I've made a career out of small startups, and I wouldn't trade it for a thing. On the other hand, if I'd gone to work for Amazon straight out of college, I'd probably have a boat by now.
Earlier this year (before COVID), I interviewed with Microsoft, as they were looking for people with security clearances to work on Azure services. I apparently passed at least one of the four interviews, as they made me an offer. However... the offer contained minimal details on what I would be working on or doing, just a vague description that it was an Azure infrastructure service team. The recruiter himself didn't have any information to answer my questions. If I were just coming out of college, I'd be fine with that level of unknown, but as someone with about ten years of experience and who knows what he likes to work on, I wasn't going to take the risk of ending up on a miserably boring project (again).
Who wouldn't be with those salary levels? You basically have the golden ticket in your hand.
If your goal in life is to be rich, it's not bad, I guess. If you really love doing good tech, it's stultifying.
I also find the idea of "basic economics" laughable given how impossible economics is in the first place. I mean, yes, if you assume spherical cows...
It kinda is, isn't it? The fun, fulfilling job is one that everybody is happy to do. The boring, soul-devouring job is where you need to encourage people to do it by offering more money.
It's called 'psychic income', and it is something that people will accept, to some extent, as a substitute for cash comp.
This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more. There are a lot of people who enjoy teaching, and not a lot who enjoy garbage collecting.
https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_econstat_wp_5...
Looks like the median pay for garbage collectors is $37,840[0] and for teachers it is $59,420[1]
[0]https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537081.htm
[1]https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobil...
For example, college professors receive psychic income, but they make much more than garbage collectors. They make less than stock brokers, which is another career option available to people who can get PhDs, in general.
That's not the impression you gave. You gave the impression that garbage collectors make more than teachers.
>This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more
Teachers < other professions < garbage collectors
I get now that you meant to say was
Teachers < similar professions to teachers
Garbage collectors > similar professions to garbage collectors
I've heard many arguments that teacher make less than X profession, so the former wasn't an unreasonable interpretation given the phrasing.
Knowing what you meant to say. I don't think garbage collector pay is good supporting evidence for psychic income. Garbage collector pays well because it is a physically unpleasant job. What's an example of a substitute job that is similarly physically unpleasant that pays less because people find it fulfilling?
Basic supply and demand. Fun jobs mean more people apply to the job. The employer can pick the cheapest employees. Employees can get an edge over their peers by lowering their salary expectations because they value the job more than the money.
I honestly don't even think that this is a bad trade off. There are lots of jobs where you get access to equipment that you could never afford even if you had a higher salary. Think of working at a company like SpaceX or doing research at a university.
Anyone who'd bought AMZN probably has a boat by now.
The delayed liquidity of the extremely long startup adolescence in recent years ("startups" that are 10+ years old and where almost all of the big value growth is in the rear-view mirror) is, IMHO, a big part of this.
i.e. you can join a startup that is already successful (the winner has been picked, Amazon, Google, Uber, ...) and safely with less variance expect to gain more expected value than you'll on average get from trying to pick the next winner. If you say "but startups are win win" then I'll say "but he's saying monopolists are win win win"
Microsoft was already an OS monopoly by 1990, but after that is when it really started to make real money, and for a lot more people than had worked there in the 80's. Because monopolizing a niche industry is nothing compared to growing the monopoly to mainstream acceptance.
you don't have to agree with his assessment; I'm just trying to clarify that he is saying something, not just selecting a point on a gaussian.
I'm not saying you can't get rich off of gas station scratch tickets, but it's not the best option.
Sure, what has changed over the last 10 or so years is that winning the startup lottery pays close to nothing incremental over working at a large company since most of the equity is now held by founders and late stage investors and most of the stock growth happens before a company goes public.
Why would anyone ever work for the big company if startups were both more potentially lucrative and more reliable?
That's the "pro" of going with an established company - having reliably high compensation.
The "pro" of going with a startup is the low chance of exceptional pay and the fulfilling work.
I think we've reached a point in the industry where innovation has slowed enough to allow the biggest companies to catch up. Combined with the natural advantages that big companies have (monopoly, regulatory capture, etc.), it's just really hard to go toe-to-toe with them these days.