And yet it directly speaks to the comment it was replying to. It makes the point that RSUs are generally multi-year; so if you're getting them with _any_ frequency, you never get to the point of "the last RSU vests".
But does it matter that it is or isn't privileged? Thats the root question. What are you trying to highlight?
I have to assume you aren't trying to shame someone for moral opinion about talking about facts on the table - as that does 0 for any kind of public discourse.
So you agree your comment provides no value to the conversation here except a kind of "check your privileges - shut down the conversation I am greater than thou perspective".
I am asking you what value are you trying to bring here to the thread with this comment? Does one have to have a qualifier statement "I have certain privileges ascribed to my life" and now make a comment? Should I be adding qualifying statements to this comment to make sure the morality police don't come finger wagging?
Of course i realize how privileged it is. It seemed like useful information to the discussion, so i added it. I don't particularly care if people know how much or how little i made.
The vast majority of HN in the US is almost certainly within the top 1% of earners in the US (the cutoff is ~660k for households, ~450k for individuals), and the rest is probably within the top 10% (the cutoff is ~260k for households, ~150k for individuals). So overall it's a fairly privileged place, even if it likes to often pretend it's not.
In my life i've been both very poor and very rich. I'm now happy, and that matters a lot more than either.
I also happen to think it's fairly naive to believe that making lots of money makes it trivial to leave a place.
It's like believing having loved someone for 20 years makes it easier to get divorced.
Wasn’t meant to shame, just a shocking thing to take in. Make as much as you can, if that is what is sought. Those numbers are a rarefied circumstance. It sucks that they cuffed you, but great you escaped. Tough decision to make.
It’s genuinely great to read you’ve found happiness.
The fact that it's privileged to have an X is irrelevant to the discussion. The discussion was about whether or not an X will Y. And it started with "If you have an X".
> I have my golden handcuffs too, probably most on HN do
I don't. And I expect I'm not in the minority here. If you're going to throw rocks, you might want to ponder your own privilege before you start tossing accusations.
I think the "last RSU" was more a figure of speech. At some point a person passes above an earnings level where they feel comfortable deactivating the "money making mode" and let their conscience speak.
While transparency is admirable, I don’t find the “why I left Google” blog posts to be particularly interesting content to be posted to HN.
They happen relatively frequently and there are a number of things about them that feel distasteful:
- The authors are in the literal 1%, so for the 99% of us who are doing far worse it feels a bit like a tiny violin exercise.
“Sorry you worked for an unethical company, my company is unethical, too, and I can’t quit over morals or else my family won’t eat.
- Being in the 1% affords many of these individuals more options in life to work for ethical employees or pursue noble causes, and articles like this one makes you question why they just woke up to the reality they were benefitting from for so long. It seems like everyone on the outside has known about those moral quandaries for a while.
- The people who quit Google are one of 100,000 employees, which dilutes the value of hearing an individual story from someone who is leaving the company.
I don’t feel like I was being “snarky.” I also have no problem with the articles being upvoted.
I don’t think it’s very fair to tell people who want to constructively criticize articles to just not engage with them. That feels like a deflection of my points rather than addressing the merit of what I actually said.
Instead of saying “here’s what was wrong with your idea” you said “you’re not supposed to be here.”
I genuinely think the author could read comments like mine and get something out of them.
Timing wise, I happened to leave after my old grants expired and before my new grants would be in my account. I was a VP of engineering when i left. Google pays VP's quite well.
If there's a reason you want more exact numbers, poke me over email.
All of these things are 100% bullshit and always have been. It's tragic that Google actually had people believing them when they championed "don't be evil".
Maybe they should not have joined the company in the first place if they had "morals" or "principles". Yet they still joined in 2017 even after knowing that slogan was removed anyway.
Company mottos, principles, slogans and values are all fake fronts to lure in these sort of people alongside the free food with the carrots on those sticks.
Once that all runs out or the company goes south and stops being a daycare, then they start doing silly virtue signalling posts like this.
Now you are seeing who was there for the 'good vibes', free food, rest n' vest and who was there to keep the company alive.
...And finally we know that this is a love letter to get themselves hired at Anthropic. I think you might need more than that honestly.
Google provides annual RSU refreshes. There is no "last RSU".
This announcement is also 9 years after they started, and Google has a 4 year vesting schedule, so it's not even possible that this coming after the initial grant vests.
This is a completely unfair and unsubstantiated dismissal of the article.
This is incredibly annoying to see in the real world. People who pontificate values on LinkedIn but work for a company they disagree with, only to see them stay until they hit 4 years and leave. No idea how they think they have any moral high ground.
<rant>
I am so tired of reading these stupid "why I am leaving my job after making millions". One thing I can say about myself: I work for money. That's it. Lots of things the companies that I work for (normally 25,000+ employees) do immoral and unethical things. Still, I stay, earn money, and I don't write stupid fucking self-righteous blog posts after I leave. At this point, blog posts like this look like an "own goal".
</rant>
yep, and happy to make everyone around them feel guilty when they got theirs. i strongly dislike people who do this performative crap while unfortunately believing in their right to say it.
