/
Navigation
Chronicles
Browse all articles
Explore
Semantic exploration
Research
Entity momentum
Nexus
Correlations & relationships
Story Arc
Topic evolution
Drift Map
Semantic trajectory animation
Posts
Analysis & commentary
Pulse API
Tech news intelligence API
Browse
Entities
Companies, people, products, technologies
Domains
Browse by publication source
Handles
Browse by social media handle
Detection
Concept Search
Semantic similarity search
High Impact Stories
Top coverage by position
Sentiment Analysis
Positive/negative coverage
Anomaly Detection
Unusual coverage patterns
Analysis
Rivalry Report
Compare two entities head-to-head
Semantic Pivots
Narrative discontinuities
Crisis Response
Event recovery patterns
Connected
Search: /
Command: ⌘K
Embeddings: large
TEXXR

Chronicles

The story behind the story

days · browse · Enter similar · o open

SF vibes are frenetic over the huge divide in outcomes and career uncertainty for software engineers; over 5 years ~10K people in AI attained retirement wealth

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen. Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope

@deedydas Deedy

Discussion

  • @yuchenj_uw Yuchen Jin on x
    I had my FOMO phase too: “If I hadn't started a company a few years ago and had joined OpenAI/Anthropic/xAI instead, I'd probably have $100M now.” But then I watched some of those rich people. Their daily focus became: “How do I minimize taxes?” “Where should I buy a house in
  • @andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
    >Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there. Never get where, though? Many of the people in this industry believe takeoff is imminent or already underway. Do these numbers matter in the world
  • @staysaasy @staysaasy on x
    When my wife was in business school, people would occasionally refer to someone else as “first-time cool” - meaning that they had been marginalized socially before (at prior jobs, college, HS, wherever), and were reinventing themselves in a new social arena. Often by trying a
  • @jxnlco Jason on x
    At the tender age 30 for my birthday I gave myself the feeling of being enough. Now it's all just fun and games
  • @ilyasu Ilya Sukhar on x
    The solution to all of this is to have kids.
  • @petergyang Peter Yang on x
    If you're stuck in the Bay Area tech rat race / psychosis, make time to travel to other places. Go to a small town in Europe or visit Asia - you'll see that life can be about much more than whether you're IC7 or IC8 or what company you work for. Don't be the person to put on
  • @gris2049 Gris on x
    @deedydas This is what Heidegger called thrownness. you didn't choose your starting conditions, the year you graduated, whether your college roommate happened to be starting a company in 2018 or if you landed at Anthropic or OpenAI. The people outside that $20M circle aren't fail…
  • @agustinlebron3 Agustin Lebron on x
    Fascinating that it doesn't seem to occur to these post-economic people to pass on their knowledge and experience. Teach, coach, mentor some bright kids, etc. The fact it's seen as low status, when it even gets considered, says a lot about the solipsistic culture they're in.
  • @anothercohen Alex Cohen on x
    This post is a nice reminder of why I don't miss living in SF. Loved the ambition, hated the culture
  • @buccocapital @buccocapital on x
    I can't stop thinking about this post. If you do one thing today, I encourage you to give it a thoughtful, thorough read... And then commit to never living your life this way. Life has wasted success on the people described in this post. It really is completely pathetic. They
  • @devahaz Deva Hazarika on x
    My message to most of the people addressed in this post is you are incredibly fortunate and can simply make a choice to be happy about the position you've gotten yourself into
  • @signulll @signulll on x
    what's interesting to me is that the previous gold rushes didn't credibly threaten the safe path simultaneously while dangling the jackpot. like you could sit out the dot com boom & keep your accounting job. the current bit where the same technology is both the lottery ticket &
  • @lindytasteful TastefulLindy on x
    Only in SF do the $400k/year folks feel trapped in the “permanent underclass”
  • @packym Packy McCormick on x
    It is 70 and sunny in New York City, we're heading to a kite festival, and I haven't heard the words “agent” or “token” once all morning. Greatest city in the world.
  • @matthewstoller Matt Stoller on x
    Basically an oligarchy sucks for everyone, even the superrich. It's a culture of fear and deference with no meaning.
  • @ramit Ramit Sethi on x
    Would you rather make money slowly or make it all at once? My entrepreneur friends and I noticed some differences: - People who make a lot of money all at once (e.g., sell their company) often still feel scarcity about money after the transaction. Hard to change their
  • @staysaasy @staysaasy on x
    Literally every person I know that got rich quick seems incredibly sad (some for over a decade now).