It's all relative. There is no money for the workers in the service industry because the competition for most roles is unlimited. The supply of technologists is far smaller, however. Every once and a while Google calls me up asking to interview, I politely tell them no. When they ask why I wouldn't want to work there, my response is "You will pay me $100k-$120k. I can make $140k-$160k elsewhere". They start going into this schpeel about their 20% "free time", their stock grants, their free shuttle (Living in SF and would have to commute 2 hours a day to get there). Their culture. They're working really hard to sell me on why I should make $20-$40k less working for them, then to take some other crappy job at a mature startup within 4-6 blocks of my apartment.
You have a good point, I wasn't making the connection to say that cooks should be paid more (which they should because a 100 hour work week is average at that level) but rather to emphasize the sacrifice they make to learn and work for the best chefs
Out of personal curiosity, if you don't mind telling me, what's your age/education/job? I'm curious as to who Google actively recruits.
BTW: feel free to email me if you don't want to post that
Google constantly emails me asking if I want to apply, though I'm not sure they'd hire me if I had the patience to go through their interview process properly.
I'm 34, have a bachelor's in math and one in comp sci from Carnegie Mellon, and I have about 11 years of full-time software engineering experience on my resume, primarily in C and C++.
Me and a friend have a running joke/friendly rivalry about how I started coding when I was 7, and he started when he was 6... but he's a year younger than me, so we have the same number of years of experience.
I used to think that .. Until I turned '30 and realized I'd given more than 1/2 of my life to a career that I now find rather unfulfilling financially, intellectually, and personally.
What's wrong with stock grants? That's much better than stock options. If you get 40,000 shares vesting after, say four years, why would you complain? Sure, there's no guarantee the stock won't collapse, but on the off chance the price holds or goes up, isn't two million after four years not too shabby? Not sure I understand why Google would be lumped together with companies that offer only options, or grants of dog stocks.
What's wrong with Stock Grants? Why not just go to Vegas then, the odds might be better. Stock options or grants are just another form of gambling. Stock options at a startup are a joke, and for the most part have been a worthless tool that induces slavery for the past 10 years. As for grants, no corporation with stock of any value is giving significant grants. Google gives employees grants of 200 shares nowadays.
What's wrong with Stock Grants? Why not just go to Vegas then, the odds might be better. Stock options or grants are just another form of gambling. Stock options at a startup are a joke, and for the most part have been a worthless tool that induces slavery for the past 10 years. As for grants, no corporation with stock of any value is giving significant grants. Google gives employees grants of 200 shares nowadays.
