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It sounds good. But it kind of reminds me of High School Football or Basketball Players (choose a high paying professional sport). Who bank their whole futur

It sounds good. But it kind of reminds me of High School Football or Basketball Players (choose a high paying professional sport). Who bank their whole future on focusing on one thing that is Super-Low-Percentage-Of-Success-High-Paying-Job. How many football players skip their education, and then DON'T make it? Where do they end up. Now, think Joe Blow Computer Science Major, is NOT going to be a Millionaire, but a decade later when they are applying for some middle tier IT Job, they will damn well need to show a degree..

mattlondon 3y ago
There are often posts on here showing that it is better to spend say 10 or even 5 years doing 35-40 hour weeks at a FAANG where your total comp will end up being $2-5,000,000 over that time, than risk it at a startup working 80+ hour weeks for a chance at the big time but ultimately leave with nothing apart from exhaustion and an unheard-of failed startup on your resume. I think there is a lot of truth in that. And yeah I went to school with a bunch of kids who had semi-success as a teenager at sports or music, only to then not make it big when they needed to at 16 or 17 etc. Perhaps they all ended up at successful unicorns or are L7-FAANGs, but I doubt it
- JohnFen 3y ago
  But that's also a false dichotomy. There are many options aside from those two.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    It can look like a false dichotomy because we are posting short blurbs on the internet, not the pros/cons of a thousand different life stories so we can categorize them into a dozen possible outcomes so we have more than two examples. But it is very much a common theme in High Earning/Low Success Rate roles, to have a lot of people shoot for them, fall short, and be in a worse position than if they had studied and stayed some more mundane course.
    - mattlondon 3y ago
      Yep - one could say that "a relatively small amount of force applied in just the right place" is enough for people to make bona fide bad decisions both career-wise and financially by chasing unrealistic dreams that have ultimately done them a huge disservice. At best they can dust themselves off after a few years and "catch up" to where their potential should have been, at worst they are financially ruined and laden with debt as they tried to boot-strap their crap startup idea while PG et al laugh all the way to the bank at these poor impressionable people's expense.
      - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
        LOL. Yeah, like my friend gently nudged me to do some meth, now I'm living in a ditch.
- tqi 3y ago
  The economics of the Bay Area really distorts things. If you make 2M over 10 years, you will almost certainly have enough money to live a good life (never go hungry, able to travel, etc), but you will absolutely not have enough to buy a house or start a family. I think this realization is what drives folks to take a third path, which is starting at established Big Tech companies before moving to early stage startups.
  - sonicshadow 3y ago
    I almost fell for the trap a few years ago, someone was trying to convince me that making 200k in the Bay Area for 5 years and then "retiring" back to my mid-size city was far more profitable than just staying put near my family and friends and making a "measly" half of that, in a place where houses costs a third as much and the lifestyle is healthier.
- angarg12 3y ago
  It drives me nuts when people point at engineers making $1M on a startup exit, without counting the average income over their tenure. If they worked in the company 5 years with a 100k base salary, the income averages to about 300k per year. Sure, that's a healthy income, but it's about on par with a big tech salary, with the difference that big tech is more stable and predictable, and not heavily backloaded.
btilly 3y ago
The hit rate in the article is almost 1/4. That's a lot better than high school sports. The fallback if you don't succeed is called "programmer". And no, programmers don't need college degrees if they have real world experience. I've known a lot of very successful programmers with no college degree at all.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Not if the denominator is all Computer Science students who may think of dropping out of school when seeing these success stories. And The days of hacking something together and getting a job are kind of dwindling if not gone. The days of self learning, and showing skill isn't really as prevalent anymore. Sure, it was like that during 90-2000's. But these days, not so much.
  - btilly 3y ago
    If what you said was true, coding bootcamps would require you to have a college degree. They don't require it. And still place people without degrees at all sorts of companies. Maybe you are somewhere that it is required. But in general, it really is not.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      You wouldn't need a degree for the boot camp, you are saying a boot camp is a replacement for a degree. That these two options are equal for a company hiring. Aren't a lot of coding boot-camps going bankrupt and closing, and having various scandals for over-inflating their placement numbers? Don't get me wrong, I really love the idea of picking up a book, teaching myself, and going and getting a job. It's just that this is a quickly fading option.
timewasterthrow 3y ago
Peoples say the odds are ultra low, and talk a lot of young people out of trying. I played freshman football. I was ok. I'm 6'4", smart enough to get into Cal MechE, decently capable physically and grow muscle easily and have never been injured in my life basically even though I ride dirtbikes. My dad got me to give up on football. Later I found out that if you look at all highschool players that play all 4 years, the odds of making it are about 0.1% or 1 in 1000. That includes tons of players that are basically playing casually and not really physically the right body type to make it. If you make it to college football, something that I could have somewhere with my academics and size, the odds are about 1 in 100. At that point you can argue that just about everyone is physically capable of potentially making it, just missing the skill. But take away those that are playing still just to play with no plans of going further and thus train about that way (I'd argue thats about half of them), that means that 1 in 50 serious football players at the college level can make it. If my dad had told me that with my size and decent brain I had about 1 in 50 chance of making it, I would have stuck with it. Even if I failed, I would have learned a lot from the team work and gotten a lot of value from the comradery IMO. Instead I studied a lot more, passed some AP tests, and got some boring as hell mech engineering degree.
- bagacrap 3y ago
  You make it sound as if all you need to do is study, try hard, and roll a 50-sided die. Obviously that is not sufficient. And anyone who's playing in the NFL today was far better than "ok" at all previous levels of competition.
  - timewasterthrow 3y ago
    I actually think its better than rolling a 50 sided die. That was me just being nice about it. I think if you actually actively work with the goal of making it to the NFL, your odds are even better than 1 in 50. For example, sprinting times are atleast looked at. How often have you heard of a highschool or college athlete hiring a running and sprinting coach? I assure you its not very often. (my college gf of 7 years that went onto med school worked in medical services for our athletic department). Also, your comment about the people that make it being obvious standouts during their first year of play is basically more of the type of thinking my dad told me to discourage me from playing. I honestly dont think its true that most professionals were obvious "This kid is going to make it to the nfl one day for sure!" kind of players, atleast not their first year.

mattlondon 3y ago

There are often posts on here showing that it is better to spend say 10 or even 5 years doing 35-40 hour weeks at a FAANG where your total comp will end up being $2-5,000,000 over that time, than risk it at a startup working 80+ hour weeks for a chance at the big time but ultimately leave with nothing apart from exhaustion and an unheard-of failed startup on your resume. I think there is a lot of truth in that. And yeah I went to school with a bunch of kids who had semi-success as a teenager at sports or music, only to then not make it big when they needed to at 16 or 17 etc. Perhaps they all ended up at successful unicorns or are L7-FAANGs, but I doubt it

JohnFen 3y ago
But that's also a false dichotomy. There are many options aside from those two.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  It can look like a false dichotomy because we are posting short blurbs on the internet, not the pros/cons of a thousand different life stories so we can categorize them into a dozen possible outcomes so we have more than two examples. But it is very much a common theme in High Earning/Low Success Rate roles, to have a lot of people shoot for them, fall short, and be in a worse position than if they had studied and stayed some more mundane course.
  - mattlondon 3y ago
    Yep - one could say that "a relatively small amount of force applied in just the right place" is enough for people to make bona fide bad decisions both career-wise and financially by chasing unrealistic dreams that have ultimately done them a huge disservice. At best they can dust themselves off after a few years and "catch up" to where their potential should have been, at worst they are financially ruined and laden with debt as they tried to boot-strap their crap startup idea while PG et al laugh all the way to the bank at these poor impressionable people's expense.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      LOL. Yeah, like my friend gently nudged me to do some meth, now I'm living in a ditch.
tqi 3y ago
The economics of the Bay Area really distorts things. If you make 2M over 10 years, you will almost certainly have enough money to live a good life (never go hungry, able to travel, etc), but you will absolutely not have enough to buy a house or start a family. I think this realization is what drives folks to take a third path, which is starting at established Big Tech companies before moving to early stage startups.
- sonicshadow 3y ago
  I almost fell for the trap a few years ago, someone was trying to convince me that making 200k in the Bay Area for 5 years and then "retiring" back to my mid-size city was far more profitable than just staying put near my family and friends and making a "measly" half of that, in a place where houses costs a third as much and the lifestyle is healthier.
angarg12 3y ago
It drives me nuts when people point at engineers making $1M on a startup exit, without counting the average income over their tenure. If they worked in the company 5 years with a 100k base salary, the income averages to about 300k per year. Sure, that's a healthy income, but it's about on par with a big tech salary, with the difference that big tech is more stable and predictable, and not heavily backloaded.

btilly 3y ago

The hit rate in the article is almost 1/4. That's a lot better than high school sports. The fallback if you don't succeed is called "programmer". And no, programmers don't need college degrees if they have real world experience. I've known a lot of very successful programmers with no college degree at all.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Not if the denominator is all Computer Science students who may think of dropping out of school when seeing these success stories. And The days of hacking something together and getting a job are kind of dwindling if not gone. The days of self learning, and showing skill isn't really as prevalent anymore. Sure, it was like that during 90-2000's. But these days, not so much.
- btilly 3y ago
  If what you said was true, coding bootcamps would require you to have a college degree. They don't require it. And still place people without degrees at all sorts of companies. Maybe you are somewhere that it is required. But in general, it really is not.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    You wouldn't need a degree for the boot camp, you are saying a boot camp is a replacement for a degree. That these two options are equal for a company hiring. Aren't a lot of coding boot-camps going bankrupt and closing, and having various scandals for over-inflating their placement numbers? Don't get me wrong, I really love the idea of picking up a book, teaching myself, and going and getting a job. It's just that this is a quickly fading option.

timewasterthrow 3y ago

Peoples say the odds are ultra low, and talk a lot of young people out of trying. I played freshman football. I was ok. I'm 6'4", smart enough to get into Cal MechE, decently capable physically and grow muscle easily and have never been injured in my life basically even though I ride dirtbikes. My dad got me to give up on football. Later I found out that if you look at all highschool players that play all 4 years, the odds of making it are about 0.1% or 1 in 1000. That includes tons of players that are basically playing casually and not really physically the right body type to make it. If you make it to college football, something that I could have somewhere with my academics and size, the odds are about 1 in 100. At that point you can argue that just about everyone is physically capable of potentially making it, just missing the skill. But take away those that are playing still just to play with no plans of going further and thus train about that way (I'd argue thats about half of them), that means that 1 in 50 serious football players at the college level can make it. If my dad had told me that with my size and decent brain I had about 1 in 50 chance of making it, I would have stuck with it. Even if I failed, I would have learned a lot from the team work and gotten a lot of value from the comradery IMO. Instead I studied a lot more, passed some AP tests, and got some boring as hell mech engineering degree.

bagacrap 3y ago
You make it sound as if all you need to do is study, try hard, and roll a 50-sided die. Obviously that is not sufficient. And anyone who's playing in the NFL today was far better than "ok" at all previous levels of competition.
- timewasterthrow 3y ago
  I actually think its better than rolling a 50 sided die. That was me just being nice about it. I think if you actually actively work with the goal of making it to the NFL, your odds are even better than 1 in 50. For example, sprinting times are atleast looked at. How often have you heard of a highschool or college athlete hiring a running and sprinting coach? I assure you its not very often. (my college gf of 7 years that went onto med school worked in medical services for our athletic department). Also, your comment about the people that make it being obvious standouts during their first year of play is basically more of the type of thinking my dad told me to discourage me from playing. I honestly dont think its true that most professionals were obvious "This kid is going to make it to the nfl one day for sure!" kind of players, atleast not their first year.