It's nice to imagine when you're not the one worrying about paying rent.
I work in an interesting area (bioinformatics research) and as expected the pay is pretty dire to match. You do get the warm fuzzies now and again when strangers ask about your job, but the rest of the time is spent wondering if you should move into fintech so you don't have to worry about grocery prices.
Fair, but I'm also sick of hearing Facegoogs whining on this app (and Blind, and elsewhere) about how they're only barely scraping by on $250k and how could anyone ever live on $100k poverty wages. They have to do adtech to survive, don't you see?
250k in the bay area with family is ok but it isn't great. You can live on it but people want nice houses and schools for their kids,etc... so I get where they're coming from. Even for the single people they wanna retire early or whatever. Everyone has different goals I guess
" but people want nice houses and schools for their kids,etc...
Where they're coming from is greed. We don't need to indulge this nonsense.
What if I told you I'm barely scraping by on $5 million TC because hey, do you know how much private jets cost? I can't even buy one outright, you know? I have to lease mine on a time share. It's absolutely embarrassing. My kids get made fun of when I drop them off in Geneva for their ski trip with a rented jet.
Is it? I think having more money than you can spend might be greed but simply getting the best things for yourself isn't. Being rich and being greedy are not the same thing. No problem with having all your needs met. As of like 3-5yrs ago, you needed $7mil to be rich in the US. If you live off 50k/yr you need 35yrs to save up 7mil (without talking about inflation or bay area cost of living). I can see calling billionaires or even people with 10M+ just sitting their in their portfolio and assets greedy but this isn't the 90s, 250k is a lot but not in the bay area in 2023, it would be middle-middle class income, you need 150k more as a household income imo to be anywhere near upper middle class im costal cali.
As for your last paragraph? So what? Do you know what you sound like to someone in africa who lost 3 kids to starvation and has never slept on a bed or eaten meat in years and lost family to preventable disease because the nearest medical care is days away and they have to carry clean water in a bucket from a dirty drying river a dozen miles away everyday? Flipping burgers at mcdonalds is rich for that guy.
Also you mentioned being made of and embarrasing. That's not what I mean, I mean actual best schools and colleges. Safe neighborhoods and good houses with a large enough backyard for kids to play around in and have large pets. Affording good healthcare without relying on insurance claims being approved. Buying your parents and spouses' parents their own place and affording their healthcare. Even in the 90s middleclass families afforded yearly vacations and once every few years international vacation. Not having to burden your kids financially in case you get sick or when you get old. Heck, half marriages end because of money, improving those odds too. Kids not being forced to join the military to pay for college,etc...
I think perhaps you still have a 90s or pre 08 idea of how far money goes. You're not skiing in geneva with your family with 250k lol.
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on semantics, then, because this statement is close to my dictionary definition of greedy.
> You're not skiing in geneva with your family with 250k lol.
No shit. I'm following your logic to its inevitable conclusion. You think that guy making $5 MM per annum is greedy, but he thinks he's just a regular dude barely scraping by leasing a private jet.
To your point, yes, it's all relative, I just think wealthy techies are wildly out of touch with reality. You think you're the poor, struggling 65th percentile, but you're really closer to the 1% – it's just that you compare yourself to your 0.01% billionaire masters, so you don't "feel" rich.
Listen to yourself: "actual best schools and colleges. Safe neighborhoods and good houses with a large enough backyard for kids to play around in and have large pets"
As though you need to make a quarter million dollars a year for this? Either move to Iowa, or have the grace and self-awareness to shut up forever.
I work in an interesting area (bioinformatics research) and as expected the pay is pretty dire to match. You do get the warm fuzzies now and again when strangers ask about your job, but the rest of the time is spent wondering if you should move into fintech so you don't have to worry about grocery prices.