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Comment by ceeplusplus | Hacker News Reader

> And non-FAANG type IT worker are also paid relatively high at the cost of other workers living perilous lives.

Those workers live perilous lives because cities refuse to build enough housing, not because a few workers have it good.

> those outrageously high FAANG salaries occurs because of

4) Much more generous VC funding leading to more competition between firms for SWEs, as a result of a more risk seeking / risk tolerant culture with stronger work ethic

Also you're ignoring that even SWEs at companies like Walmart Labs make much more than SWEs in Europe.

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> SWEs at companies like Walmart Labs make much more than SWEs in Europe.

Good. Find out how Walmart retail workers are doing. And Housing in US is lot cheaper for majority of people.

> ... risk tolerant culture with stronger work ethic

Yup, from Uber to Wework and dozen more food delivery service did awesome job with generous money in creating enduring businesses with strong work ethics.

> Good. Find out how Walmart retail workers are doing.

Plenty of other examples of well paid workers and US SWEs paid more than EU SWEs. UPS teamsters are unionized. AT&T technicians are unionized. Both pay their SWEs more than EU companies by a substantial margin.

> did awesome job with generous money in creating enduring businesses with strong work ethics.

You could name companies which are actually changing how (European) companies operate. Zoom, Slack, SpaceX, Figma, the list goes on and on. None of which were started in Europe.

32 hours a week and 60k EUR/year doesn't cut it in a competitive market, and any founder will tell you that.

> And Housing in US is lot cheaper for majority of people.

Not in any major city. Clearly you don't live in the US.

> Not in any major city. Clearly you don't live in the US.

Huh, lived in upscale DC suburb for many years, now moved to different city. Housing seems lot cheaper here when I checked with some friends based in some London suburbs. Another one with house in Amsterdam almost sounded same price for half size house than I bought. But yeah, no public transport for me and I am like 10 miles from downtown :(.

You're not serious? DC looks pretty expensive for an average worker, from a quick look at apartments.com. Housing is cheap in the South and in rural areas for sure, but any West Coast/northern East Coast city is very expensive. Suburbs used to be cheap but now are not so cheap after COVID+inflation.

Perhaps your expectations are calibrated based on European cities which also have housing shortages, like Berlin and London.

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