At the end of the day, if the housing market is going to soak up the additional surplus value, why should I care?
I know it's controversial and all, but that's my honest belief. Silicon Valley is amazing and there are truly great people there. But does a C student web dev who kinda doesn't give a shit really deserve 150$k/year? I assure you, he does not. Not while there are far more qualified people all over the globe who will do that job for half. Sure, remote work is hard, and having the team located locally is valuable, but the wealth is simply too centralized in this one location. It's causing a morphed self image to the people there. An over inflated ego. A condescension to outsiders. A constant need to justify their position. The culture needs a humbling. The wealth needs to spread.
It's possible though, I found, to keep my midwest upbringing unspoilt in Silicon Valley. I ate out only once a week with the whole family, never took Uber, never owned a Tesla (owned a used minivan though).
After 26 years though I quit, sold the house, and moved with the wife (now empty nesters) back to the midwest.
Now I miss the excellent Asian food.
It was a pain, but it is part of my retirement strategy — downsize periodically. (Obviously moving from California to Nebraska was the biggest gain in that regard.)
Not be a good heuristic. Maybe they're in a job where they don't have to use Kubernetes.
Like, I know compiler developers who have no need to bother with Kubernetes.
> But does a C student web dev who kinda doesn't give a shit really deserve 150$k/year?
In college they might have struggled; some people just don't work that well in a classroom environment. That doesn't necessarily mean they're idiots. Or maybe they improved afterwards.
Just because somebody got an A in classroom tests doesn't necessarily mean they should be the most-compensated.
The real world is complex.
I bet they could ask you about foundational architecture and technologies for building user experiences and you won't know anything about it either
A friend called me the other day asking about someone I knew who had solid pedigree in this sense and I had to share that I never knew him to be good at anything but people change, could've matured and skilled up, but I don't remember that being his nature.
Well, my buddy had already scheduled the first interview and so we decided to see how it would go. Sure enough, it was exactly the disaster predicted. The poor engineer he sent to talk to this guy hahaha.
The reality is that GP's C grade student friend has just done a better job of selling their labour than GP. GP could go do the same if they wished.
those who think the work is more important than the selling will wind up questioning why others more willing to ignore the job for the career are advancing in the career without advancing in the job.
someone will rush in to defend the virtues of this system. go ahead, your third job starts below the line here.
Buckle up, friend: there are individuals more qualified than you who will do your job for half what you get. They could probably make the exact same argument you've just made, about you. "Deserving wealth" is an idea we have right before the veil comes off and we realise this whole thing is a big joke. Forget "should", accept "is".
I wouldn't be so sure. You have no idea what my job is, how competent I am, nor what I get paid.
But, complaining about someone who didn't give a shit about grades ultimately succeeding is really kind of a caricature of "Straight A Student" mentality. "I deserve it more" they cry about people who never bothered spending more energy than they needed to on something nobody should care about at all, let alone after graduation. It seems like you're needlessly harbouring resentment based on pretty a pretty shallow and superficial view in one person's life, or perhaps unwillingness to adopt that sort of lifestyle and make a big jump.
In some ways I also wish I could bring in the big tech bucks, and I make decent money occasionally, but I'm not casting aspersions on people who do, I just recognize that they are either more clever than me, or chose a specific regimented path that I simply haven't and am unwilling to.
Sounds like he did not earn that much if just Uber and eating out alone could consume significant amount.
This is critical to understanding one’s pay. It’s a little bit like a london software worker thinking they earn more than an east european worker, just because on paper they earn more. While the london worker barely rents a flat the east european worker owns two.
Similarly the sillicon valley worker earning three times more than you, but pissing away their money on a uber and a rent, is actually earning far less than you. Many in software are financially illiterate and dont grasp the difference between pay on paper and pay factoring in the cost of living.