Comment by RickS | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RickS | Hacker News Reader

Paywall bypass: https://outline.com/bLtYCK

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> MORE THAN half of American millennials, the generation of people born between 1981 and 1996, believe that they will one day be millionaires; one in five think they will get there by the age of 40.

This, to me, is absolutely insane.

Given that it's from a survey by Ameritrade, is it possible that the survey strongly self selects for fiscally healthy people (proximity to ameritrade is probably a strong signal here), and who understand that you can be a paper millionaire with, say, one really good property and a modest retirement account?

I somewhat hope so, because if this means "half the people who work at chipotle expect to be millionaires" then that's admirably ambitious but a little miscalibrated.

Hell, I've got a decent tech salary and my brother's running a healthy lifestyle business. I wouldn't say with certainty that either of us are going to become millionaires, despite being unusually well positioned to do so.

What happens when these people's dreams collide with reality? Are people content to drift through life saying "any day now, things will turn around and make me rich..."?

Nevermind that being a millionaire isn't that important. I'd take median wealth and top decile meaning over median meaning and top decile wealth any day.

There have been numerous other surveys throughout the years including by Gallup [1] that generally all find similar results. The Gallup poll, though, was less precise and simply asked if people expected to become "rich." A directly related little datum that shows up in numerous polls is that approximately 90% of Americans think they have average or above intelligence. Average in this case of course is going to be interpreted as median.

I don't necessarily think it's arrogance so much as delusion. For instance a person paying tens of thousands of dollars for a degree of minimal utility obviously knows that this is a very bad decision deep down, but it's something they want to do - or perhaps they feel like they could not cut it in something like a STEM field. So the rationalizing kicks in. Maybe they'll become a lawyer, an author, or a speaker. They'll make millions! It'll be great! Of course it's just cognitive dissonance and self delusion.

[1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/7981/Half-Young-People-Expect-S...

It should be easy to be a millionaire by 40 in the Tech Sector, particularly if you don't end up with dependents, just save your money and don't live above your means. Almost all tech workers are paid way above the averages for the country, but we live above our means a lot of the time though.

If you look at the last 20 years if you started out as a software engineer around 2000 you probably made a lot less than $100k when you started out but you should be making more than that by the time you're 40, it should average out to around $100k.

So if you average to $100k for 20 years that's $2 million in earnings. Say you averaged 20% taxation you're down to $1.6 million. If you had $100k in student debt, which would have been a ton if you graduated in 2000, you're still at $1.5 million.

There are families which live on way less money than this, if you don't have a family and you're a tech worker you should have been able to save $1 million in that 20 years if you were maxing your 401k and being otherwise financially prudent and not living too much of a consumer lifestyle. The key thing here is if you were saving right from the start your investments have already had 20 years to grow.

I see co-workers buying new cars every 2-3 years and going out to eat every day, paying huge amounts of rent, etc.. buying every new video game that comes out at $50-60/pop, taking international trips all the time.

It's easy to spend money, but if you don't it's also easy to save it.

Even if you do have a family.. you are probably not getting married to someone making minimum wage, now you probably have 2 salaried workers earning more than the average/median, even easier to save.

Good points. I think if you are living a bachelor life, with a good tech gig paying six figures, yes you can get there by 40. If you max out retirement accts, live a decently modest lifestyle, have no debt. I bet you could hit 1million, if you are working from age 22-40.

I'd suspect some weird selection like that, given that "average millennials are in a crappy economic situation" is a very widespread sentiment (which of course is also probably a biased impression)

If you make the median tech salary of $300k and live on a fraction of that it doesn’t take that long to save $1m...

Point is there’s no magic to becoming a millionaire if you have minimal expenses and single.

Yes, you only need to make $300,000 a year. Not a big deal, really.

It’s a well known median for technical roles at Bay Area tech companies

What percent of millenials are working in the tech sector and earning the median salary? Also, is that the median salary for all tech workers, or only Silicon Valley big company workers?

the median age of a FANG worker is under 30 and median total comp for a technical role in those companies is around $300k all in

And what percent of millenials work in those jobs?

The majority of them? ICs in software skew young.

No, I'm asking what percentage of all the millenials in the US work in those jobs, not what percent of those jobs have millenials working in them.

Misses they key question: What sliver of the overall millennial population is that, compared to the 53%?

> median tech salary of $300k

Mean is probably better than median here, right? Because salary isn't quite a normal distribution. The high end is super high. 300k is normal for FAANG, but that class of tech employee is in the top 10% of the wider tech salary pool, at least.

Interesting that you call out being single. I've had the opposite experience – the trick seems to be a salary like that and a spouse that is at least pulling down a normal salary as well. If they're also making engineer money, then you're super set. If I'd have been splitting rent and groceries for the past 10 years, my finances would look a lot better.

That's not an excuse, I could have gotten a roommate with the same effect. Just to say that it seems being single raises expenses because you lose the little collaborative economies of scale.

I would put DINKs in the same group, yes (double income no kids). Kids are a very big expense, even for high earners, and actually especially in pricey areas like Silicon Valley because housing near good schools commands an even higher premium than average for that area.

Where are you getting your median tech salary of $300k from? That figure seems awfully high to me.

I really don’t think that’s the median anywhere

You mean the median of 100k? https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

Where do you get 300k from?

300k is median comp for Bay Area tech companies..

This article is about Americans, not Californians or even more specifically Bay Area tech employees.

I believe you may be not thinking outside your bubble at the rest of the world. You're actually looking at one single vocation in one single area at one single point in time and assuming that therefore all millenials should have no trouble saving that up, totally ignoring that not even most tech sector workers earn that, and the vast vast majority of millenials are not tech workers?

The opportunity to earn that much is available.

When I went to college only a few years ago the best paying jobs in consulting and banking were largely gated by what school you went to. Now students from “non-prestigious” schools or no formal schooling at all have a good chance at earning that much.

Again, if you move to the right bubble with the right education at the right time. Are you arguing that any millenial that wanted could get that education and move to SV and get a job that paid that much? Does FAANG have unlimited room for developers?

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