It's not clear to me how your life experience in Silicon Valley is at all comparable to the experience of the man in this story. You mention that he has a colle

It's not clear to me how your life experience in Silicon Valley is at all comparable to the experience of the man in this story. You mention that he has a college degree and, in my opinion, imply that he should be doing better than he is. The article clearly states that he recently finished college (this semester) and has already moved on to full-time work. So he is doing better and has already left this part-time position. I couldn't find any reference to this man's interest in software development or administration in the text. Minimum wage was still insufficient for this person to support themselves and their family without supplementing with a food pantry. I suspect that in 1999, this was also the case. Further, the point is also made that this large and wealthy company is saving money by dividing their workforce into two classes: employees and contractors. Certainly this is nothing new but it is an important point, for instance, below is an article about how Amazon is agressively hiring more and more contractors. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazon-insider-feature-treatment-employees-work http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazo... I don't really believe you were trying to say that anyone with sufficient drive can be a CEO with a seven figure salary, but that is how it came off. Clearly there are not enough CEO positions for everyone that would like one, regardless of their skills or credentials.