[PuppyTailWags]

The opportunity cost is still likely 100k/yr for the rest of your life, even with the FAANG salary to assistant professors.

consider this: You can be a new grad, get hired at Apple, and earn an entry-level salary[0]. Let's say we won't include the bonus and you get 130k/yr. You colleague is a new grad and goes to a PhD program at Duke University[1] where they earn 33k/yr.

In your first year, your PhD program colleague earns 97k less than you.

From years 1-3, your average base pay will be 138k, and your PhD colleague earns the same wage. They now earn 105k less than you for each of those years. Your colleague is in the hole over 400k opportunity wise.

In your 4th and 5th year, you can expect to earn 141k on average. Your colleague, still making 33k/yr, is now making 108k/yr less than you. At the end of 5 years, your colleague has completed their PhD and is in the hole over 600k in opportunity cost.

Now your colleague gets an associate professorship position. This assumes your colleague is extremely lucky and does not go into a post-doc. They earn 115k [2] base at NYU. In your 6th year at apple you're still making that 141k. You're still out-earning them by 26k. Your colleague is on the tenure track, which can take 6 or 7 years. [3]. All that time you're getting more and more YoE, while their pay band stays relatively the same during this time. Let's say the opportunity cost is 26k over 6 years, so an additional 156k to their over 600k.

At full professorship at NYU, your colleague is earning 162k [4] after 5 years PhD + 6 years tenure track. You, an Apple engineer (probably senior at this point), with 11 YoE are earning 165k/yr [5] at this point. Your colleague has cost themselves 750k in opportunity cost, and you're still earning a bit more than them! A full professor may never catch up to the opportunity cost of academic track, salary wise.

tl;dr: EVEN IF you get paid 160k base as a full professor, your years of phd + tenure track associate professor salary will mean you will likely never, ever catch up with someone who new-graded at a FAANG and never left that circle.

0. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Apple-Software-Engineer-New... 1. https://gradschool.duke.edu/financial-support/tuition-fees-a... 2. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/NYU-New-York-University-Ass... 3. https://www.beyondphdcoaching.com/academic-career/how-long-d... 4. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/NYU-New-York-University-Pro... 5. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Apple-Senior-Software-Engin...

[verall]

I get your using glassdoor and citing sources, but it's even worse, because someone competent enough to go straight into an associate prof position after PhD would guaranteed be making more than $200k at 6 years tenure at Apple, probably closing in on $300k.

[ModernMech]

But then you have to work at Apple. One the one hand, that's the dream of many people. On the other hand, I had some experience with people who went for that $300k, and Apple chewed them up and spit them out. They were working on a "secret project" which we all know was the driverless car. Such a shit show according to those people, so I'm glad I turned down the job. I hear the project is in zombie mode these days but who knows.

If you can put up with living inside of a police state like Apple, then maybe that's for you, but academia is such a completely different environment from that (very open and all about collaboration), it's hard to put a $$ amount on what it would take for me to put up with that abuse.

[anvuong]

If you have a PhD in CS and you get tenured track position immediately right after finishing grad school without doing any postdocs, then I guarantee you can make at least 200k/year in your first year at any decently big tech company.

I have seen people with 2-3 NIPS papers and a bunch more from other conferences failed to obtain assistant professorship, it's ridiculous right now.

[ModernMech]

I appreciate all the research you did, but you're missing several key aspects of how faculty are compensated that changes your analysis.

First, faculty salaries as reported are typically 9-month. There's an extra 3 months of earning potential for professors, where they are effectively free agents. They can spend that doing research, or any number of other activities. Or nothing

Second, professors own their work product. If you are a salaried employee at a corporation, everything you do on company time is owned by the corporation. If you try to sell your work product or take it to another job, you will likely be fired and/or sued. This is not true for faculty; we own our lectures and all the content we produce for our courses. We can take it and use it other jobs, sell it as a book, make it available for free, or anything.

Third, we own our own time off the job. I'm free to run a consultancy even though I'm employed full time as an academic. I can make as much as I want through that, and people are willing to pay what I want because of my degree and my affiliation with the institution I work at. I doubt Google will let you trade on being a Google engineer while working at Google. Indeed, most FAANGs have a clause in their contracts stating that they basically own all ideas you think of, whether on or off the clock. If you're willing to take their salary for that kind of trade, then you might think it's worth it. For academics, they think perhaps they will have a good idea one day and turn it into a startup or patent it, and many do.

Fourth, I have control over a lot of other people's money. So while I'm not paid a lot, I get to use millions of dollars in funding and equipment. If I move to another university, I can take my money and my project with me. I have hundreds of thousands of dollars of sensors and equipment in my office that I've bought over the years that I personally didn't have to spend a dime on, but which is pretty much entirely mine to use.

All this is to say that a straight comparison of salaries isn't going to get you the full story. For instance, is there any amount of money you can pay such that you can take 3 months off every summer, and still have a position in the fall? How much would you pay your company to own an idea you had on company time? Do you have an office with a door? Do you have an assistant? Do you own what you work on?

[zamnos]

> Indeed, most FAANGs have a clause in their contracts stating that they basically own all ideas you think of, whether on or off the clock

They can claim that all they want, but in California, that's not exactly true. What you do, on your off time, on your own hardware, that isn't related to a work project, is yours.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

[robwwilliams]

Great analysis and arguably much too conservative. But the assumption is that positions in industry are equally stable. In the world of startups not so much. And Google and Facebook making even FAANG look volatile.

[haweemwho]

That academia job is less stable. Bring in grants or go home. Compete with others to climb a pyramid that gets more and more narrow at the top.

Even if you are laid off at Google or Facebook, with those on your resume, anybody will take you, unless you are some weird incompetent fluke. If you didn't get a new grant, you'll have a hard time in academia. Good luck switching institutions once you are unsuccessful in the grant game.

[nanidin]

This is good analysis, but this kind of analysis misses the point that money isn’t everything.

People pursuing the university research track may simply not be optimizing their years on earth to maximize their bank accounts.