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> you cant pay rent with total comp stock/equity

Sure you can, you just sell it as it vests. Which is the commonly-recommended thing to do.

At a public company RSUs are so liquid they are damn near as good as cash. Once you're on the vesting treadmill they're hitting every quarter, or even every month. That's not much different from a paycheck.

Yeah there's market risk that dictates the actual value, but when you're getting your salary again as RSUs it's still a boatload of cash regardless of market performance. Cash that you can pay for things with. Like rent.

> Sure you can, you just sell it as it vests. Which is the commonly-recommended thing to do.

Sure. Anyone want to purchase my vested Series A company RSUs?

Lets be fair -- FAANG isnt complaining about lack of talent -- mostly smaller pre-IPO or early stage firms are complaining, which is why my original comment noted "non-public companies". Your view is correct only for public companies and a handful of private companies which have an active market to liquidate stock and options.

Totally, anyone counting non-public equity toward their total comp is deluding themselves.

Including the private companies trying to spin it as compensation. They are lottery tickets, barely worth anything.

SWE roles with "high" total comp, you cant pay rent with total comp stock/equity, you pay rent with cash comp.

Also, before anyone cites the cost of a studio apartment in California, note not everyone is single and not everyone wants to stuff a family into a studio apartment.

I think ppl way overestimate living expenses relative to wages when making this argument. http://greyenlightenment.com/2019/01/02/the-sam-vimes-boots-...

just break down the numbers:

If you make $210k/year, after taxes you are still taking home $135k/year. In Silicon Valley, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $2,300 a month. So you are still left with $107k. Not bad. Add $1,500/month for other misc. expenses such as food and health insurance and internet access and phone plan and car payment for a crappy car (no need to splurge). Still have $89k. This is not even counting stock compensation or sign-on bonuses or other perks. Of course, if you add children to the equation, expenses rise dramatically, but this can be offset to some degree by having a double income family.

$210k is the lowish end of FAANG. Most people are not expecting to have kids until later in life . You can also borrow from equity. The notion that stocks is not cash is wrong. If you are fully vested and deep in the money, it is effectively cash.

>> The notion that stocks is not cash is wrong. If you are fully vested and deep in the money, it is effectively cash.

OK -- I call the bluff. Anyone want to purchase my fully vested, in the money stock from my Series A company? Please contact me offline, contact info in profile. I'll post later how many cents-on-the-dollar people quote for the stock. This alone is worth a whole HN post, and should be an interesting experiment.

He's talking about public stock which is liquid (hence the reference to FAANG). Obviously private equity is very hard to sell and not comparable.

>>Also note, for the majority of non-public SWE roles with "high" total comp, you cant pay rent with total comp stock/equity, you pay rent with cash comp.

He's responding to a discussion about private stock. Also, public companies arent the ones complaining about lack of talent as much as private ones trying to pay people in private stock mismatching market rents.

> have so many friends from college who graduated with computer science degrees and ended up in non-engineering roles -- because of a total mis-match between SWE pay and housing costs, especially in the Bay Area where the jobs used to be.

What did they do instead?

Wall Street. Management Consulting. Commercial Real Estate. The job doesnt have to pay a lot, but the pay needs to cover housing for the region where the job is located.