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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

Honestly the most plausible explanation for same is that tech people are so overpaid with so much excess savings that they can easily spend years between jobs for no reason.

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Median tech people don't fit this narrative. Maybe the top 10% (if that) of tech people do.

That might be the case for the top 5% of earners, but I doubt those are even the same people who have been hit by recent layoffs.

Please elaborate. For example the Google layoffs clearly targeted their most senior and highest-paid people. One of my friends with > 15 years at Google was laid off and not only are they still paying him because of the terms of the layoff, but he's also basically retired and very much not giving AF, even though he's a "prime working age" White guy that some political commentators feign so much concern over.

Have to agree because I've seen the same. One of my mentors was laid from a major tech employer after > 18 years with this organization. He's on a lengthy severance package, his kids are out of high-school, their college is set up, and he's sold out of California and moved to the other side of the country, having now bought property near where he grew up, and has started teaching as an adjunct for a nearby university. Not retired, per se, but this man has a Wikipedia page that highlights his career in this industry -- he has so much more to give but no tech employer to give it to. Good for the kids he's going to be teaching, maybe, hopefully, but it's sad to see him essentially forced into retirement for $REASONS.

Stock number go up!

Not to mention that software has indeed eaten the world, and now there's not much left on the menu. Especially with the recent AI hype (which is of course the end of the road, software will eat itself too).

So we will see how long these salaries are sustainable. (Oh, and of course there was a definite overproduction of developers, when everyone and their dog assumed that remote will be the undisputed default during the pandemic.)

> Honestly the most plausible explanation for same is that tech people are so overpaid with so much excess savings that they can easily spend years between jobs for no reason.

I like how people in tech are always overpaid but IP trolls, investment bankers, and physicians running "telehealth" (pay and play) clinics aren't.

People in this industry just seethe with envy whenever anyone makes more than they do. I don't know what it is so special about this particular industry that makes everyone want to be a crab in a bucket so fucking hard.

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