duh's comments

$300 jeans are a signal of status, not taste.

$100 jeans are a signal of taste.

If you can't focus on it, it must not really be that important.

Quit your job and make it your means of survival.

If you're a student, focus on your schoolwork instead. If this IS your schoolwork, consider switching fields.

Might want to add that I pay myself about 50 grand a year beyond business expenses (which admittedly covers my "luxuries" - mostly my auto lease and eating out). Without leveraged overhead (mortgage, student loans, business loans, credit card, etc) it's surprising how little money I need to live a comfortable life.

It's too bad toro is just so god damned delicious.

> One guy goes to work straight out of college, saves strategically, quits and starts his own SAP consultancy in 5 years, and is worth a few million by age 30.

I guess this is me. I fit this rubric, and now I deal with $100k+ sums on a quarterly basis. On an annual level it goes into the hundreds of thousands. I'm by no means wealthy (I do not own significant amounts of property, for example) but I am capable of fundamentally understanding large sums of money on a personal and professional level.

Dealing with money is definitely a skill that is taught. If you don't have parents or a business partner or someone else in your life that teaches you the old-fashioned way (through unflinching and strict discipline and what borders on verbal abuse when you fuck up), you're never going to learn. The credit card companies and banks are not this person/entity.

It's too bad toro is just so god damned delicious.

> The OS would just run web apps directly

You know, that's basically what Microsoft tried to do with internet explorer, but they ran up against such vehement opposition I'm pretty convinced that's why the concept hasn't progressed.

Next up is Google with Chrome/OS/Android, will they be perceived as Evil also? Only time will tell.

> programmer salaries in the 100-150k range is the norm

This is the norm outside of Wall St as well, for anyone who has actual talent and/or experience and isn't a spineless pushover. For example, a truly talented sales engineer can easily make $250k/year + benefits and equity compensation.

> 60k is really seriously low

It was a 60k bonus.

There's always some gearhead out there eager to pounce on every little inaccuracy in order to impress everyone with their deep knowledge of automobiles, isn't there?

Programmers (or software engineers, if you like) almost never ask / negotiate what they're really worth. I don't see how it would be any different in finance.

> luxury version of the Corolla

That's called a Lexus IS250.

Neither of these guys have an MBA, why in the world did they do this at a b-school?

Sure.

Get into computers/UNIX/Linux when you're 13. Start working at startups when you're 15 as a junior sysadmin/scripter. Continue doing contract work through college. Become an expert UNIX developer by the time you are 21.

After college, work a few years for a company doing a high-end specialty product such as enterprise search or ERP system. Work on big client accounts. You want to beef up your resume at this point.

After 4 years start your own consulting firm in this space. Earn $150/hr+ for 30 or so hours/week doing consulting work and charge $5k/month/server for managed hardware running aforementioned enterprise platforms.

At this point you'll easily be making $250k, probably closer to $350k.

Or you could learn how to program in college and spend years 21-30 writing shitty web apps for startups, hoping to strike it rich when you're not a founder (stupid). This is what most people do.

Moral of the story: either do high end enterprise work, or be a startup founder. You will surely get screwed otherwise. This is a brutal industry and those who don't choose their paths wisely become wage slaves who make significantly less than blue collar tradesman.

Right. Well, I'm real sorry you decided to get married early and have children, but don't take it out on those of us who know what's really going on in this world.

My sense of self-esteem is tied to who I allow to take exploit me. Which is really just a proxy for wealth.

> or, the reader feels a sense of cognitive dissonance, and starts to analyze the statement in the context of their core values.

This is a good way of looking at it - it's a form of self-delusion, if you ask me.

> That's a cruel way to look at it.

I'm not trying to be cruel, I'm reminding him that his (salaried) labor is making someone else wealthy. For those of us who have well developed senses of self-esteem, this is a wholly unacceptable situation.

That's right, one of the first steps to becoming a ruthless sociopath is to align your interests with the right people. IT could learn a few things from the pro sports/entertainment worlds. A good engineer ("rockstar", as it were) can easily make their corporate overlords just as much money as a real rock star or pro athlete.

Most of the time, yeah. The margins are massive. Most developers are terrible negotiators who roll over for $40-75/hour (and think they are getting a great deal), when recruiters and consulting firms routinely charge their clients $150+/hr on the back end. It's pretty easy to see why the word "loser" is used in the article to describe these people.

> but full-time "normal" employment works for me

Never forget that someone else's ambition is what allows for your relative stability.