
In Silicon Valley wages are down for everyone but the top 10 percent - SmkyMt
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/03/in-silicon-valley-wages-are-down-for-everyone-but-the-top-10-percent.html
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dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212980](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212980)

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lovich
Given that this was last talked about 50 days ago, and I have seen things
explicitly reposted that stayed up. What is the guideline on when things
become dupes?

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dang
This is in the FAQ:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).

On HN a story counts as a dupe if it has had significant attention in the last
year or so. If it hasn't, a small number of reposts is ok.

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malvosenior
They don't make it clear in the article, but presumably the top 10 percent of
salaries includes most/all developers?

It's not really surprising that the heart of the tech industry (which drives a
large part of the modern economy) would have very wide disparity between
service workers and highly skilled specialists working for companies making
massive amount of revenue.

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siruncledrew
My takeaway is that the people in the middle get screwed the most (in terms of
wages vs. inflation). The poor are still poor, the rich are still rich, and
the middle gets thinner as those within the group are either pushed towards
the poor side (higher probability) or rich side (lower probability).

I'm not an economist, so feel free to enlighten me further on my speculations.

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mattmg83
I believe you're correct. Also, we've been churning out CS graduates and
coding bootcamp graduates like crazy, so the bottom of the labor market is the
only place where supply may meet or exceed demand, while the top (highly
experienced) is still a pretty thin pool (relatively speaking)

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nerpderp82
And many of those bootcamp graduates will be a) drowning in work b) be ill
equipped to get the skills to join the top 10% where most will be need to be
credentialed. That bootcamp certificate is a Wage Slave License.

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adpirz
Can you define "credentialed" here?

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bko
It's important to note that these studies over time don't include the same
people. The Silicon Valley wage earners from 1997 overlap with the today's
population only slightly.

I think a more telling study would be on an individual basis. Someone earning
X in Silicon Valley 20 years ago is earning Y today.

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nostrademons
That'd be pretty misleading as well. A number of people became independently
wealthy off stock options in the dot-com boom and now use that money to
indulge in personally-fulfilling but not necessarily lucrative hobbies.
(Examples: DNA Lounge and Rabbit's Foot Meadery are both run by Netscape
alums, a few rug merchants in Palo Alto got rich off dot-com stock, I had a
friend at Google who quit her job after 7 years at Adobe + Google to open a
gym, I suspect a number of restaurants in the local downtowns are run by ex-
tech engineers, and I stayed at a B&B up in Alaska that was run by a guy who
saved all his money working in SV for 20 years and then sailed around the
world, bought a couple warehouses in Seward, and turned them into a B&B +
restaurant.)

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dllthomas
The referenced UCSC report doesn't seem to be cited or linked from TFA. A
brief and the full report are both linked from here:
[https://news.ucsc.edu/2018/10/benner-
tightrope.html](https://news.ucsc.edu/2018/10/benner-tightrope.html)

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benologist
Only ~9% left to optimize!

~~~
sharemywin
Think of how much silicon valley could make once they get ride of those pesky
programmers.

Mucking up their perfectly good business models with salaries.

~~~
benologist
One of the hardest problems technology companies face is how to convert
salaried developers with benefits into gig economy workers they don't have to
pay between keystrokes.

~~~
nerpderp82
An IDE where "Refactor ..." is actually backed by a mechanical turk worker
working for hits.

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ac29
Of course, with the caveat that its adjusted for inflation. For example, in
1997, minimum wage in California was $5/hour, and in 2018 it's $10.50-$11/hour
[0]. So, minimum wage workers are making over double in current dollars, which
the article claims is a 1% decrease in real wages, which would be more
accurately described as "flat", not "down".

[0]
[https://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/MinimumWageHistory.htm](https://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/MinimumWageHistory.htm)

~~~
tdb7893
In the article they mention minimum wage and the fact that their decrease had
been less than average. Middle class workers wages are down 14%

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corporateguy6
Most software developers really aren’t making that much. If you can’t make it
into FANG companies or can’t be a founder, find a different career

