IMO it’s the reality of technology being a business, not a value-set, settling in.
1999-2020 was 20+ years.
That’s about the length of a long-term industry cycle.
It’s also 20 yrs of selling a narrative about tech that recruited ambitious, value-driven people who also wanted to make money.
Don’t want 18 hr days at Goldman or 10 years of medical school, but want the pay? Come work 8 at <tech co> and make the same pay without the intern and first years hazing by an alcoholic 45 y/o MD who hates their spouse and never goes home.
And then if I was to get pretty negative: Then, ~2020 hits, the cracks in the ideology show, no way to hide the data revenue models behind every nice Change the World pitch, turns out tech also shredded social discourse and now looks like it might unemploy Mom and friends, and maybe undue democracy (who saw that coming haha), and so on. VCs always win and you’re tired of reading their same think piece blog posts, layoffs always win, a lot of places that seemed the polar opposite still became IBM accidentally. Work, don’t work, it’ll be several quarters before that catches up to you. If you’re really introspective - why did I make $200k+ in my pajamas during COVID while someone made $15/hr at Whole Foods getting exposed to a pandemic all day long? Pretty sure people in that position actually got very sick… but HelloFresh kept getting delivered so I didn’t realize.
The shine has worn off. That is all imo. Place that are both really changing the world, actually understand the second order effects and plan for those, and you can get hired at are few and far between. It’s still/just an industry where you can make a ton of money and keep your brain curious.
I don't think the pay angle got serious until after like Google went IPO - somewhere around like 2005-2010. Before that, tech workers were paid well, but not so much beyond like a financial analyst. Now there's a mass market of FAANG-M jobs, perhaps like 500k jobs in total. They all pay way more compared to the average job, in multiplier terms.
There has been a quantitative shift in tech worker pay at the top end in the past twenty years.
In other words, the past twenty years have seen the rise of Big Tech: billion-user products, trillion-dollar valuations, eating up entire industries (retail, publishing, consumer electronics, entertainment). What enabled them are software economies of scale (production + distribution), the US's ability to train and attract talent, cheap money, and access to massive markets abroad.
> Before that, tech workers were paid well, but not so much beyond like a financial analyst. Now there's a mass market of FAANG-M jobs, perhaps like 500k jobs in total. They all pay way more compared to the average job, in multiplier terms.
We're really only talking about the top employees at the top tech companies in the top most expensive COL areas. It's not like every tech employee in the world is making $500K and driving a Ferrari, despite what HN commenters might sometimes say.
> There has been a quantitative shift in tech worker pay at the top end in the past twenty years.
Bingo--we're comparing only the top end of tech pay.
I think it’s important to calibrate what “great pay” is in a full spectrum way.
Cutting corners on details here - Jane, making $120-150k as an engineer at non-FAANG, but fully (or at least maximized risk controlled) on the right side of every gnarly automation unemployment theme we all know is coming simply because Jane knows how to code, link systems, and is ahead of the curve such that she can learn how to use AI in time, is in a much different and much more beneficial position than Sarah, at a bank, making $300k, knowledge stops at excel wizardry, and a LLM is about to unemploy her at 40 bc it gets better than a CFA 3.
It is happening already, the extent to which it fully occurs is the potential part. The vendors are out there and shopping. Or, OAI and co are totally blowing smoke.
Latter is possible for sure, but I don’t think anyone really thinks the tech hasn’t arrived, or isn’t on edge enough to give it the serious benefit of the doubt. Things just have to develop naturally from Netflix in 2013 (laggy and small library) to Netflix in 2024, and we’re there. IMO it’s a willful blind spot from those benefiting from this change to fully argue otherwise.
Where this equivalency fails Imo is cloud’s expansion into employment market tasks was just providing a wrapper of a nice UI and automation suite on server admin tasks. That ability to scale quickly probably creates products that expanded into other labor markets more faster than if racking and stacking was required by every startup. But, that expansion probably would occur anyway, just slower.
What labor tasks AI providers a nice automation and UI wrapper on is… a much much larger scope than what cloud could do.
I’m guessing you’re being sarcastic but, I make that much at a tech company and absolutely can not afford a Ferrari. At least, not if I want a roof over my head. Of all the engineers I know making this much, and even double or triple that, the most expensive car driven is a model S.
Actually the only person I know with a Ferrari is a cabinet contractor. He drove it over with paint cans that I requested for kitchen cabinet touch ups.
- WFH or at least hybrids enables a building or rebuilding of the social connections from neighborhoods, communities, and families. For about 2000 years, this was fulfilling to humans. From 2006-2020, Facebook became what’s fulfilling somehow. Good odds you’ll find the former fulfilling as a 101 human if you check it out. Don’t have to be a 30+ y/o with a spouse and kids either. Just takes imagination, resources (fortunately, pay is great!) and some initial introspection and imagination to figure out who you are and what you want. Then go do it. Most others never get the chance (see my Whole Foods example)
- technical knowledge and the time and freedom to think it through is a superpower to own your own life. WFH/hybrid removing commutes, to start, opened this all up. Go be a Capitalist Jr and spin up some companies. “Side hustle” doesn’t even do this situation justice. 2-5 years of work: you own your own internet conglomerate and have the next 30 years+ to benefit from it.
Your comment (and several others in this discussion) really resonated with me.
I'd like to add onto this particular comment, the mantra "think small".
The process of focusing on the smaller-scale things that are within your sphere of influence (your neighborhood, your family, yourself) are slower, less instant-gratification, but they also deliver much higher ROI in long-term satisfaction.
I worried/worry sometimes the localized focus means I take focus off the big picture race. But I increasingly believe in order to get past the level of good tech pay and solid wfh gig, you have to have your localized life setup strongly as it’s the foundation of a bunch of needed go pull off bigger things - self-confidence you can self govern your own routine, evidence from small outputs that your efforts can lead to bigger outputs, and so on.
1999-2020 was 20+ years.
That’s about the length of a long-term industry cycle.
It’s also 20 yrs of selling a narrative about tech that recruited ambitious, value-driven people who also wanted to make money.
Don’t want 18 hr days at Goldman or 10 years of medical school, but want the pay? Come work 8 at <tech co> and make the same pay without the intern and first years hazing by an alcoholic 45 y/o MD who hates their spouse and never goes home.
And then if I was to get pretty negative: Then, ~2020 hits, the cracks in the ideology show, no way to hide the data revenue models behind every nice Change the World pitch, turns out tech also shredded social discourse and now looks like it might unemploy Mom and friends, and maybe undue democracy (who saw that coming haha), and so on. VCs always win and you’re tired of reading their same think piece blog posts, layoffs always win, a lot of places that seemed the polar opposite still became IBM accidentally. Work, don’t work, it’ll be several quarters before that catches up to you. If you’re really introspective - why did I make $200k+ in my pajamas during COVID while someone made $15/hr at Whole Foods getting exposed to a pandemic all day long? Pretty sure people in that position actually got very sick… but HelloFresh kept getting delivered so I didn’t realize.
The shine has worn off. That is all imo. Place that are both really changing the world, actually understand the second order effects and plan for those, and you can get hired at are few and far between. It’s still/just an industry where you can make a ton of money and keep your brain curious.