That's eerily similar to the people you meet in startups:
- most consultants
- "lifestyle businesses"
- "worked at facebook, give me money"
So much hype in both industries, for similar reasons. There are always ways for smart people to make money. Most people with some experience in either industry are doing better than the national average but hardly wealthy and generally spend too much money.
I do get the impression there's better pay in finance though. $250k as an experienced engineer strikes a lot of people as high. $250k for someone w/ a few years at a good hedge fund is... about right, maybe even low.
Sadly the "I worked st google, give me money" angle seems to work pretty well since there's a lot of dumb money in the valley lately? (Small upstart seed funds with partners with very little track record / weak deal flow)
Ugh, yeah, I've recruited a few of these people. They're the worst because:
1) they're used to the benefits that come from a company that is swimming in cash
2) they didn't personally take any of the risk to create that firehose of cash but they want you to treat them like they did.
3) they don't realize it, but they're used to working in very protected environments. Typical career paths look like top-tier college -> Google / FB / Twitter / whatever. None of this prepares them for sitting in a room with some shitty Ikea desks and trying to make hard decisions that will have a direct impact on the companies growth. No, we don't have the time or resources to build a new JS framework.
I'd much rather higher someone from a second-tier US college or from overseas that can show me a time when they took significant risk / projects they built from scratch.
^ All of this is in relationship to < 20 employee companies trying to get from zero to 1.
- most consultants
- "lifestyle businesses"
- "worked at facebook, give me money"
So much hype in both industries, for similar reasons. There are always ways for smart people to make money. Most people with some experience in either industry are doing better than the national average but hardly wealthy and generally spend too much money.
I do get the impression there's better pay in finance though. $250k as an experienced engineer strikes a lot of people as high. $250k for someone w/ a few years at a good hedge fund is... about right, maybe even low.