[flagged]
Nothing against you OP but this the perfect highlight how out of touch HN can be from the reality.
Except for one guy, but he's 16 and will probably be the richest on paper once his AI agent startup's pre-Seed Series Z closes.
There is no way this is true. FAANG pays well, but that is still an eye popping amount of wealth unless you're an executive or absolute top-echelon engineer.
You're doing it wrong!
Even in a SV world I'm trying to get my head around the logical leap that gets you to this number. Median comp in SV is <500k - that's 20 years in the business to earn $10m ignoring taxes & your actual living expenditure. Obviously we can jump that with equity, but that's still not moving the dial far enough for the "majority" to be up at those heights.
I don't see how we're getting anywhere near these figures without generational wealth (assume this is the answer).
Overall I was attempting to be as generous in my post as possible - I think median software engineering incomes in SV are actually a lot closer to 250k pre-tax, & 20 yoe is far from the median experience level.
I'd be surprised if most SV engineers are even millionaires, & even if they are, the gap from 1m to 2m is not trivial, nevermind 5-10.
Obviously even in SV "most people" have not already finished doing this.
Maybe if you are in SV. I know this post is about the US but tech in EU definitely doesn’t put you in the 10m€ bracket
(Though to Singapore, not to the US. Salaries are higher than in the EU (though less than in SV), taxes are a lot lower than in either. Quality of life is higher than in the US for me.)
(Or as more likely, you've been in SV since Apple was a twinkle in the garage and your house is worth north of $5m.)
For comparison purposes, $5m invested well should be about $150k a year forever (3% safe withdrawal rate). If you have a net worth of $5m you should be able to live without working - if you want to (median US household income is $87k).
Anyway, off to buy some $10 bananas.
This is all getting more annoying with capital gains taxes (and inflation, since capital gains taxes are usually levied on nominal gains).
I moved to a place with simpler taxes, including no capital gains taxes.
> If you have a net worth of $5m you should be able to live without working - if you want to (median US household income is $87k).
Depends on how much you want to live off.
> Even in the USA you're not getting to $5m net worth on salary alone, not without decades of it.
I don't think the original commenter was talking about juniors who just started?
I save a lot of money on 0% capital gains taxes here.
I regularly check London jobs and interview for them, but the numbers haven't made sense so far.
I dont think that's in the books for everyone
Some European making 3k/month net probably wept reading this.
I'm not sure your mental model holds. A lot of Europe has higher standards of living than the USA. And a lot of Asian countries have made huge strides in the last few decades. Also consider the difference between Mississippi and Massachusetts. I wouldn't say that anyone gainfully employed in Mississippi is "rich beyond the world's wildest dreams".
Which even "poorest in Mississippi" is above - but that factoid is entirely useless to basically everyone, and frankly insulting to our poor family in Mississippi.
Mississippi's HDI is 0.868, which puts it lower than about 25% of countries of the world. So neither poor, nor rich.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...
Around 17% of CA residents live below the poverty line, which means MILLIONS of adults that are not students. Elderly are a significant chunk of that number.
https://www.ppic.org/publication/poverty-in-california/
https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/young-californians-fac...
If he manages to not spend anything, like on housing, or food.
If I were to liquidate my whole existence, I'd probably end up at maybe 300k€? Maybe? And that is already rather high up here in Germany.
The ratio of getting shit done per dollar seems a bit low. Even with Germany continuing to be.. uh.. not exactly on top of its game.
I expect most people here to certainly be nowhere near that.
You would be surprised. Not only because, as you point out, recent graduates often have a negative net worth, but also because people tend to increase their spending in lockstep with their income.
Saving millions takes the intersection of multiple factors: sufficient disposable income, prioritizing investing over lifestyle, long-term discipline to stick to the plan, and luck to keep it all going smoothly.
In yen perhaps.
You're looking at the tower above but maybe you should look at the valley below.