Hacker News Reader

Comment by ramphastidae | Hacker News Reader

Don’t listen to this stuff. At least these companies pay fair wages. After decades of avoiding FAANGs because of misplaced idealism from quotes like this I realize that it’s no more noble to be underpaid, under appreciated and overworked at a “moral” company than to be treated with dignity at a FAANG (with dignity at this point being simply defined as a 40 hour work week and enough money for one person to buy a home in the HCOL city where the job is located, which 90% of tech jobs still don’t provide).

View on HN

> At least these companies pay fair wages.

All companies pay you the smallest amount that they think will keep you from leaving. Average wages being high at FAANGs is mostly a function of employees of said companies desiring a high wage and having other opportunities.

If you're making less, it's either because you're not good at negotiating/selling your skills or you don't actually have better opportunities. You can work on either or both of these things. (or you're actually happy with less and working on a mission to change the world. Good on you if so.)

I have not worked at a FAANG and have not had problems finding fair pay and a sensible work-life balance. I have a house that's fully paid off (and I'm single, never married) in a second-tier city's suburb and about to purchase my first rental property and I've never hit the startup equity lottery. I don't even live at the first house; I put up a relative there. I rent an apartment in NY. Still under 40, started this career in my 30s.

And yes, for a very long time, my job was making people click on ads. The pay was quite good.

Read the article. This is one of those where the content is the opposite of the HN headline.

Blergh. Thanks. Yeah, I should have done that first this time.

Just from a debate that is almost similar in nature. One person posed a question: would you leave a high-paying job that is in a toxic workplace?

Not so many were in the affirmative. Someone even added that they would rather stick with it and remedy this with therapy later on.

sorry, but did you read the blog post ? the title is truncated here ..

the full title is:

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads—and that's ok."

I got 99 problems but living in the elite regions of the country aint one. You could always skip 1 night at the bar and purchase a neighborhood of mansions in my state.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com