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What does it take? I work at a top tech company and I like to think I could get someone on track to self-teach themselves how to code at a level to succeed at Facebook, LinkedIn, and other similar companies while gradually gaining the experience to get hired. Is this just naive? It does seem to me that anyone who is healthy and not challenged by dependent children or otherwise required to invest their free time in other people could go from zero to making $150k per year or more within 2-3 years without college. From there, renting a poo poo studio in a major city would let them save about 50% of their post-tax income and they'd be on their way to the mythical Financial Independence/Early Retirement (FIRE). Would you consider $150k starting and like 6-10% or more in annual raises to make you rich? Would getting there in 2-3 years count as getting rich quick for you? Can you think of anything faster that can also be distilled down to a sequence of simple steps that can be quickly explained? Or is even this too optimistic? I can describe the steps as I seem them to go from zero to highly-paid software engineer if it helps.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:29
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Why does being rich matter to you? Why is that taking first place over being, say, happy in your post? Also you get to be rich by exploiting and extracting the surplus labour of your comrades, which is bad and don't do that.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:37
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This would probably work better as a post in BFC than D&D imo.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:42
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First you need the connections and/or the luck to get into a position where you can exploit the labour of others and then you have to mercilessly exploit the labour of others. This is p bad so maybe try not to do it? Also: oliveoil posted:Is this just naive? It does seem to me that anyone who is healthy and not challenged by dependent children or otherwise required to invest their free time in other people could go from zero to making $150k per year or more within 2-3 years without college. Yes it is naive as gently caress. If it were that easy, why do you think that almost nobody does it? Do you think people actually want to be poor or something?
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Nov 5, 2019 14:48
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Shame we're all going to starve in 2-3 years when there are seven billion facebook coders and no farm workers.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:52
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Ok here's my 10 steps to being a millionaire. Trust me these work I should charge for these in a newsletter or start a blog tbh. Step 1: Carefully choose your parents. If you do step 1 really well, you can ignore the rest of these, but if you kind of screw the pooch here then here's the rest. Step 2: Get lucky and get a job that roughly 10^x other people are equally qualified for, but that pays well. Engineering, or programming, or pool cleaning. Whatever. Step 3: Suppress your human desires to live an emotionally fulfilling life. Fill the void with more work. The void inside is your profit engine. If you work all the time there is no room left to spend your money. Step 4: Carefully manage your funds in a variety of index funds. You can't beat the markets, you can't even come close. The computer is the king of the trading floor anymore. Step 5: Start having an existential crisis at 35 as you realize that you're working away your prime years and your body isn't standing up to the stress like you thought it could. Start feeling old. Step 6: Watch your computer numbers grow. It's like a score. You are getting more score. Sure it doesn't really help you but you're almost certainly financially secure at this point. Take up a hobby like home-brewing or motorcycling for 6 months and buy a bunch of shirts related to it. Step 7: Pray that your body can last longer than the time it takes for compound interest to put you into the category of upper-middle-class. If not, please try again since health issues will make maintaining the workload impossible and if you aren't thoroughly insured you're funds are probably hosed. Step 8: Get lucky and have none of the economic whales like huge swings in the market crush your portfolio around the time you're trying to take money out. Step 9: Enjoy having a super high score by the end of the game. You can afford pretty much anything reasonable that you want. Step 10: Fall, break a hip or an ankle or have a heart attack and spend all your accued money on the last year of maintaining your life in a a hospital overlooking the HVAC courtyard on the 11th floor.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:55
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oliveoil posted:not challenged by dependent children *beep boop* goes the Randroid. *Why do these illogical dependent children not forage for themselves while I become the master of the universe?* Systems ... failing ...
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Nov 5, 2019 14:55
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Junior G-man posted:Why does being rich matter to you? Why is that taking first place over being, say, happy in your post? I want to live in ridiculous luxury while also never having to work or obey anyone telling me how to live my life - whether that's a manager or someone who thinks that a certain amount of stuff is enough for someone to have. Also, becoming rich as gently caress is one of the ingredients for me to be happy. I want to live in Minecraft and you don't get to spend your time building really big and cool poo poo if you're broke.
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Nov 5, 2019 15:02
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Why would make this sort of thread in D&D Have you never posted here before?
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Nov 5, 2019 15:03
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The libertarian thread is right here.
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Nov 5, 2019 15:11
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oliveoil posted:I want to live in ridiculous luxury while also never having to work or obey anyone telling me how to live my life - whether that's a manager or someone who thinks that a certain amount of stuff is enough for someone to have. Are you fine with the suffering and misery you will by definition need to cause to others in order to achieve wealth? Do you think there should be no limits on "the certain amount of stuff" you should have? Why are you already irked by the potential of someone limiting that for you?
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Nov 5, 2019 15:11
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oliveoil posted:I want to live in ridiculous luxury while also never having to work or obey anyone telling me how to live my life - whether that's a manager or someone who thinks that a certain amount of stuff is enough for someone to have. Don't wanna be rude or anything, but you do realize that this is literally the mindset of a spoiled child, do you not?
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Nov 5, 2019 15:18
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I'd say instead advocate for a more equal world where you don't need to be rich to have a secure existence, but you're slapping on extra requirements that require inequality with you being on top. In which case, see aforementioned answer of lucky birth and/or being a complete rear end in a top hat stealing from other to raise yourself up.
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Nov 5, 2019 15:18
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The idea that anyone can be rich is wrong for the reasons everyone else has already pointed out, but also because it's a lot of work even if you have the education and skillset and other prerequisites, and it's very likely at some point on the way to being fantastically wealthy, you'll decide to be comfortable and happy rather than continuing to push yourself to get that extra bit of money.
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Nov 5, 2019 15:23
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hi yes i would like a 6 to 10 percent annual raise what industry do you work in and how is that sort of growth sustainable at all thanks in advance
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Nov 5, 2019 15:27
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the only way to get rich is by loving a lot of people over, and it's a broadly unreachable fantasy that's only accessible to utter sociopaths or people related to and inheritors of sociopath wealth you're always better off trying to achieve inner peace and understanding with your place in the world here and now, rather than engaging in an endless and futile pursuit of material wealth which can only be gained by doing actual harm to real people
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Nov 5, 2019 15:35
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oliveoil posted:
Hey OP while you're trying to figure out the exact sequence of steps that guarantees becoming rich- would you be interested in purchasing my guide that lays out a precise sequence of steps that guarantees you'll get laid tonight?
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Nov 5, 2019 15:36
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luxury handset posted:the only way to get rich is by loving a lot of people over, and it's a broadly unreachable fantasy that's only accessible to utter sociopaths or people related to and inheritors of sociopath wealth He's talking about 'FIRE' rich, which usually means just rich enough to have a middle-class lifestyle without working, not rich enough to afford penthouse apartments in Manhattan, jetset around the world constantly, etc. Basically it's what most people are probably aiming for in retirement, except earlier.
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Nov 5, 2019 15:51
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Cicero posted:I don't think this is true for the kind of rich OP is talking about unless you're using an awfully broad definition of sociopath that likely includes most humans No, he clarified: oliveoil posted:I want to live in ridiculous luxury while also never having to work or obey anyone telling me how to live my life - whether that's a manager or someone who thinks that a certain amount of stuff is enough for someone to have. That's not FIRE rich, that's uber-wealthy dickhead rich. Also LMAO at FIRE people.
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Nov 5, 2019 16:19
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Cicero posted:I don't think this is true for the kind of rich OP is talking about unless you're using an awfully broad definition of sociopath that likely includes most humans No, he clarified: oliveoil posted:I want to live in ridiculous luxury while also never having to work or obey anyone telling me how to live my life - whether that's a manager or someone who thinks that a certain amount of stuff is enough for someone to have. That's not FIRE rich, that's uber-wealthy dickhead rich. Also LMAO at FIRE people.
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Nov 5, 2019 16:26
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Cicero posted:I don't think this is true for the kind of rich OP is talking about unless you're using an awfully broad definition of sociopath that likely includes most humans All of it. I want FIRE rich as step 1 and then I want to save even more to make star trek replicators real, end scarcity of housing and healthcare, solve global warming, etc. Many people think wealth is just a prize for the evil but I see it as many things. There are many ways to get it, some dishonest. But I have a suspicion that you can also accumulate it in a democratic and helpful way. In either case, once you have it, you essentially have the ability to direct other people to do things, but only 1. If you give them some direct benefit (i.e., payment) and 2. Put your own skin in the game. Like a leader who needs to be competent or get beheaded, but without the beheadings because instead you just lose your money, and also without the ability to force people to do follow you under threat of violence or imprisonment. Oddly, I'm not sure if I hate the idea of a wealth tax or like it for getting rid of the idle rich who don't contribute effectively, but I do think billionaires are fine and I suspect my ultimate goal will require me to become one or at least make me one. But now I'm rambling.... I also want to see if I can help other people get FIRE rich. I'm pretty sure this is all doable with enough optimism. But I see lots and lots of pessimists these days. D&D has so many depressing pessimists though and I need to have them poke holes in my thought process and ideas. E g., I think if we make healthcare and housing as common as oxygen then we'll be fine. So why doesn't someone aim for that? Because everyone with real money is too conservative and wants to chase unprofitable social fart app start-ups so they can do a legal pump and dump on innocent savers' index funds and the larger unsuspecting public. I.e., WeWork etc seem to me to be scams and basically the dishonest and harmful ways to "create" (probably more like extract) wealth. Fortunately it sounds like the only people to lose money on WeWork were the people operating the pump and dump... But I'm rambling again. I have also considered that if I can figure out how to convince some pessimistic shitposters to become optimistic millionaires then maybe I'm on the right track. The temptation to switch to trolling is always present, though. I am gonna have to try really hard not to shitpost and/or exaggerate nuggets of thought into mountains of shitposting...
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Nov 5, 2019 16:27
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quote:But I have a suspicion that you can also accumulate it in a democratic and helpful way. Ok, tell me how you do that under capitalism.
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Nov 5, 2019 16:31
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Step 1, be born to the right parents Step 2, that's it. OP, all rich people are idle rich. The only thing that billionaires have earned is a visit to Madame Guillotine.
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Nov 5, 2019 16:35
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Wow, I think you cracked it. Everyone just needs to take some online coding tutorials, and then they'll get hired by a super profitable tech giant. I forgot there was an unlimited supply of those jobs (and semi-affordable studio apartments in whatever mega-metropolis these jobs are located in).
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Nov 5, 2019 16:39
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Junior G-man posted:Ok, tell me how you do that under capitalism. there are people out there who run businesses in an ethical fashion, treat their employees well, and prosper because of it. they are very rare, but they do exist. they also tend not to get super rich, but moderately so. definitely not as wealthy as the OP's fantasies generally people put up with the long hours necessary to be successful in business to get filthy rich though, and they have an aspirational and wealth-focused mindsent which preferences their needs over the needs of other people. and there's always the constant temptation of big piles of money as an incentive to start loving people over, since loving people over is a shortcut to wealth
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Nov 5, 2019 16:40
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Edit: double post, sorry
Schlitzkrieg Bop fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Nov 5, 2019 |
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Nov 5, 2019 16:42
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oliveoil posted:
Please cite some historical examples where this has happened.
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Nov 5, 2019 16:45
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Did you mean FACEBOOK?
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Nov 5, 2019 17:09
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oliveoil posted:D&D has so many depressing pessimists though and I need to have them poke holes in my thought process and ideas. E g., I think if we make healthcare and housing as common as oxygen then we'll be fine. So why doesn't someone aim for that? Because everyone with real money is too conservative and wants to chase unprofitable social fart app start-ups so they can do a legal pump and dump on innocent savers' index funds and the larger unsuspecting public. I.e., WeWork etc seem to me to be scams and basically the dishonest and harmful ways to "create" (probably more like extract) wealth. Fortunately it sounds like the only people to lose money on WeWork were the people operating the pump and dump... But I'm rambling again. Perhaps you should start by asking yourself why "everyone with real money is too conservative".
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Nov 5, 2019 17:10
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oliveoil posted:I have also considered that if I can figure out how to convince some pessimistic shitposters to become optimistic millionaires then maybe I'm on the right track. ok Thatcher
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Nov 5, 2019 17:16
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There's no such thing as a moral rich person.
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Nov 5, 2019 17:18
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oliveoil posted:I have also considered that if I can figure out how to convince some pessimistic shitposters to become optimistic millionaires then maybe I'm on the right track. I'm kinda hoping you're trolling here, but in any case the conclusion that people could just one day decide to become rich as if the only thing you need is the right goddamn mindset or something is just so incomprehensibly stupid to be that I honestly cannot fathom how anyone could arrive to it by reasoning in good faith. Like, if you think about these things even medium-hard, then why would you ever believe that you'd need to convince people to get out of poverty if it was as easy as you say? Do you think that most everybody who is poor is where they are by choice? That they simply like having to bust their asses just to barely be able to put food on the table and being one bad break away from bankruptcy? It makes absolutely zero sense. At least the rear end in a top hat capitalists have some explanations for why poor people are poor that could even theoretically be correct, but you ain't even got that.
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Nov 5, 2019 17:20
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oliveoil posted:What does it take? To learn to code at a level to succeed at LinkedIn or Facebook is pretty easy. Which is exactly why it's so hard to get hired at those kinds of companies - they're awash in a sea of more experienced college-trained applicants than they know what to do with, so they really have no reason whatsoever to waste their time on trying to evaluate the skills of someone with no relevant education or experience. In particular, over half of Facebook's workforce and over a quarter of Google's graduated from the top 10 colleges in America . It's not just about coding skills; Stanford is right there churning out more than enough decent coders for them. Self-taught coders don't have a chance at top tech companies these days unless they already have a decade of experience under their belt. And only a few companies offer those $150k starting salaries you're so excited for; the median pay for all software engineers in the Bay Area is only around $140k, and that includes experienced programmers who've been employed for some years. The tech market is also surprisingly localized. Those 150k starting salaries with rapid raises are pretty much unique to NYC and the Bay Area, and drop off pretty sharply with regional population density. If you're not in or near a major city, even a college-educated programmer's starting salary is going to be five digits rather than six, with raises that barely keep up with inflation. And the excessive cost of living in the top metro areas means that saving up money in the country and using it to move to the high-paying urban areas is fiscally impractical. It may seem like there's no reason everyone can't do it, but these are opportunities that are limited to a very small portion of the workforce. If it seems easy to you, that's because there's a lot of filtering that goes on long before you even get to the parts that are ostensibly competitive and skill-based. oliveoil posted:D&D has so many depressing pessimists though and I need to have them poke holes in my thought process and ideas. E g., I think if we make healthcare and housing as common as oxygen then we'll be fine. So why doesn't someone aim for that? Because everyone with real money is too conservative and wants to chase unprofitable social fart app start-ups so they can do a legal pump and dump on innocent savers' index funds and the larger unsuspecting public. This is just the same old "capitalism is only having issues because for some completely unknowable reason, all of the rich turned out to be bad people, and everything would be working great if the billionaires were actually good people instead" trope, mixed with a bit of libertarian fantasy. The reason healthcare and housing aren't as common as oxygen is that if one capitalist starts voluntarily selling those things at cheap prices in a market that's only lightly regulated, another capitalist will buy it all up and start reselling it at a profitable price, until the "good" capitalist has run out of money they're willing to spend on it and the "bad" capitalist has made a huge profit from it. The fundamentally competitive nature of capitalism, as well as its tendency toward the accumulation of wealth and power, means that those who put profit second will ultimately be gobbled up by those who put profit first. Even when billionaire charity does happen, it's directed according to the preconceptions and interests of the billionaire, without regard for what society really needs. The only way to truly turn their wealth toward the benefit of society is to take outside control of it via government, using regulations and taxes to carefully limit and steer where their money is spent.
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Nov 5, 2019 17:27
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In my experience you generally need a fast-talking con man with a heart of gold, a big mean looking lug who wouldn't harm a fly, a crazy wild card, and also ten million dollars in startup money you got from your dad
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Nov 5, 2019 17:32
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If you can get good at solving leetcode problems, you can probably get into at least the tier of companies below FB/Google, like Amazon and MS. And at that level, saving money to move is less of an issue since they'll cover it. For any individual person who has the aptitude for this kind of work and wants to make a decent income, going into it is not bad advice. But it's obviously not a societal solution for people having lower incomes since we only need so many programmers around.
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Nov 5, 2019 17:36
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Main Paineframe posted:The tech market is also surprisingly localized. Those 150k starting salaries with rapid raises are pretty much unique to NYC and the Bay Area, and drop off pretty sharply with regional population density. If you're not in or near a major city, even a college-educated programmer's starting salary is going to be five digits rather than six, with raises that barely keep up with inflation. And the excessive cost of living in the top metro areas means that saving up money in the country and using it to move to the high-paying urban areas is fiscally impractical. i once worked with a man who was a senior project lead for a Large Company You've Heard Of, he was pretty much the fixer for implementing complex software platforms. he told his employers, who were located on the west coast, that he would be moving to rural virginia to work on his farm and they could continue employing him or not, it was their choice. they decided to continue employing him and organizationally set up his many acre farm as a branch office with a single employee. that guy was immensely talented and i'm still not sure if he was a wizard or not but he was definitely the exception to what people can get away with in terms of remote working. effectively nobody has that kind of pull within an organization and his goal wasn't to get rich, but rather to be paid a bay area salary while living in the southern virginia countryside
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Nov 5, 2019 17:52
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It might be a little tricky, but if all your family and friends pull together and help you through thick and thin and give you a cool million to help yourself through some tough times you just might be able to pull through into the upper echelon
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Nov 5, 2019 17:57
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Jeff Bezos had his parents give him $250,000 back in 1995. Bill Gates’ father was a partner in a law firm and his grandfather was a businessman. Warren Buffett’s dad was an investor and US Congressman. If you aren’t already born into the upper class you have to be exceptionally lucky and talented to get holodeck replicator rich.
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Nov 5, 2019 18:29
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Saying you can acquire wealth in a democratic way is like saying you can buy elections in a democratic way. Which is to say, no you loving can't, the democratic acquisition of wealth precludes one person having more of it than other people... Democracy is not you with your big rich person brain dictating how to spend the money you got by dictating to your employees how much of their surplus production they should give to you because you own the company.
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Nov 5, 2019 20:01
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OwlFancier posted:Saying you can acquire wealth in a democratic way is like saying you can buy elections in a democratic way.
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Nov 5, 2019 20:18
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