ITGleek's comments

Best ... line ... ever

No doubt. I actually stepped away, because the upward trajectory, means your performance has to match the pay. As said before in the thread, asking OVER the top - simply means HR finds your replacement faster. Appeasement is what started Hitler's demise. Those who do not learn from the past, will repeat the failures in the future. However, its like a skill of knowing the timing of things - how I got this far, myself.

Management, negotiations, and money are only for the Gordon Gekkos' of the world. Mind you, I'm humpin on 40 and have had my own stint as an IT manager at a start-up (VERY successful one, actually) and stepped up to bat as a Director of IT several years back - feeling cocky just as you have in your ability to rise to the challenge. However, leadership rarely burdens the young and I mean <30, because of a discrepency of this thing called life-experience and human relationships. Writing software is fine, and becoming top technical dog is another - and you _can_ and _will_ eventually make the money to match it. HOWEVER, be weary of young management as the company grows - people follow leaders, not managers into stressful output periods. Start-ups as time goes on want to grow - namely 5 million to 10, 10-50, 50-100. What that brings, are folks from OUTSIDE the company who come DOWN from those next tiers to weed out folks who do this kind of thing. I respect your efforts, and thanks for sharing.

My next thought is around the belief that money / drive combinations can lead to happiness. Ya, ya .. lil bit softer end of the stick, but drive to go from $46-150K in a short period is one thing, but having a family / life / opposite experience of work is less about how much you make, but making the balance.

I do well, and I live in a depressed market of the US (rust-belt city), and I have a high-earning wife w/ no kids. Needless to say, my life is fantastic. I am not going to die at 45 from stress, either.

So balance will be the longevity, and understanding how you want to "grow" in your field is the other. It's great being ambitious, but just remember - the higher you go, the lonelier it gets.