[InterimNew]

22 and 23 year olds making $200k+ a year? For doing what, exactly? Contributing 0.001% of the codebase to an app that sells advertisements?

It may not have been your intent, but your comment has (at least on my read) an accusatory tone. You ask a number of rhetorical questions which indicate that you have low-regard for the work of the engineers in question.

You appear to be doubling down on this with your recent comment.

Why so defensive

Calling someone defensive because they disagree with you is uncivil and a great way to start an argument. In the most literal sense of the word, my comment offers some justification for these salaries because yours appears to discredit them.

[tidepod12]

>It may not have been your intent, but your comment has (at least on my read) an accusatory tone. You ask a number of rhetorical questions which indicate that you have low-regard for the work of the engineers in question.

I do have low regard for the engineers in question (low regard in terms of their ability and worthiness of salary, obviously not low regard in terms of their person). The majority of engineers in SV are working on products that primarily exist to serve advertisements to customers. They don't deserve $200k+ for that, and it makes me sad that society has decided these are the people that are paid this much while teachers and nurses are actually starving.

You say that self-driving car engineers deserve it? Really? Show me the 22 year olds that have contributed meaningfully to self-driving technology. But you can't. Because the people making the meaningful contributions (read: worthy of being paid $200k+) are much more experienced, have been working in the field much longer, and are much older. They are not 22 year old new grads.

>Calling someone defensive because they disagree with you is uncivil and a great way to start an argument. In the most literal sense of the word, my comment offers some justification for these salaries because yours appears to discredit them.

And claiming that someone is accusing blame (when they haven't) is also uncivil and a great way to start an argument.

[asciident]

Just curious, did you have the same feeling towards the many decades when law and finance new grads were making $200K-300K (and many still do)? Is writing reports about financial statements of a company or proofreading legal text a more worthy endeavor than making apps/websites that attract users? Are those new grads making meaningful contributions to society?

[tidepod12]

>Just curious, did you have the same feeling towards the many decades when law and finance new grads were making $200K-300K (and many still do)?

Yes. The difference (aside from the fact that this particular post is specifically about SV, not about law and finance) is that I have never seen lawyers, doctors, or even investment bankers (although yes I have seen Wolf of Wall Street) be so casual about the fact that their salaries are so high. In another comment in this thread, someone suggested that having an extra $5,000 disposable per month was not a lot of money. That is absurd to me, and I have never experienced any of my doctor or lawyer friends have that same attitude.

[literallycancer]

Maybe doctors and lawyers just know better than to talk finances with outsiders.

[balfirevic]

Do you think having extra $50 disposable per month is a lot of money? There was a time when it would be hugely important for me, and now it is not.

What "lot of money" means is entirely relative to how much money you have because for most people it means "would it translate to large difference in lifestyle".

Also, if we are talking about the comment by refurb, it said "rolling in cash" which does not carry the same connotations as "lot of money".

[tidepod12]

>What "lot of money" means is entirely relative to how much money you have because for most people it means "would it translate to large difference in lifestyle".

Yes, and my entire point (or at least, the one started by the original top level comment) is that SV has strayed really far from the typical level of "relative" that most of the rest of the country operates on.

[abledon]

thank you for responding so elegantly in a 7+ depth argument to multiple posters each with their own critiques. This is what i read HN for. The parent node comment having to provide a rebuttal for every child lol

[InterimNew]

I see.

I saw somewhere else in the thread that you yourself are a new grad, so I'll chalk this up to lack of experience but on sufficiently large products it is trivial to make incremental changes that will produce more value then your salary. In my own career I saved a big tech company 250k in reoccurring costs with a 9 month project I completed as a junior. Yes, that number is a rounding error for a large company but the value is clear.

Additionally, perhaps you have never built a team before, but the value of a potential employee extends beyond their year-to-year output. If, for example, I have great confidence that a currently junior hire will output ~$1M of value over a four year period than I am willing to overpay that first year as they grow and develop.

This isn't going anywhere interesting and I am uninterested in continuing the conversation further. Have a nice day :)

(There is a certain irony to me about this back and forth. A large portion of my personal time is spent volunteering in an organization that agitates for unions and other forms of direct action aimed at tackling the gross inequity of this society head-on. You're clearly keyed in to a real and present problem, but rather than suggest any solutions you've decided to whinge ineffectively about... developer salaries?)

[billhathaway]

For the companies in question, the senior engineers making bigger contributions are earning $400k+.

[cbm-vic-20]

Some day, the money people will figure out that there are lots of experienced talent outside the SV bubble.

[pb7]

>teachers and nurses are actually starving

Citation needed.

[tidepod12]

[flagged]

[pb7]

None of those links support your claim that teachers and nurses are starving. Having a relatively low income (according to polls!) does not mean you are dying on the streets due to malnutrition. Taking a second job does not mean the alternative is peril. I could take a second job to afford a better Ferrari but that does not mean I can't afford a car. Try again.

[tidepod12]

The third link literally has 'starving' in the title, referring to the schools and teachers that work there. It is common parlance to use the term 'starving' to refer to more than just 'dying on the streets due to malnutrition'. You know this, but you chose to nitpick the word instead of interpreting my comment the way you knew I meant it. Please do not do that, it is against the HN guidelines.

>Taking a second job does not mean the alternative is peril. I could take a second job to afford a better Ferrari but that does not mean I can't afford a car. Try again.

We aren't talking about teachers taking a second job so that they can afford niceties or a new car. We're talking about teachers taking a second job just so they can afford rent. Many of them are on federal subsidy programs just so they can afford food.

[pb7]

What was that you said about it being VERY important that we agree on the usage of words? Apparently “blame” only has one definition but it’s okay to say a person is actually starving (your exact words) and really mean that their organization is short on resources. I’m glad you searched “teachers starving” and copy and pasted the first 4 links you saw that had the words in the headline but they don’t support your argument. In fact, no one here has supported your argument because it is nothing more than virtue signaling coming from the very person you hate.