Comment by teej | Hacker News Reader

Comment by teej | Hacker News Reader

I'm 24 years old. I've had 6 employers since I was 19. I've doubled my salary every year for the past four years. And I think this article is bullshit.

Am I wrong for choosing the path that brings me personal success at the cost of "company loyalty"? The depiction of an ideal employee painted by this author sounds a lot like the Japanese Salaryman - diligent and loyal to the company. Isn't that model considered totally broken? Company loyalty as a top priority comes at the cost of ineffectiveness and lower morale. It just doesn't seem right.

If your employees are being scalped away at salary+15, maybe you're not paying them enough. If your employees are working 12 months and switching jobs, maybe you don't offer enough internal growth. If your are rejecting applications of "job hoppers", maybe you're leaving major value on the table.

In Silicon Valley, it's an employee's market. The employer has to work to retain, support, and fairly compensate your employees. Otherwise, you shouldn't be surprised when they up and leave.

You're wrong for doing what's best for you, instead of what's best for an unreasonable employer such as this author. At least, according to this author, that is.

Also, notice that the "Japanese Salaryman" model is not only completely unworkable for high productivity, highly creative projects such as tech startups - it doesn't really apply here. That model, and all models like it in Europe and elsewhere, has two sides - the employee doesn't leave, and the company doesn't (easily) let him go. Needless to say, nobody in his right mind would suggest implementing the latter part, least of all the author who comically insists on the former part.

In other words, what we have is an employer who insists on applying half of a completely irrelevant model to his particular line of business.

The local model (based on the European one) makes it very hard on the employer to fire a worker... it's more like it costs a lot for a company to let him go than that it doesn't want to.

It also makes job switching harder, for both sides - you lose all the benefits when you switch - for the first 3 months, you are on "trial" and can be fired at will, after that you lose the extra free days (we get 1 extra day of vacation every 4 years with the same company), and the firing money the company has to pay doubles every year (up to a maximum)

Either you were making a ridiculously small amount to start with, you are making a gargantuan amount now, or there's a mistake in your calculations. Increasing your salary 16X in 4 years seems more than a little unusual.

You sound like me. By changing jobs about ~6 times, I've gone from $16k/yr "assistant to the intern DB administrator" to well over six figures. Every job change was either because the job was gone (startup going under) or a very substantial (50%-ish) increase in pay.

The author of the article acts as though anyone who doesn't stick it out for 5 years is actively trying to screw over the company. That's just plain BS.

"In Silicon Valley, it's an employee's market"

When you're great at what you do - or even slightly better than 'good' - EVERY market is an employee's market.

(I did similarly to you. $55k (3 mos) -> $65k (6 mos) -> $68k + bonuses (4-day work week, same job as prior, +6 mos) -> $91k + profit sharing (total pay about $130k, 13 mos))

Then I quit and did high-dollar consulting. This January I quit consulting and am building my own products. Working for other people blows at any price.

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