Hacker News Reader

Comment by tills13 | Hacker News Reader

Holy hell the pessimism in this thread over a life-changing amount of money for 99% of people.

> should have stayed at Google

You should feel privileged that you've never been "stuck" at a job that you don't find personally interesting and stimulating. Wasting your life to see the number in your bank account increase.

View on HN

Half a million isn't really that much.

Half a million dollars would be a life-changing amount to the vast majority of the American population.

But to an experienced programmer making a fraction of that a year at Google, it's not that much.

For someone being so pedantic about a half million dollar payday I would've expected you to consider that any amount above or below that is technically "a fraction."

I would be very curious how life changing that would be for the average HN user.

I don't make FAAANGGGG money, but I'm a pretty well paid programmer for this area and that amount would pay off the balance on my mortgage. Hell, I'd be completely debt-free if someone threw half a million in my direction and have enough left over to buy the wife a top of the line pickup truck or two. So yeah, I'd definitely consider it life changing.

It's pretty close to my FIRE number. Of course, I don't live in an expensive city.

That's 10 years of work for the average american.

But only a few years of work for author.

It's more like 2-3 years in this industry.

HN moment

It’s 18–24k per year in perpetuity. You can have a decent living on this much in a sizeable part of the world. Not in SV though. But still, it’s nothing to sneeze at.

It's not just half a million, he made more in business profits before the sale.

You could start planning your FIRE with $500k.

less then quarter mill after taxes.

This is capital gains, meaning 15-20% in taxes. Nowhere near half.

20% + 10% state income tax for many here

Why is it capital gains?

Because he is either selling his shares in the company, or the individual assets owned by the company, either way it should be taxed as capital gains.

Asset Purchase Agreements are taxed primarily as income. Only a sale of the company ownership or equity would be taxed differently

might have been QSBS, so no taxes < $10m

I moved country before selling my first business for that reason.

spoken like an employee ;)

welcome to the world of capital gains and QSBS!

Thanks I’m just a dumb kid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com