There are literally millions of Americans who are able to perform the duties of a lifeguard. Millions more that could "manage" lifeguards.
Having your job be spending most of your day on a beautiful beach in southern California? That's a dream to many people!
I hearing on NPR (maybe This American Life?) about a lawyer who works full-time at his own firm during most of the year, but during the summer months goes on sabbatical to work as a lifeguard in the NY area. He's been doing this since he was a kid. Working as a lifeguard is his vacation!
You can't say the same about a Google or Facebook engineer. There's only so many people that could do the job, and very few would consider it their "dream" to code all day for a giant corporation. No one would consider it a vacation!
FWIW we should pay lifeguards a living wage! But $400k for an low-skill job that doesn't even require a high school education? Wow.
I passed lifeguard certification in my twenties. I am not a 'gifted' swimmer and the first time I got into water was when I was ~14 yrs.
The companies go through hoops -- or rather, make you jump through hoops -- to get what they imagine to be the "cream of the crop". But the vast majority of them will tell you that they're not really that much more productive than the next developer who didn't make the cut. They're not sucking up all the 10x developers while the rest of us are stuck with 1x developers. Even if their tests really did get them the 10x developers, they could get a 9.9x developer for half the price.
Worldwide, it's certainly millions. Even just in the US, it's tens of thousands at a minimum, if not hundreds of thousands.
FAANG developers get paid mid six figures because FAANG companies make 11 figures. Lifeguards are not less skilled, more numerous, or less important. They just don't have access to the enormous pot of money. Same with schoolteachers, programmers in other industries, and lots of other people.
Being a programmer is great, and a lot of us are really good at our jobs. No reason to break our arms patting ourselves on the back. We're incredibly fortunate to be skilled at something that's making somebody a ton of money, and they're slightly unbinding the mouths of us kine who tread the grain. But we should remember that this is more about luck than our inherent greatness -- and that goes 10X for FAANG employees.
And remember, the people making these salaries are at the top of their field. They aren’t the lifeguards at your condo’s pool, they are highly trained ocean rescuers. The person at the top of the list is an Assistant Chief at the Los Angeles County Fire Department and manages 900 people. Few people have the experience necessary to be qualified for that position.
It’s not that I’m unhappy with my cushy tech job and the life style that comes with it, but making literally 5x or 10x more than a nurse or a janitor and pretty much anyone who does essential and often backbreaking work is fundamentally unjust and cruel.
Lifeguarding value is determined differently and is independent of pay.
Only in companies whose product is software. In other companies, IT and in-house/backoffice software systems are a cost center, just like the accounting department.
I wonder, why does that apply to lifeguards but not to a FAANG employee?