8 ms·

The entitlement culture in the tech industry is mind boggling. One day we may look back and wonder how we ever had it so good. Perhaps we'll even envy the perso

by adnam 14y ago

The entitlement culture in the tech industry is mind boggling. One day we may look back and wonder how we ever had it so good. Perhaps we'll even envy the person paid $1 per day to suck the gold off our old circuit boards.

obviouslygreen 14y ago
Those of us with an ounce of humility or perspective (I suspect that includes you) seem less likely to have that kind of problem... though honestly, I don't think this "entitlement culture" is an industry-wide problem. It seems, from what I'm seeing, largely concentrated on the coasts, particularly the one mentioned in this post. Attitudes and perspectives are vastly different in other places, even more than you would normally expect outside of tech.
nthj 14y ago
Entitlement is when you're a welfare recipient smoking dope and watching TV all day and demanding everybody else cover your existence. Demanding market rates is a rational response to a job offer, and I do not understand why otherwise rational engineers romanticize working for less than they are worth simply because "engineers make a lot of money."
vhiremath4 14y ago
People in tech don't realize just how lucky they are. I'm 20 with no wife or kids, and I'm making more per year than certainly almost all of my friends will be making after they choose to actually finish college and get a salaried job. However, I'm told by people that myself and my colleagues are getting underpaid (we work at a startup). Ridiculous.
- nthj 14y ago
  > However, I'm told by people that myself and my colleagues are getting underpaid (we work at a startup). That's how “market rate“ works. A profession's salary has nothing to do with what you deserve and everything to do with how your specific combination of skills are valued by the free market.
  - vhiremath4 14y ago
    I agree. I didn't phrase my comment correctly. I suppose what I'm really amazed by is the fact that those people don't seem to understand why I'm not angry about my situation. I don't know. Maybe it's because I've been lucky enough to have parents who have exposed me to extreme poverty at a young age (several trips to India). There are just too many wrongs in the world for someone like me to be complaining about not being able to save up for shiny new product X, Y days earlier because my employer isn't paying me 10s of thousands of dollars more on top of the 10s of thousands of dollars I'm already making.
    - revelation 14y ago
      Yes, humility is important, but it doesn't mean you should be exploited by someone who has no such qualms at all.
    - nthj 14y ago
      > There are just too many wrongs in the world for someone like me to be complaining about not being able to save up for shiny new product X, Y days earlier I don't complain when a startup can't afford me, it's just business. But I also don't work for them.
    - bearmf 14y ago
      It is ridiculous that people judge whether you should or should not be angry/happy/sad etc. with your situation. It is impossible to judge correctly, all people need different things to be happy. Assuming that money is the universal measure of happiness is usually wrong. That is probably why you sound happier than the guy in the OP.
- khuey 14y ago
  You can be simultaneously underpaid and making significantly more than your friends ...
- nilkn 14y ago
  Two different definitions of "underpaid" are in operation here. The one you're using has to do with how much you deserve as a person. You see yourself as no different from your friends. You pursued something that interested you and it led you to a job. They are probably doing the same thing. Yet here you are making more than all of them. What have you done to deserve that? Most likely, nothing at all. You were lucky to enjoy something which led you to this end. You never sought out money; you just ended up getting what seems like more than your fair share of it. The other definition, the one that almost everybody here on HN will use, is one devoid of human connections. It's just about what the market rate is in comparison to how much value, dollar-wise, you produce for the corporation you work for.
pnathan 14y ago
How is this entitlement? He's rationally comparing total compensation packages and choosing the one that benefits him the best. This is something that even high schoolers working crappy unskilled jobs do. They look at the market and pick the job they feels the best suited for them. Yes, this particular individual gets well compensated compared to many. So what?
- nilkn 14y ago
  It's his tone which comes off as entitled to me. Very, very entitled. He sounds like one cocky dude to me. Let's all take a moment to reflect on a few things. For instance, we are pretty lucky to be passionate about something which just happens to be pretty good at producing a lot of monetary value for companies, and consequently it's not too hard for us to convince companies to pay us a lot and give us great benefits. My dad works harder than me, is over twice my age, and gets paid less than me. I'd have to be extraordinarily entitled to say that I somehow deserve more than he gets. And yet somehow I do get more. Such is the world.
  - swilk 14y ago
    All my finance friends make about 10x what my engineer friends make and work equally hard. If you compare engineers to lawyers, doctors, and executives we are very much underpaid.
    - nilkn 14y ago
      I don't see the point. There's always going to be someone making far, far more money than you make. It doesn't matter if you're an engineer, a lawyer, a doctor, an executive, or the president of a country. That doesn't mean that you should feel so inherently entitled to the compensation that you do get. While some executive may be making 10x your salary, you're probably making 10x the salary of someone else who works just as hard as you do.
      - bennyg 14y ago
        Exactly, I know plenty of people in the food industry that work harder than some engineers I've seen.
michaelochurch 14y ago
The "entitlement culture" known as "management" in most organizations has been mind-boggling for decades. One day we may look back and wonder how we resisted the temptation to blow our brains out amid the nonsensical executive meddling. Perhaps we'll even pity the person paid $100 per day to babysit children, previously a high-ranking executive deploying that same skill set. There's a problem with "entitlement" in business. It's on the other side of the desk.
bijanv 14y ago
There's a difference between the type of tech job as well (cushy 9-5'er with few responsibilities or YC 100+ hour job). I don't think he's being very unreasonable for the work hours and dedication involved with getting a startup off the ground actually!
ebiester 14y ago
The truth is that startups can ask for a disproportionate amount of opportunity risk (compared to market rates) from early employees compared to the potential reward. The more experience you have, the more aware you are of this gap. You have to decide how much marginal value an engineer can provide. If it cannot pay for an experienced Silicon Valley engineer, there are other options. Personally, I took a steep discount for years for the privilege of working where I chose. (And when my current contract is closer to ending, I may entertain that again.) However, don't mistake experience for entitlement. ___ As for your other part, is is possible that we will look back and wonder how we ever had it so good. However, that day will have to wait until we're no longer capable of individually generating hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue for our respective companies.

by adnam 14y ago

obviouslygreen 14y ago

Those of us with an ounce of humility or perspective (I suspect that includes you) seem less likely to have that kind of problem... though honestly, I don't think this "entitlement culture" is an industry-wide problem. It seems, from what I'm seeing, largely concentrated on the coasts, particularly the one mentioned in this post. Attitudes and perspectives are vastly different in other places, even more than you would normally expect outside of tech.

nthj 14y ago

Entitlement is when you're a welfare recipient smoking dope and watching TV all day and demanding everybody else cover your existence. Demanding market rates is a rational response to a job offer, and I do not understand why otherwise rational engineers romanticize working for less than they are worth simply because "engineers make a lot of money."

vhiremath4 14y ago

People in tech don't realize just how lucky they are. I'm 20 with no wife or kids, and I'm making more per year than certainly almost all of my friends will be making after they choose to actually finish college and get a salaried job. However, I'm told by people that myself and my colleagues are getting underpaid (we work at a startup). Ridiculous.

nthj 14y ago
> However, I'm told by people that myself and my colleagues are getting underpaid (we work at a startup). That's how “market rate“ works. A profession's salary has nothing to do with what you deserve and everything to do with how your specific combination of skills are valued by the free market.
- vhiremath4 14y ago
  I agree. I didn't phrase my comment correctly. I suppose what I'm really amazed by is the fact that those people don't seem to understand why I'm not angry about my situation. I don't know. Maybe it's because I've been lucky enough to have parents who have exposed me to extreme poverty at a young age (several trips to India). There are just too many wrongs in the world for someone like me to be complaining about not being able to save up for shiny new product X, Y days earlier because my employer isn't paying me 10s of thousands of dollars more on top of the 10s of thousands of dollars I'm already making.
  - revelation 14y ago
    Yes, humility is important, but it doesn't mean you should be exploited by someone who has no such qualms at all.
  - nthj 14y ago
    > There are just too many wrongs in the world for someone like me to be complaining about not being able to save up for shiny new product X, Y days earlier I don't complain when a startup can't afford me, it's just business. But I also don't work for them.
  - bearmf 14y ago
    It is ridiculous that people judge whether you should or should not be angry/happy/sad etc. with your situation. It is impossible to judge correctly, all people need different things to be happy. Assuming that money is the universal measure of happiness is usually wrong. That is probably why you sound happier than the guy in the OP.
khuey 14y ago
You can be simultaneously underpaid and making significantly more than your friends ...
nilkn 14y ago
Two different definitions of "underpaid" are in operation here. The one you're using has to do with how much you deserve as a person. You see yourself as no different from your friends. You pursued something that interested you and it led you to a job. They are probably doing the same thing. Yet here you are making more than all of them. What have you done to deserve that? Most likely, nothing at all. You were lucky to enjoy something which led you to this end. You never sought out money; you just ended up getting what seems like more than your fair share of it. The other definition, the one that almost everybody here on HN will use, is one devoid of human connections. It's just about what the market rate is in comparison to how much value, dollar-wise, you produce for the corporation you work for.

pnathan 14y ago

How is this entitlement? He's rationally comparing total compensation packages and choosing the one that benefits him the best. This is something that even high schoolers working crappy unskilled jobs do. They look at the market and pick the job they feels the best suited for them. Yes, this particular individual gets well compensated compared to many. So what?

nilkn 14y ago
It's his tone which comes off as entitled to me. Very, very entitled. He sounds like one cocky dude to me. Let's all take a moment to reflect on a few things. For instance, we are pretty lucky to be passionate about something which just happens to be pretty good at producing a lot of monetary value for companies, and consequently it's not too hard for us to convince companies to pay us a lot and give us great benefits. My dad works harder than me, is over twice my age, and gets paid less than me. I'd have to be extraordinarily entitled to say that I somehow deserve more than he gets. And yet somehow I do get more. Such is the world.
- swilk 14y ago
  All my finance friends make about 10x what my engineer friends make and work equally hard. If you compare engineers to lawyers, doctors, and executives we are very much underpaid.
  - nilkn 14y ago
    I don't see the point. There's always going to be someone making far, far more money than you make. It doesn't matter if you're an engineer, a lawyer, a doctor, an executive, or the president of a country. That doesn't mean that you should feel so inherently entitled to the compensation that you do get. While some executive may be making 10x your salary, you're probably making 10x the salary of someone else who works just as hard as you do.
    - bennyg 14y ago
      Exactly, I know plenty of people in the food industry that work harder than some engineers I've seen.

michaelochurch 14y ago

The "entitlement culture" known as "management" in most organizations has been mind-boggling for decades. One day we may look back and wonder how we resisted the temptation to blow our brains out amid the nonsensical executive meddling. Perhaps we'll even pity the person paid $100 per day to babysit children, previously a high-ranking executive deploying that same skill set. There's a problem with "entitlement" in business. It's on the other side of the desk.

bijanv 14y ago

There's a difference between the type of tech job as well (cushy 9-5'er with few responsibilities or YC 100+ hour job). I don't think he's being very unreasonable for the work hours and dedication involved with getting a startup off the ground actually!

ebiester 14y ago

The truth is that startups can ask for a disproportionate amount of opportunity risk (compared to market rates) from early employees compared to the potential reward. The more experience you have, the more aware you are of this gap. You have to decide how much marginal value an engineer can provide. If it cannot pay for an experienced Silicon Valley engineer, there are other options. Personally, I took a steep discount for years for the privilege of working where I chose. (And when my current contract is closer to ending, I may entertain that again.) However, don't mistake experience for entitlement. ___ As for your other part, is is possible that we will look back and wonder how we ever had it so good. However, that day will have to wait until we're no longer capable of individually generating hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue for our respective companies.