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sombremesa commented on Pay-frozen Microsofties not happy to hear of 'landmark year'   theregister.com/2023/07/0... · Posted by u/raybb
User23 · 3 years ago
Amazon was consistently averaging greater than 30% compounding annual returns from 2012 to 2021, which is far in excess of the Seattle housing market. This is obvious to anyone who knows how to read a chart. Sorry to say, but if that was you missing out on those amazing returns to fund a down payment then you’re just bad at personal finance. In a (near) ZIRP environment you obviously buy real estate by levering up not by selling equity.
sombremesa · 3 years ago
I usually don't argue with people who are this out of touch, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Let's do some math. In both cases we're buying the same home for keeps, so we can ignore the value of the final asset (would be the same in, say, 2100 A.D. in both cases):

Amazon stock 13x'd from 2012 to 2023. Say you had $50k vested by year 1 (close to what you'd have in 2013 as new grad). That money would be $650k in 2023. If you invested that into a house just around then, say in a $300k home, your interest rate would be ~3.7%. That means you would be paying $415,040 over the next 30 years, including your down payment.

Now let's say you were...you...and decided to wait till today. That same home is now worth $1.3 million in 2023. Your mortgage rate is 6.5%. You have your $650k in stock, so you put 20% down ($260k). Your mortgage is $1.04M. Over the next 30 years, you will be paying...a whopping $2,341,800. But hey, congrats on your "extra" $390k in stocks. By the way, you paid (if we are VERY conservative) ~$250k in rent while living in an equivalent property in those ten years.

sombremesa commented on Pay-frozen Microsofties not happy to hear of 'landmark year'   theregister.com/2023/07/0... · Posted by u/raybb
elkos · 3 years ago
You said that their compensation is peanuts, is there a source one can look up upon? Just for the curious people like me.
sombremesa · 3 years ago
You can look on levels.fyi for current comp, but it's a bit harder to find what someone's comp is like if they started ten years ago. Perhaps you could look at H1B data and extrapolate at a 3-5% raise p.a. with larger bumps every now and then. Even at just today's numbers though, MSFT lags behind comparable employers.
sombremesa commented on Pay-frozen Microsofties not happy to hear of 'landmark year'   theregister.com/2023/07/0... · Posted by u/raybb
User23 · 3 years ago
If you’re smart enough to pay the tax on your RSUs and hold them for a decade then yeah it’s a pretty straight shot to a few mil. Even Amazon with its notoriously back loaded grants minted a ton of level 5 multimillionaires.
sombremesa · 3 years ago
You missed the "personal" part of "personal finance." If you live in Seattle and started working in, say 2012, that "smart" decision would be costing you a ton of money today (certainly more than a few mil all said and done) should you be in need of a home.
sombremesa commented on Pay-frozen Microsofties not happy to hear of 'landmark year'   theregister.com/2023/07/0... · Posted by u/raybb
ethanbond · 3 years ago
They’re complacent but work harder than you? I don’t get it.
sombremesa · 3 years ago
I updated the wording to help you out.
sombremesa commented on Pay-frozen Microsofties not happy to hear of 'landmark year'   theregister.com/2023/07/0... · Posted by u/raybb
gregd · 3 years ago
There is a component in contentment that I think is lacking in complacency...that of general happiness. So to me, they are not the same.

As someone who has a growth mindset I can assure you that in corporations like Microsoft or Intel (I worked at the latter), one's own personal growth is not only fostered, but highly encouraged.

Corporate life ain't for everyone and I get that. As a 56 year-old being squeezed out of the marketplace due to ageism, some of us aren't just after the highest pay or the most prestige at our jobs.

sombremesa · 3 years ago
> There is a component in contentment that I think is lacking in complacency...that of general happiness.

I don't see it that way, complacency can be just contentment from one's own perspective — it may take a third party to call it complacency (sometimes wrongly so, such as that parable[0]).

[0] https://thestorytellers.com/the-businessman-and-the-fisherma...

(Though that parable fails to account for unforeseen financial emergencies and such...)

sombremesa commented on Pay-frozen Microsofties not happy to hear of 'landmark year'   theregister.com/2023/07/0... · Posted by u/raybb
remote_phone · 3 years ago
Msft stock is up 10X in 10 years. They are all multi millionaires. I would be complacent too and quibbling over 3% probably isn’t at the top of my list of priorities
sombremesa · 3 years ago
> They are all multi millionaires.

Sure, but so am I — and I know for a fact they make very little, because of the way they talk about our mutual friends' job offers — I cannot even tell them my salary, to be honest. (Making less money is not a bad thing, but the pertinent point is that they work longer hours than I do, in the same industry!)

> Msft stock is up 10X in 10 years.

Here I'd like to correct you on one point — stock going up like this does not necessarily equate to outsized wealth. When you join as a new grad, you get very little stock, and as you get more grants, they are market-adjusted (not to mention vested over time). Plus the early stock inevitably gets sold to buy a home, etc.

Feel free to ignore me if you knew these things.

sombremesa commented on Pay-frozen Microsofties not happy to hear of 'landmark year'   theregister.com/2023/07/0... · Posted by u/raybb
gregd · 3 years ago
What you call complacency, I call contentment. Some of us don't like job hopping. Still others of us don't like startup or hustle culture. Some of us have families to support and are quite content to work hard for better than average salaries and benefits, live and work where we want to, engage with friends we've made at work (even across business teams), build retirement. Some of us have even spent many months out of each year, traveling the world with some of our coworkers.
sombremesa · 3 years ago
> What you call complacency, I call contentment.

Contentment and complacency are ostensibly the same thing, though the primary reason I tend towards the latter term is because I think we ought to aspire to growth (in whatever sense you determine for yourself). That's just my opinion though. It's also worth noting that I have no way of knowing what others are aspiring to, aside from what happens in their life over the years (which can be a poor proxy, given the role of luck).

sombremesa commented on Pay-frozen Microsofties not happy to hear of 'landmark year'   theregister.com/2023/07/0... · Posted by u/raybb
noisy_boy · 3 years ago
> Nadella in Jan, 2023 > That means every one of us and every team across the company must raise the bar and perform better than the competition to deliver meaningful innovation that customers, communities, and countries can truly benefit from. If we deliver on this, we will emerge stronger and thrive long into the future; it’s as simple as that.

> Nadella in Jul, 2023 > As we approach the end of FY23, I want to express my sincere appreciation to everyone working hard across the company for a strong close. The innovation and creativity you continue to show have made this a landmark year not just for Microsoft, but for our customers, partners, and communities around the world

So the folks on the ground raised the bar, performed better than competition, make it a landmark year, delivered a strong close and their sole financial reward will be their continued employment - is it as simple as that? Or have they started accepting sincere appreciations as payment at Trader Joe's?

PS: "countries" were not in the list of beneficiaries this time.

sombremesa · 3 years ago
Microsoft employees are some of the most complacent I've ever seen. Some of my Microsoftie friends haven't had an interview (aside from maybe one or two recruiter calls) in over ten years, having been there since graduation. Needless to say, their comp is peanuts. Yet they frequently stay at work late and have to drop engagements as a result.

Microsoft has the magic formula for lifers who don't ask much and work just as hard as anyone else, if not harder (by big tech standards — startups folks work way harder for way less).

u/sombremesa

KarmaCake day2045February 7, 2015View Original