Hacker News Reader

Does your company offer a 401k matching program? If so, that is basically an instant 100% return. If they are not matching, then you might be right, but if their is a match on the table, it probably makes sense to max that out.

View on HN

This advice is common. It should come with the caveat to investigate the vesting timeline for that 401k match. One of my former employers matched at a great rate, but that contribution did not vest until you had spent 4 years at the company. Given the rate of turnover at lower-seniority positions in the industry (PR agency), it was entirely unrealistic for more than half of the employees there to ever expect to see the benefit of that match.

That is a good point. I did a quick internet search, and it looks like the max number of years for cliff vestings is now 3 years, which for most people is fairly reasonable. For gradual vesting, it looks like they can spread it out over 6 years, which seems a bit much, but at least you are vesting some of it over time.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employ...

Hah, I should have mentioned, yea we have no matching. Good catch!

We do have options though. Those will vest into millions... one day.... any day now....

Reply on news.ycombinator.com