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A comment on High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War. Parent comment

Re:High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War by throwawayjava on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:24PM (#16368840)
Plumbers make closer to 40k a year. Some tiny pcnt of them will get as high as the low hundreds, not as plumbers but as owners of successful plumbing companies. But the top tiny pcnt of software people who move into ownership and succeed become... stupid rich. if you compare apples to apples, the wealthy plumber fantasy fades quick.
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Re:High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War by ransom1538 on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:27PM (#16368874)
Haha. $20/hr plumbers hilarious. I am sure you can't, but please provide a link to this source.
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Re:High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War by throwawayjava on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:29PM (#16368892)
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Plumber/Hourly_Rate

https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/plumber/salary

When the data disagrees with your mental model, consider re-evaluating your mental model.

The amount a client pays per hour for labor != the takehome pay of the person whose time you're ostensibly being charged for.

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Re:High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War by ransom1538 on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:32PM (#16368915)
*Thanks for the link. So my last plumbing job should have been $10!!! (Not 290$!!).
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Re:High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War by throwawayjava on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:33PM (#16368930)
That's not how labor-intensive businesses work. Again, The amount a client pays per hour for labor != the takehome pay of the person whose time you're ostensibly being charged for.

Revenue is not profit, and "price per hour for labor" != "hourly rate I pay my laborers". This is even true in owner-operator businesses. Furthermore, in bursty markets, "annual income amortized over career" != "my hourly rate multiplied by 40-60 multiplied by the number of weeks I want to work".

The numbers from my links are INCOME, not "what the business charged the client".

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Re:High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War by varelse on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @01:27PM (#16369459)
My plumber charges me $80/hr in the bay area. Now that's ~50% above the poverty line, but it's >2x the median wage around me.
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Re:High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War by throwawayjava on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @05:52PM (#16371638)
If only every employee received {total revenue generated by company}/{# of employees in company}.

:-)

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Re:High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War by varelse on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @11:25AM (#16376939)
Well, either he's pocketing a large fraction of that or he's up to his eyeballs in debt looking at his new boat and his fancy new truck. Methinks you're overanalyzing it.
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Re:High Salaries Are Weapons in the AI Talent War by throwawayjava on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @11:58AM (#16377212)
To the contrary. We have actual data that directly answers the question "what is the typical take-home pay of plumbers". You just have to look at the damn table.

Why keep insisting on proxy variables and anecdotes?

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