>Robertson shares Rodriguez’s concerns, pointing to incident reports of the robots pushing neighbors off the sidewalks onto busy streets, colliding with bicyclists and even deterring emergency vehicles.
Sounds like the robots don't do a good job at avoiding
The problem with PE is only the hyper aggressive and generally terrible ones make the news.
The quiet ones that simply run business well, don't make the news.
There are PE firms that specialize in rescuing distressed companies with potential and turning them around. In many cases not firing anyone and holding onto the form they acquired for a long time.
It's worse than that. In many cases the dollar stores now get skus of items made for them that are "cheaper" than a sku in Walmart but for a more expensive unit price than Walmart as they shrink the product.
I think maybe that was implied, considering the topic of conversation and website we’re on.
That said if you’re making $250k+ a year and not on track to retire by 50, seriously please open a retirement calculator and figure out what you need to do to get there.
There are a whole lot of people here who work in the tech industry but aren't working in SV. There are even a decent number who aren't in the tech industry at all.
I regularly frequent HN, and even comment from time to time, but I don't work in tech nor do I make bank. I'm a cashier at a gas station. Lol. I'm lucky if I make $16000 a year after taxes.
Tax rates, cost of living differences, etc depending where you are in the world don't always make this a good salary.
Generally outside SV:
- If you are making $250+ it is at least middle management (not tech work) AND
- Only in zones where cost of living is eating this up (e.g. UK/Europe/Australia/etc can get to this equilvalent salary but costs for example for rent, food, tax, etc are much higher).
In most countries SWE is above average pay, but it isn't life changing and it still unfortunately has the boom/bust cycles.
I've met some very good engineers who have built some great large scale solutions who are on less than this salary often in non tech firms being outside of the SV area due to personal reasons (e.g. can't move due to family, too old to do the interview dance SWE has become these days, etc).
... if you're making $250+k/yr as an individual in your 20s, yes. If you've just hit that at age 40+, maybe you're just looking at a comfortable 60-67ish retirement. The US medical system gives you exposure to well into the five figures of risk per year on top of at least high-four-figures in premiums per year (at age 50). Each extra year puts an early retirement without crazy money behind it at serious risk, because your expenses could suddenly and unavoidably shoot up by tens of thousands per year for several years on end.
We're probably around $1,200 for groceries and related (cleaning stuff, mostly) in our house, but we're a family of five. Yeah I'd say $2k is nuts for just two people, even today.
For a long while we managed to stay around $500-600 but that was before COVID inflation. I dunno how the official inflation rate's as low as it is, we don't buy much that'd be considered "luxury" level (we're not buying caviar, say, and rarely even get stuff like the grass-fed "fancy" butter [actually yellow instead of white, tastes like something rather than just having texture but no flavor] instead of the cheapest available) and I'm pretty sure we buy a lot less meat per person than the US average, but if we fill up a cart now it's like $250-$300. I've hit $150 on small shopping trips where I didn't even fully fill one of the smaller, short carts.
$2.3k, northern va area, family of 3, not fancy anything. data centers have spiked electricity bills, food is insane of course. this does not include once—a-week dinner out or take out
Money has lost about about 10% per year in value for the past 5 years. It used to take like a million dollars to retire, but now it's like double that. In addition, nobody really knows how long they might live or how bad inflation could get. Imagine retiring at 50 only to be wiped out, and maybe still on the hook to pay for your own expenses for another 50 years, plus whoever you have in your life who counts on you.
2 millions to retire? Without owning a house? You must be kidding, unless you plan to live only until 60 or move to the cheapest place in the country. Also keep in mind that most health problems start after 50.
To be fair, if you believe all the usual assumptions, then you can expect to earn 5% on that money. That would turn into $100k annually which is enough to live just about anywhere. Now, if you retire on time, I think this may also be tax free. So it's not that crazy, except for the unknowable inflation part of the puzzle. If inflation is also 5%, then your effective loss is 5% per year, so you'd be down nearly 100% after 20 years. Housing costs are crazy, but if you don't need to work then you can easily move to a cheaper place to save money.
Rent? Ever heard of equity? If you make 250k you can afford a nice condo. Right away that blows a huge hole in your math.
Also $1k month on bills? Groceries too?
Judging by your inflated costs for everything, and ann idea that a house (versus more modest accommodations) is what the goal is, you’ve got Lifestyle creep. And, things certainly get a lot easier when your spouse also works.
Renting can be much better financially than buying.
Edit: all % numbers are per year
Consider the case of condos in cities. If you were to buy outright, you effectively get a return by not paying rent (i.e. paying yourself rent). Rent is usually ~5% of the condo cost. HOA + property taxes is 2-3% so subtract that from the rent return i.e. net return 2-3% (5-2/3%). The rest of the return is appreciation from the underlying real estate prices. I am excluding maintenance costs because they are negligible in condos.
On the other hand, if you rent and put the entire amount (that you would have paid to buy the condo), you get ~10% per year. To break even between the two scenarios, you would need real estate prices to grow 7-8% (2-3% + 8-7% = 10%).
Beyond this, there are psychological reasons to buy vs rent. Buying - ability to customize the space, peace of mind because of perceived stability etc. Renting - flexibility, peace of mind because of no long-term obligations etc.
A mortgage is an interpolation of the two cases at the cost of the interest one pays. It is noteworthy, at least in the US, that for most people, this is the only time they can borrow several hundreds of thousands at relatively low costs.
I’ve been trying for the last decade boomer. Housing keeps going up and my salary keeps staying the same. It’s to the point where a 30 year mortgage will take me to 80 years old. Where a down payment would cost me a decade of saving and nothing but saving. No life, no food, no other bills.
Well, interest rates are high right now, but you’d be surprised at how little down payment you need for purchasing a house or a condo. If you’re a tech worker with a stable career making that kind of money, most underwriters will just give you the loan.
I think people commonly underestimate how accessible this stuff is
It’s easy to make a 40 year forecast spreadsheet for retirement, including housing costs, property, taxes, maintenance. Include vacation, budget, food, general cost of living.
So you oblige yourself to an enormous long-term loan at high-interest, burn PMI on it because you have too little equity, secured against an overpriced-for-quality home whose value may already be at peak or plataeu, fixing yourself to one location, while all signs warn that you may be laid off at any time and facing a long period of unemployment.
I knew a lot of people who did almost exactly that ~18 years ago. It didn't go well for them.
And then it turned out that staying flexible as a renter and setting aside cash set me up to buy after a correction instead of before. That part went very well for me.
Be careful with the assumption coded into your "forecast spreadsheet"
Well yes, there are tradeoffs. On the other hand, go ahead and burn 3k a month on rent.
There is no one size fits all solution but i’m surprised at how many people here are inadvertently revealing to me that they haven’t even tried evaluating.
For example, you saying there’s nothing “affordable” when the baseline assumption is an income of $250k? Can tell you haven’t looked at what’s in your price range. Alright, good luck I guess!
I mentioned Lifestyle creep before but what is with everyone’s fried brains?
A small condo in a nice neighborhood in Santa Clara is below $500k. Yes, that’s a lot, and you certainly can get more bang for your buck if you’re willing to do a little commuting.
Btw a $1m house is accessible if you make $250k yr, although to be honest, I would highly recommend against it
The question I originally responded to was "why would you rent and save for a house at the same time?"
I said "because you need to have a downpayment".
You reply "downpayments aren't that high".
Unless you're getting loans zero down, you literally still need to save to have your downpayment. While you're renting.
So where is my brain fried?
Even on a $500k condo, you're putting 10% down, you still need to have that saved up. Noticeably more, in fact, because I'm sure you'd agree "lemme sink every saved cent I have into my house downpayment" wouldn't be wise.
A majority of software engineers don't make enough money to retire at 50. People who have retired so young tend to be very lucky in both employment and their investments. Most probably stayed unmarried, inherited significant amounts of money, and/or married into even more money. It also helps to be lucky enough to start with a $100k+ job at age 23 and never have any bad luck to set you back. I've met people who check some/all of these boxes, and even they seem to not be retiring at 50.
Unless you're churning your own butter and manufacturing your own solar panels, isn't retirement inherently living off other people regardless of income?
Isn't getting wages in a wealthy country so that you can afford a multiple of work hours from poorly-paid people elsewhere inherently living off other people?
you want to live off another people to some degree. single farmer can feed hundreds - there is no need for everyone to do everything. which of course raises societal fairness and trust issues
This. People act like we’ve gotten $200k+ for more than a decade. Most of us haven’t. It wasn’t until 10 year into my career that I hit $100k so this is boomer math that doesn’t account for inflation of everything.
Too much information density is also disorienting, if not stressing. The biggest problem is finding that balance between multiple kinds of users and even individuals.
>But you can’t get an adjustment of status if you are in violation of your current visa terms.
This is both right and wrong. Congress passed a law ages ago that grants forgiveness to overstaying spouses once the greencard is issued. The AOS process is allowed.
The hole however is the AOS does not extend your authorized stay if you were out of status when it was filed. So this leaves one vulnerable to the ICE arrests.
However, your AOS can still be processed even when arrested because of the forgiveness granted by law, so it just becomes an issue of having a good lawyer to get a judge to intervene.
Subsection (a) allows the “Attorney General, in his discretion” to grant an adjustment of status.
Subsection (c) categorically denies adjustment of status under certain conditions, including where someone has violated the terms of their visa. This takes away the Attorney General’s discretion to grant an adjustment. The adjustment must be denied.
Subsection (e) then makes subsection (c) inapplicable where the immigrant enters into a bona fide marriage during a legal proceeding regarding their immigrant status. It’s not correct to call this a “forgiveness,” because it doesn’t guarantee you any sort of legal status. Instead, it takes away what would otherwise be a categorical bar against an adjustment of status. That puts you back under subsection (a), where the decision is made by the “Attorney General, in his discretion.” The law says the Attorney can grant you the adjustment of status, not that he must. Under the law, the Attorney General can still categorically deny any adjustments under those circumstances.
Sure, but valuation should always exceed cash reserves. It's very odd when it does not. I think I recall that that SUNW (by then JAVA probably) was at one point valued below cash, prior to ORCL acquisition.
If Valve's secrecy is so good that they have (substantially more than) 30-500x cash stashed away in excess of their public valuation estimates, then perhaps I underestimate Valve's secrecy!
More likely, it was an obviously-humorous exaggeration, but I wasn't sure -- I am quite ignorant of the games industry. :)
Corruption is indeed going strong in the current corporate-controlled US group of lame actors posing as government indeed. At the least Trump is now regularly falling asleep - that's the best example that you can use any surrogate puppet and the underlying policies will still continue.
If I mention a president who was more of a general secretary of the party, taking notes of decisions taken for him by lobbies from the largest corporations, falling asleep and having incoherent speech to the point that he seems to be way past the point of stroke, I don’t think anyone will guess Trump.
But now people are vomiting chatgpt responses instead of linking to chatgpt.
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