5 ms·

On the psychology of “tech money”

43 points by BerislavLopac 4y ago

draw_down 4y ago
brailsafe 4y ago
Ya, this is relatable. I will however occasionally pick up a tab, but I'll be ask how much it is first, compare it to what I was prepared to spend that night, and it'd still be a big gesture to me, not a flex. Also don't know what venmo for salsa means. Anything I spend, I do so with the knowledge it could all be taken away tomorrow, or I could lose the job, or my apartment.
stephc_int13 4y ago
Messy and poorly written article, could not finish reading it. Unpleasant surprise to find this on HN.
adam_arthur 4y ago
"Tech Money" will largely dissipate after labor market dynamics normalize. Could be as soon as next year if the economy continues on its current trajectory. The best will still attain high compensation, but the world of 6 figure jobs after 6 week bootcamps is going to end. Value add to the employer just sets a ceiling on potential pay. In the end, wage and compensation is always a product of supply and demand of labor.
- ozten 4y ago
  > bootcamp + 2 years of experience type aren't going to be making 400k+ with minimal effort. How frequently did this happen? (Seattle, 20+ year career) I never saw anyone that fit this description.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    Happened a lot in the Bay Area. Can only speak to my own experience of course. I changed the text to reflect a more universally accepted state though
- j-bos 4y ago
  > bootcamp + 2 years of experience type aren't going to be making 400k+ with minimal effort. In my my highly subjective opinion, dismiss it freely: This bootcamp do-nothing trope strikes me as a stereotype coming from a similar place as the stereotypes of illegal immigrants taking jobs. Likely real but very rare, and disproportionately highlighted. Of course I am biased, as I am a boot camp grad.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    I’m not against bootcamps generally. I just hired 4 people for my team, and the guy with 0 experience and bootcamp grad is actually the most valuable. More using it as a euphemism for those that aren’t particularly skilled. Skill is more a product of motivation of the individual, and bootcamp vs college doesn’t matter much in the end. All that to say, the gold rush where low skill people can get a 6 figure job after a short period of training is coming to an end
pwb25 4y ago
I have no idea what the point was, or what the 6$ had to to with tech money and venmo
- rippercushions 4y ago
  If you don't understand what's wrong with the starter example of asking for your coffee money back, perhaps you're illustrating the author's point.
  - pwb25 4y ago
    I do, but I don't get the articles point really other than saying its bad manners
  - mavelikara 4y ago
    OP is, I think, asking what the point of the story of the asshole founder is. The article is poorly written. Asking questions about it does not illustrate the point I think the article is trying to make.
- strken 4y ago
  I agree with this. The point was meant to be that asking for the $6 back was due to rich people cluelessness, but I'd read that situation as the person being a dickhead. On the more general question of "venmo the salsa," or splitting bills, my friends have a mix of backgrounds. Some of the poorer ones are scrupulous about splitting the bill correctly, while some of the richer ones either pay for the whole thing or stick a photo of the bill in a group chat then don't follow it up, while others are like she describes. There seems to be little correlation with wealth but an obvious one with which city they grew up in, which makes it hard for me to accept her argument.
  - yakubin 4y ago
    If I were to associate asking for the $6 back with level of wealth, I'd associate it with someone who grew up poor, not rich. To people born middle class and up this is not a notable expense. If anything, the number which isn't worth thinking about should go up with the level of wealth. However, that's a big if. I really wouldn't ascribe it to level of wealth. If they wanted to split the bill, they should have made it clear earlier, certainly not after paying the bill. It's not class, it's just being a dick. Which is to say I agree with you. :)
paultopia 4y ago
Oooh, oooh, an opportunity to talk about my favorite tech related money cluelessness story. The setting: somewhere in the late 00's. I'm still in grad school at the time. A friend of mine, a musician from New Orleans, is in town for an electronic music thing. He and I are going to grab a drink somewhere. But my friend is also in town networking. And he eventually gets talking to a founder of a very prominent music technology company which will remain nameless. Said founder is, as they tend to be, rich as shit. My friend texts me: is it ok if we switch from grabbing a drink to going out with this founder? I, not wanting to mess with my friend's networking, say sure thing. So fast forward a few hours. Drink has become dinner, at a very fancy restaurant. It's me, a grad student; my friend, a working musician; an undergrad who tagged along, and a rich founder. The founder orders for the table. I don't remember where we were, but I do remember that the founder ordered oysters. I remember this because I'm allergic to Oysters. The check comes. And the asshole founder tells the waiter to split it. Somehow drinks with a buddy turned into 80 bucks a head. And I couldn't even tell the founder to go fuck himself, because, friend, networking, etc. Really hard to not see this as deliberate, notwithstanding the argument in the post that people like this are just clueless.
- Etheryte 4y ago
  Perhaps I'm missing some context here, but I don't really see how this is deliberately malevolent? If you're at a restaurant you should order what you can afford to order, ordering something expensive just because you think someone else is paying is a douche move.
  - rco8786 4y ago
    That’s literally the point of the story. It was a douche move.
    - Etheryte 4y ago
      I don't really see where you're coming from. If you go out to eat with someone who has more money than you why do you expect them to pick up the bill? I doubt you pick up the bill every time you go out to eat with other people.
tptacek 4y ago
One time, this person was taken out for a recruiting coffee by a lunatic, who, hours after being rejected, texted to ask for the coffee money back. Instead of capturing that text message and enshrining it in the Twitter dunk hall of fame, where I'm reasonably sure it would have found a comfortable home, this person instead built the interaction into their psyche, to the point where they're uncomfortable picking up the bar tab because they're worried their peers will think they're going to come back on that tab years later, like Don Corleone.
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
  You could have just said you don't relate to the post.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I could have, but then I would be saying something different than what I intend to say. It is not in fact a super reasonable concern, perhaps outside of dating, that picking up a tab will be misconstrued.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
      Maybe with your life experiences, but my own agree with the author's. When you're around people who aren't (or haven't always been) at least middle-class, they're aware of the power that money holds.
      - tedunangst 4y ago
        I think this is an experience almost everyone has. It's certainly a plot point on a million TV shows. (Most recently for me, the first episode of Hacks where the assistant is sent back into the store for 17 cents change.) You get a weird request to pay for your own coffee, whatever, you send them the $6, and then you move on to not talking to them again.
galkk 4y ago
The example from the beginning can be found at any site where people share dating experiences, there is nothing specific about tech money. Stopped reading as soon as the usual spiel about white/man went.
skybrian 4y ago
What does "venmo for the salsa" mean? Who is paying who? Is that in a restaurant?
- bagels 4y ago
  I also don't understand what that means either. Most taco shops in silicon valley have salsa as a free condiment.
- MattDemers 4y ago
  I don't have Venmo in my country, but I think they mean sending a micro-invoice using Venmo to say "Hey, pay for the salsa you ate that I ordered for the table." >"Folks who grew up in affluent households will venmo for the salsa." Means "folks who grew up affluent won't hesitate to ask for people to pay for the thing they ordered for the table, and don't know how that makes them look." Like another comment said, you'd think that salsa is complimentary? Or like, if you ordered salsa, YOU would be the one eating it, not sharing it? I don't know how these things work in the context they're saying. “Look, we’re all sitting around this table at this taqueria together, therefore we are equal!” It’s their version of “I don’t see color,” because they never really had to. "I'm not realizing how, as a rich person, asking people to pay for something incidental when I could just let it go, is ignorant"? Maybe? They grew up rich, rather than becoming rich, so they wouldn't have the context of the rudeness behind asking for people to pay for communal stuff? The fact we're having this speculation about the semantics/meaning indicates that it could have been phrased a lot better.
- Aflynn50 4y ago
  I think it's referring people who use apps like venmo to settle up for small trivial things that could easily be ignored. Especially as these are people that usually have enough money that the £3 for salsa would make no difference to them whatsoever.
- nerdface 4y ago
  I live in Silicon Valley so can speak from experience. Typically one person pays for everything (and gets the CC points) then sends everyone a picture of the receipt and requests the exact amount of money owed, often given via Venmo or the likes. Whoever used the salsa pays the person who paid for the entire meal the precise amount.
motohagiography 4y ago
I don't know that I've ever spoken again to anyone who accepted my invitation somewhere and then insisted on splitting the bill instead of letting me get it. It's a rejection of hospitality, which happens, but it's a signifier, and usually of the end of the relationship. Someone who won't break bread with you is someone you can't trust, and someone who does break bread with you and then betrays you is unworthy of your disappointment.
conor_f 4y ago
I found this post to be really on point. There's a power dynamic to having more disposable income than others, especially within your peer group. This is more pronounced with tech workers (as pointed out in the post) as there's less of a monetary barrier to entry than other high paying fields, so a tech workers typical college friend group has a greater income disparity than a typical group of doctors or lawyers who tend to be more insular. Saying that this post references a non-issue or is simply untrue is misunderstanding the situation and should make you think about the financial positions of individuals within your own friend group, as well as yours relative to them.
cornel_io 4y ago
> Folks who grew up in affluent households will venmo for the salsa. This is a broad generalization that's actually the inverse of what I've seen, and I'm willing to bet I've interacted with an order of magnitude more "grew up affluent" types than the author, having grown up in one of the richest suburbs in the US. Maybe it depends on the kind of wealth, but in my social circles (both growing up and now) anyone who did something like ask for a $6 Venmo would be laughed out of the room, and if they were serious people would Start Talking about them. That is Just Not Done, people pick up small tabs and (sometimes) split large ones and don't think about it at all, to do otherwise is considered extremely crass. Any fights over tabs are usually of the alpha male variety where paying the tab is a sign of dominance (and I've seen those fights get weird, with people ninja-settling in secret before the check shows up just so they can say "it's already taken care of" and then angry fights erupting afterwards because someone else had expected to pay). Yes, there is a careless and/or arrogant disregard for money, but it does not usually come across as penny pinching and counting what other people owe you, it's more the type of thing where they'll casually assume everyone in the party would be thrilled to go to a $400/person restaurant for a celebration, not for a moment realizing how much of a stretch that is for the younger/less rich in the group and what a hard position it puts them in. I think the word the author is looking for to pick out the kind of person who sends a Venmo request for a coffee is "asshole", not "grew up wealthy". I feel like they have some axe to grind here and have ended up severely overgeneralizing as a result...
- JohnFen 4y ago
  There's also the possibility that it's related to cliques. Since you grew up around very wealthy people, you are socially "one of them". How they treat you, and how they treat someone a bit lower on their social hierarchy, may be very different.
rco8786 4y ago
When I first moved to SF and got “tech money” I had a group of friends and we would frequently go out, someone would order some ridiculous bottle of wine or something and it was understood that we’d all just split the tab, or occasionally even play credit card roulette just for fun. It was young people being loose with their new money, no real harm being done. My girlfriend though, was also in this group and did NOT have “tech money”. Anytime she went out without me it became an issue, because she would order herself an app and a drink while everyone else ordered champagne and caviar and then have to sheepishly request that the group itemize the bill at the end. No real point to my story I guess. Just a memory.
- redanddead 4y ago
  How did it affect the relationship?
  - rco8786 4y ago
    They were always nice about it but it was also always a stark reminder that my gf was not really a full member of "the group" We're married with kids now and that group has all gone off in their own directions, so no real harm done.
throwoutway 4y ago
What does “Venmo for the salsa” mean and is HENRY a meme of the person who bought the coffee? The writing is pretty confusing

43 points by BerislavLopac 4y ago

Ya, this is relatable. I will however occasionally pick up a tab, but I'll be ask how much it is first, compare it to what I was prepared to spend that night, and it'd still be a big gesture to me, not a flex. Also don't know what venmo for salsa means. Anything I spend, I do so with the knowledge it could all be taken away tomorrow, or I could lose the job, or my apartment.

stephc_int13 4y ago

Messy and poorly written article, could not finish reading it. Unpleasant surprise to find this on HN.

adam_arthur 4y ago

"Tech Money" will largely dissipate after labor market dynamics normalize. Could be as soon as next year if the economy continues on its current trajectory. The best will still attain high compensation, but the world of 6 figure jobs after 6 week bootcamps is going to end. Value add to the employer just sets a ceiling on potential pay. In the end, wage and compensation is always a product of supply and demand of labor.

ozten 4y ago
> bootcamp + 2 years of experience type aren't going to be making 400k+ with minimal effort. How frequently did this happen? (Seattle, 20+ year career) I never saw anyone that fit this description.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Happened a lot in the Bay Area. Can only speak to my own experience of course. I changed the text to reflect a more universally accepted state though
j-bos 4y ago
> bootcamp + 2 years of experience type aren't going to be making 400k+ with minimal effort. In my my highly subjective opinion, dismiss it freely: This bootcamp do-nothing trope strikes me as a stereotype coming from a similar place as the stereotypes of illegal immigrants taking jobs. Likely real but very rare, and disproportionately highlighted. Of course I am biased, as I am a boot camp grad.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  I’m not against bootcamps generally. I just hired 4 people for my team, and the guy with 0 experience and bootcamp grad is actually the most valuable. More using it as a euphemism for those that aren’t particularly skilled. Skill is more a product of motivation of the individual, and bootcamp vs college doesn’t matter much in the end. All that to say, the gold rush where low skill people can get a 6 figure job after a short period of training is coming to an end

pwb25 4y ago

I have no idea what the point was, or what the 6$ had to to with tech money and venmo

rippercushions 4y ago
If you don't understand what's wrong with the starter example of asking for your coffee money back, perhaps you're illustrating the author's point.
- pwb25 4y ago
  I do, but I don't get the articles point really other than saying its bad manners
- mavelikara 4y ago
  OP is, I think, asking what the point of the story of the asshole founder is. The article is poorly written. Asking questions about it does not illustrate the point I think the article is trying to make.
strken 4y ago
I agree with this. The point was meant to be that asking for the $6 back was due to rich people cluelessness, but I'd read that situation as the person being a dickhead. On the more general question of "venmo the salsa," or splitting bills, my friends have a mix of backgrounds. Some of the poorer ones are scrupulous about splitting the bill correctly, while some of the richer ones either pay for the whole thing or stick a photo of the bill in a group chat then don't follow it up, while others are like she describes. There seems to be little correlation with wealth but an obvious one with which city they grew up in, which makes it hard for me to accept her argument.
- yakubin 4y ago
  If I were to associate asking for the $6 back with level of wealth, I'd associate it with someone who grew up poor, not rich. To people born middle class and up this is not a notable expense. If anything, the number which isn't worth thinking about should go up with the level of wealth. However, that's a big if. I really wouldn't ascribe it to level of wealth. If they wanted to split the bill, they should have made it clear earlier, certainly not after paying the bill. It's not class, it's just being a dick. Which is to say I agree with you. :)

paultopia 4y ago

Oooh, oooh, an opportunity to talk about my favorite tech related money cluelessness story. The setting: somewhere in the late 00's. I'm still in grad school at the time. A friend of mine, a musician from New Orleans, is in town for an electronic music thing. He and I are going to grab a drink somewhere. But my friend is also in town networking. And he eventually gets talking to a founder of a very prominent music technology company which will remain nameless. Said founder is, as they tend to be, rich as shit. My friend texts me: is it ok if we switch from grabbing a drink to going out with this founder? I, not wanting to mess with my friend's networking, say sure thing. So fast forward a few hours. Drink has become dinner, at a very fancy restaurant. It's me, a grad student; my friend, a working musician; an undergrad who tagged along, and a rich founder. The founder orders for the table. I don't remember where we were, but I do remember that the founder ordered oysters. I remember this because I'm allergic to Oysters. The check comes. And the asshole founder tells the waiter to split it. Somehow drinks with a buddy turned into 80 bucks a head. And I couldn't even tell the founder to go fuck himself, because, friend, networking, etc. Really hard to not see this as deliberate, notwithstanding the argument in the post that people like this are just clueless.

Etheryte 4y ago
Perhaps I'm missing some context here, but I don't really see how this is deliberately malevolent? If you're at a restaurant you should order what you can afford to order, ordering something expensive just because you think someone else is paying is a douche move.
- rco8786 4y ago
  That’s literally the point of the story. It was a douche move.
  - Etheryte 4y ago
    I don't really see where you're coming from. If you go out to eat with someone who has more money than you why do you expect them to pick up the bill? I doubt you pick up the bill every time you go out to eat with other people.

tptacek 4y ago

One time, this person was taken out for a recruiting coffee by a lunatic, who, hours after being rejected, texted to ask for the coffee money back. Instead of capturing that text message and enshrining it in the Twitter dunk hall of fame, where I'm reasonably sure it would have found a comfortable home, this person instead built the interaction into their psyche, to the point where they're uncomfortable picking up the bar tab because they're worried their peers will think they're going to come back on that tab years later, like Don Corleone.

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
You could have just said you don't relate to the post.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I could have, but then I would be saying something different than what I intend to say. It is not in fact a super reasonable concern, perhaps outside of dating, that picking up a tab will be misconstrued.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
    Maybe with your life experiences, but my own agree with the author's. When you're around people who aren't (or haven't always been) at least middle-class, they're aware of the power that money holds.
    - tedunangst 4y ago
      I think this is an experience almost everyone has. It's certainly a plot point on a million TV shows. (Most recently for me, the first episode of Hacks where the assistant is sent back into the store for 17 cents change.) You get a weird request to pay for your own coffee, whatever, you send them the $6, and then you move on to not talking to them again.

galkk 4y ago

The example from the beginning can be found at any site where people share dating experiences, there is nothing specific about tech money. Stopped reading as soon as the usual spiel about white/man went.

skybrian 4y ago

What does "venmo for the salsa" mean? Who is paying who? Is that in a restaurant?

bagels 4y ago
I also don't understand what that means either. Most taco shops in silicon valley have salsa as a free condiment.
MattDemers 4y ago
I don't have Venmo in my country, but I think they mean sending a micro-invoice using Venmo to say "Hey, pay for the salsa you ate that I ordered for the table." >"Folks who grew up in affluent households will venmo for the salsa." Means "folks who grew up affluent won't hesitate to ask for people to pay for the thing they ordered for the table, and don't know how that makes them look." Like another comment said, you'd think that salsa is complimentary? Or like, if you ordered salsa, YOU would be the one eating it, not sharing it? I don't know how these things work in the context they're saying. “Look, we’re all sitting around this table at this taqueria together, therefore we are equal!” It’s their version of “I don’t see color,” because they never really had to. "I'm not realizing how, as a rich person, asking people to pay for something incidental when I could just let it go, is ignorant"? Maybe? They grew up rich, rather than becoming rich, so they wouldn't have the context of the rudeness behind asking for people to pay for communal stuff? The fact we're having this speculation about the semantics/meaning indicates that it could have been phrased a lot better.
Aflynn50 4y ago
I think it's referring people who use apps like venmo to settle up for small trivial things that could easily be ignored. Especially as these are people that usually have enough money that the £3 for salsa would make no difference to them whatsoever.
nerdface 4y ago
I live in Silicon Valley so can speak from experience. Typically one person pays for everything (and gets the CC points) then sends everyone a picture of the receipt and requests the exact amount of money owed, often given via Venmo or the likes. Whoever used the salsa pays the person who paid for the entire meal the precise amount.

motohagiography 4y ago

I don't know that I've ever spoken again to anyone who accepted my invitation somewhere and then insisted on splitting the bill instead of letting me get it. It's a rejection of hospitality, which happens, but it's a signifier, and usually of the end of the relationship. Someone who won't break bread with you is someone you can't trust, and someone who does break bread with you and then betrays you is unworthy of your disappointment.

conor_f 4y ago

I found this post to be really on point. There's a power dynamic to having more disposable income than others, especially within your peer group. This is more pronounced with tech workers (as pointed out in the post) as there's less of a monetary barrier to entry than other high paying fields, so a tech workers typical college friend group has a greater income disparity than a typical group of doctors or lawyers who tend to be more insular. Saying that this post references a non-issue or is simply untrue is misunderstanding the situation and should make you think about the financial positions of individuals within your own friend group, as well as yours relative to them.

cornel_io 4y ago

> Folks who grew up in affluent households will venmo for the salsa. This is a broad generalization that's actually the inverse of what I've seen, and I'm willing to bet I've interacted with an order of magnitude more "grew up affluent" types than the author, having grown up in one of the richest suburbs in the US. Maybe it depends on the kind of wealth, but in my social circles (both growing up and now) anyone who did something like ask for a $6 Venmo would be laughed out of the room, and if they were serious people would Start Talking about them. That is Just Not Done, people pick up small tabs and (sometimes) split large ones and don't think about it at all, to do otherwise is considered extremely crass. Any fights over tabs are usually of the alpha male variety where paying the tab is a sign of dominance (and I've seen those fights get weird, with people ninja-settling in secret before the check shows up just so they can say "it's already taken care of" and then angry fights erupting afterwards because someone else had expected to pay). Yes, there is a careless and/or arrogant disregard for money, but it does not usually come across as penny pinching and counting what other people owe you, it's more the type of thing where they'll casually assume everyone in the party would be thrilled to go to a $400/person restaurant for a celebration, not for a moment realizing how much of a stretch that is for the younger/less rich in the group and what a hard position it puts them in. I think the word the author is looking for to pick out the kind of person who sends a Venmo request for a coffee is "asshole", not "grew up wealthy". I feel like they have some axe to grind here and have ended up severely overgeneralizing as a result...

JohnFen 4y ago
There's also the possibility that it's related to cliques. Since you grew up around very wealthy people, you are socially "one of them". How they treat you, and how they treat someone a bit lower on their social hierarchy, may be very different.

rco8786 4y ago

When I first moved to SF and got “tech money” I had a group of friends and we would frequently go out, someone would order some ridiculous bottle of wine or something and it was understood that we’d all just split the tab, or occasionally even play credit card roulette just for fun. It was young people being loose with their new money, no real harm being done. My girlfriend though, was also in this group and did NOT have “tech money”. Anytime she went out without me it became an issue, because she would order herself an app and a drink while everyone else ordered champagne and caviar and then have to sheepishly request that the group itemize the bill at the end. No real point to my story I guess. Just a memory.

redanddead 4y ago
How did it affect the relationship?
- rco8786 4y ago
  They were always nice about it but it was also always a stark reminder that my gf was not really a full member of "the group" We're married with kids now and that group has all gone off in their own directions, so no real harm done.

throwoutway 4y ago

What does “Venmo for the salsa” mean and is HENRY a meme of the person who bought the coffee? The writing is pretty confusing