After starting to read HN regularly I noticed most of these types of comments are just posturing. Like any forum, the loudest people tend to be the ones that desire/require the most validation from their peers.
I have a theory that IT is split into "doers", i.e. the people who do things, and "talkers", i.e. the people who talk about doing things. By definition, you hear from the talkers more, perhaps because the doers are too busy actually doing things, and to your point there are times when the talkers can sound dismissive of the doers, for whatever reason. But in HN's defence, you do hear more from actual doers here than perhaps anywhere else.
I had a guy tell me once that "if you're not making at least $250k a year, then you failed as a developer". That was his honest life and career advice. It's depressing.
This is a trope that runs through HN that gets frustrating sometimes. There's often a follow-up comment along the lines of "Only 250k? A fresh grad in the bay area can expect that much in salary, but if you're even average, total comp should be at least double that to be competitive!"
The scale of it carries some pretty great comedy, though.
Basically poverty, in other words.
You don't get an extremely high savings rate either in terms of ratios (unless you live a very economical lifestyle (small apartments/rooms, old/no car, etc.)).
Monthly mortgage payment for $1.5m is ~$6.5k
Remaining money for literally everything else, almost none of which is more expensive in California: $17.5k, or $210k per year. You could eat out every single night and buy a new BMW twice a year, and still save more than 20% of your take-home pay.
Not only that, but we're talking about salaries for ONE SINGLE PERSON. Married in tech? We're talking a $900k annual salary. Calling this lifestyle "very economical" is so insanely out of touch with how most people live their lives, it's no wonder tech people are hated as completely out of touch.
Edit: Changed $24k to $21k, the calculator I used didn't include state taxes even though California was the chosen state.
You're not including taxes - no one cares about mortgage in itself. If you include taxes, it's closer to $8k and then you gotta get insurance (which is going to vary wildly by thousands based on where the home is located). If you're unfortunate with taxes + insurance, your monthly payments could end up being as high as $9-10k/month.
> Not only that, but we're talking about salaries for ONE SINGLE PERSON. Married in tech? We're talking a $900k annual salary. Calling this lifestyle "very economical" is so insanely out of touch with how most people live their lives, it's no wonder tech people are hated as completely out of touch.
Sure - if you can manage to get two 1%'er people together then you'll be living the high life but that's not something you should take as common place. Same with assuming that they'll both be working for their entire life before 65. That's like saying, "Imagine if you were Mark Zuckerberg and then married Mark Zuckerberg!!! You'd be doubly rich!"
Btw - if you're at that income - you have to save at least 25% of your net income for retirement and hopefully you do that at a very early age (like 30-35, if you're starting that savings rate at 45 then you're fucked). Social security won't even pay your property tax when you're retired. So, if you expect to live anywhere near your current lifestyle in retirement... you have to save a lot more (percentage wise) than most Americans.
I'm not saying you'll be poor but go look at what house you can get in a decent peninsula neighborhood for $1.5mil. You won't be impressed. You'll have a nice car and can afford some niceties but what you come home to will be a piece of shit compared to your income. e.g. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/856-15th-Ave-Menlo-Park-C...
Even if that was true, which it's really not, it's especially not true if you consider the extended radius from which people commute into the Bay Area.
Sort of tongue in cheek.