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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

> they treat employees like crap

The local Seattle area is full of Amazon employee millionaires.

Somebody has to be at the top of the stack ranking.

Nobody hired into Amazon now is going to become a millionaire. Their total comp packages are the smallest of the MAGMA and their stock has only 3x'd in the last seven years.

To become a millionaire, you have to get into a company where your equity will 10x or more. You'll have to pay cost of living, capital gains, and you'll probably want to diversify a bit along the way.

For this to happen with Amazon, inflation will have to be wild, or they'll have to enter and win a lot of new markets. I can't even image a $10-20T Amazon.

Take your $120k a year job at Amazon, buy a $800k house in Seattle, hold for a decade and your a millionaire with the equity in your house alone, nevermind the $1.2 million you earned at Amazon during that time (and what you chose to invest it in).

That's assuming 100% of everything you earn is saved. Cost of living is high in Seattle. You're also in a higher tax bracket. How much of that income will you actually be saving?

If prices remain fixed, after ten years, you have about 25% equity in your home (not including the down payment, which makes it closer to 40-50%). Assuming the housing market keeps going up, then maybe you'll be a millionaire by this point with just your home equity.

But this assumes you aren't renting. You first have to put up $200k liquid for the down payment. New hires won't have this right away, and the housing market will keep getting more expensive in a world where "home equity makes you a millionaire".

I'd still wager that only the most frugal will become millionaires within ten years.

Amazon isn't some magical entity making it happen either. You could attempt this strategy with any engineering job in Seattle.

To become a millionaire, you have to get into a company where your equity will 10x or more.

Maybe if you want to be a millionaire at 25, but a career is longer than three years.

If you start at $150k, get a raise to $250k within 3 years, and $325k by 6—-$1 million net worth should be very very achievable before retirement.

I started at $50k, never made more than $200k in a year. My net worth will be a million well before I'm 65.

A million isn't what it used to be.

Right. The term millionaire lost its original meaning and nothing new has replaced it. Even if we go back to the 1820s when the term was coined, the inflation rate hasn’t been nearly high enough for billionaire to work.

Decamillionare is probably about right but it’s a mouthful.

A million won't do much in maybe 10-20 cities across the world. Outside of that, a million dollars liquid is still life changing, retirement money

1 million at a safe withdrawal rate of 4% is $40,000 a year. Portland, Oregon in the US is somewhere around the 20th most expensive city to live in. You could survive in Portland on $40k/year but not exactly in some enviable lifestyle.

I don’t think that disagrees too much with the hypothesis. There’s plenty of jobs with good pay but will double the rate of your aging — Amazon is one of them. If you’re someone who has the skills and can put up with the culture then collect that paycheck.

Right now today I could switch companies and make about 30% more if I was willing to take a corporate job. I don’t because I have a great work life balance and the money just isn’t worth it right now.

> will double the rate of your aging — Amazon is one of them

Amazon workers have a life expectancy of 50? At least try some plausible arguments.

hy·per·bo·le /hīˈpərbəlē/

noun

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

People work for Amazon from age 5 until they die? If you're going to be pedantic about a hyperbolic figure of speech, at least think it through first.

Normal life expectancy is 80y. If you start work at 20y, you can expect to live another 60 years. Cut that in half to 30, and you die at age 50.

> at least think it through first

Back to you.

The life expectancy of people with similar living conditions to Amazon's high-paid employees is higher than average. The correct comparison is with people who have similar living conditions, except significantly lower stress levels, which is higher still.

Which is besides the point. Who works for Amazon for 30 years? Amazon hasn't been around for 30 years, and their turnover is high enough that I expect it'll be a while before they have any 30-year employees, excluding the owners. So Amazon workers probably wouldn't have a life expectancy as low as 50, regardless, even if working there did make your body degrade twice as fast.

Do you have any evidence at all that Amazon workers have any reduction in lifespan, let alone 30 years?

Amazon has been around 25 years now. If their workers had their life expectancy cut in half, the vanguard would be dropping like flies today.

I have no evidence that the hyperbolic figure of speech is literal truth, no. I do have evidence that people in high-stress environments have health complications.

Is it really that high stress?

My dad flew 30 some missions over Germany. The cohort he went over with had an 80% casualty rate. Some missons had a 10% death rate. He could do the math, and assumed he was going to die.

(Obviously, he did not die, since I exist, but he came literally within a couple inches.)

When he arrived back in the US, he was bemused by all the stuff back home people worried about. He thought "what the heck are you worried about, you're going to live another day!"

Stress is a physiological reaction to certain stimulus. You can stab people with blood monitors and conclude that yes, it is a high-stress environment.

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