4 ms·

>You're never going to get moderately rich working for someone else, especially at a corporation without a union I don't know what you mean by 'moderately rich

>You're never going to get moderately rich working for someone else, especially at a corporation without a union I don't know what you mean by 'moderately rich', but I know multiple people who have saved millions of dollars (including myself), some of which who were able to retire early by working for 'someone else' - also none of which are union shops. Do you really not know that many people have gotten quite rich working for FAANG companies? Do you also not know these people are much richer than union workers?

burnt-resistor 1y ago
MS+MAANG only. That's a survivor-biased anecdotal example, not a widely-applicable strategy. Most people outside of the supersized corporations make around $60-100k, not $250k-1m+ TC at MS+MAANG. Founders exiting make much more, usually/hopefully several million per (successful) exit. I was making $10k/week doing tech consulting 10 years ago. Ordinary people, in specialized fields like contingent tax credit audit accounting, make much more on their own rather than working for someone else. This type of worker is, by far, more numerous in the real world™ of America than software engineers on HN.
- paulcole 1y ago
  There is quite a big gap between $100k and $250k. If you happen to find yourself in that gap you can become moderately rich over a period of several decades by living frugally and investing in index funds with excess cash. Or don’t do that and don’t become moderately rich. That is fine, too! It’s not impossible but you must prioritize the goal of becoming moderately rich over other goals.
  - burnt-resistor 1y ago
    That's a lot of added work and extremely limiting constraints when you can just get a better job continually rather than getting complacent and grow one or more side-hustles.
    - paulcole 1y ago
      I don’t understand what the added work and extremely limiting constraints are? I feel like buying VTI is much less added work than continually getting a better job?
- VirusNewbie 1y ago
  >That's a survivor-biased anecdotal example, not a widely-applicable strategy There's what, half a million or more engineers at these companies? You think there are just as many software consultants or entrepreneurs making it rich? I think both cases are not widely-applicable strategies. If you can get rich being an entrepreneur, congrats, that's great. Making ~40k a month doing tech consulting is fantastic, good for you. But saying "you'll never get rich working for someone else" when many of us have half a million to a million unvested shares (or many more, if at Meta or Nvidia) we are waiting on is just false.
  - burnt-resistor 1y ago
    But not all in the US. 300k tops. 1.3M SWEs in the US. That's 1M SWEs and a few million more other kinds of engineers and knowledge workers who don't have the luxury of being in MS+MAANG. I did some work for a civil engineer who did ASME boiler and pressure vessel code consulting who made $60k (2000 dollars) for 1-2 hours worth of work. He did between 30 and 50 of them a year. Top talent turning a side-hustle into a sellable business can easily double one's lifetime income. I think you're just stuck that your way is "right" and cannot accept contrary data.

burnt-resistor 1y ago

MS+MAANG only. That's a survivor-biased anecdotal example, not a widely-applicable strategy. Most people outside of the supersized corporations make around $60-100k, not $250k-1m+ TC at MS+MAANG. Founders exiting make much more, usually/hopefully several million per (successful) exit. I was making $10k/week doing tech consulting 10 years ago. Ordinary people, in specialized fields like contingent tax credit audit accounting, make much more on their own rather than working for someone else. This type of worker is, by far, more numerous in the real world™ of America than software engineers on HN.

paulcole 1y ago
There is quite a big gap between $100k and $250k. If you happen to find yourself in that gap you can become moderately rich over a period of several decades by living frugally and investing in index funds with excess cash. Or don’t do that and don’t become moderately rich. That is fine, too! It’s not impossible but you must prioritize the goal of becoming moderately rich over other goals.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  That's a lot of added work and extremely limiting constraints when you can just get a better job continually rather than getting complacent and grow one or more side-hustles.
  - paulcole 1y ago
    I don’t understand what the added work and extremely limiting constraints are? I feel like buying VTI is much less added work than continually getting a better job?
VirusNewbie 1y ago
>That's a survivor-biased anecdotal example, not a widely-applicable strategy There's what, half a million or more engineers at these companies? You think there are just as many software consultants or entrepreneurs making it rich? I think both cases are not widely-applicable strategies. If you can get rich being an entrepreneur, congrats, that's great. Making ~40k a month doing tech consulting is fantastic, good for you. But saying "you'll never get rich working for someone else" when many of us have half a million to a million unvested shares (or many more, if at Meta or Nvidia) we are waiting on is just false.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  But not all in the US. 300k tops. 1.3M SWEs in the US. That's 1M SWEs and a few million more other kinds of engineers and knowledge workers who don't have the luxury of being in MS+MAANG. I did some work for a civil engineer who did ASME boiler and pressure vessel code consulting who made $60k (2000 dollars) for 1-2 hours worth of work. He did between 30 and 50 of them a year. Top talent turning a side-hustle into a sellable business can easily double one's lifetime income. I think you're just stuck that your way is "right" and cannot accept contrary data.