and go to a better one. Again - easier said than done. It’s easy to say, “just quit and go to the unicorn that will make you mega rich”. It’s much harder to actually do it. I’ve worked at a variety of places. All the way from research, seed, various rounds of funding, to going public, public companies, and long term enterprise. No one was any good at predicting whether these companies were going to make me rich. The people I know who got rich were just lucky - that’s about it. They weren’t good at selecting companies or figuring out ideas. They just got lucky. Spend enough time talking to people in SV and you get one thing above all - survivor bias is real and alive.