Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. We are all losing out because of this

Re:Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. We are all losi... by riehwvfbk on Monday February 19, 2024 @04:18PM (#39434949)

Yeah, everyone on this site and places like Blind says they are making a lot of money. Reality seems a bit different. Any startup has something of a hard cap at just around $200k salary for a senior. That's in the Bay Area, and for specialty occupations (AI infra, Linux internals, and the like). That number is not 3x median. Pretty sure those rich React devs exist only in dreams.

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Re:Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. We are all losi... by sokoloff on Monday February 19, 2024 @04:37PM (#39435109)

> That number is not 3x median.

You are inadvertently correct, but in the opposite way than you probably think.

$200K is more than 3x the median individual income in the US.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA646N

It's slightly under 3x the median household income, but it seems strange to compare a median household income to an individual's salary.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N

If we confine our comparison to only California, I couldn't find median individual income, but median household income is only 14% higher than the nationwide median, so it seems likely that individual income in CA tracks similarly: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSCAA646N

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Re:Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. We are all losi... by riehwvfbk on Monday February 19, 2024 @05:50PM (#39435782)

I don't think it's a weird comparison at all: households include dual-income-no-kids households too, and they would skew the average higher. To raise a family in the Bay Area one parent has to stay home, or a lot of money has to be paid for childcare (to the tune of 20-30k per year per kid).

I don't think this is quite the "gotcha, you are actually rich!" that you wanted this to be.

And hey, I googled the numbers too before posting ;)

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