As someone working in tech I absolutely agree with this video. I just graduated an most of my classmates who did get jobs are easily clearing 100k in total compensation. In no other industries you can study for 4 years and get close to such a salary other than oil and gas and investment banking. Its a shame to see us tech workers push out the locals. Its easy for us to just offer 20% above asking price for a rental and not think about the consequences to the previous tenant. You look at san francisco the firefighters, police men and teachers can't even afford to live in the city they serve.
One negative thing about working in tech is that it’s harder to keep up with the latest things then many other fields. This is great for younger people (climb the ladder faster) but not so when getting older unless move into management.
The double edged sword. It has worked in my favor, as it decreases the value of experience in favor of ability and motivation to learn new things. My plan is to accept a leadership position in my 40's. And that's coming up fast!
Plus it means it's harder for schools to keep up too. So you'll speend 4 years and $50,000+ getting a degree from university, and most of it is too out of date to be useful. For example, one of my classes dedicated 2 weeks to teaching how to optimally read and write to 8 track tape. That was in 2019
@@Spencer-wc6ew academia should focus on fundamentals, they don't change and knowing them will make learning about all the blingy new stuff way easier. A school that focuses on latest stuff specifics is just bad and should be considered fraud. CS is not about newest technology, its about principles, that won't change a lot.
@@Spencer-wc6ew "So you'll speend [sic] 4 years and $50,000+ getting a degree from university, and most of it is too out of date to be useful." That's actually good to keep the salaries high. Let me explain: The idea of going into a 4 year course is not to learn tech that gets out of date, but learning the theoretical basis that never gets out of date. But this common myth, the myth that you go to university to enter the job market is wrong, you don't even need a degree to begin with. You go there to get deeper level knowledge so you can actually survive the multiple waves washing every 2 years. Which is why people say tech goes at unbelievable breakneck speed and you can't keep up. You can actually keep up if you have the foundations, but not if you only want to learn "next tech". But people don't want to wait 4 years and invest $50K , to earn $150K per year for the next 10 years until they're too burned out. No, they want it now, so they go about learning the next "framework" of the moment, they chase the dragon, that's when they lose. The truth is, most web frameworks is just fashion, they keep changing things just for the sake of changing them, to make money. Its literally just the front-end that keeps changing. Meanwhile the real thing that makes the business is not the front-end, its the back-end, but that also keeps getting more complex, although at a much slower pace, but that also compounds over decades. Only when you have a long term view and a solid foundation you are able to see that and cope with the never ending changing pace of the industry. So in a way, you do need the graduation. They don't stop being useful, to the contrary, they become essential to be able to climb the knowledge slope. The barrier of entry is getting steeper by the day, and more of the fallen middle class try to enter into this new high class (thinking it'll be easy, its not easy, it requires solid years of study). But even that party will end eventually, then it'll become entrenched, when the steepness of the learning curve is so high that it takes a decade of study to work in tech, and it keeps getting more complex too. It'll be like medicine, super hard to enter, then the party will be over.
Killing it as always man. Don't forget to give yourself a break every now and then. You upload more often and do better research than channels way bigger than you. I can't imagine what kind of workload you deal with on a daily basis.
@@LogicallyAnswered Hey brother - agreed, on the above. Your content is consistent, intelligent, meaningful and high quality. And by the way, quick note: those LONG black interlude pauses you inserted between each title segment on this video were horrible - they were simultaneously pointless in their extra long duration, and irritating in their prompting of the viewer to eventually be like, "WTF is wrong - did the f'ing video inexplicably stop?? Did my app freeze?" Just viewer feedback - thanks. 👍
Money printing liberates us from the tyranny, ecological and human devastation of digging up and mining an element only to largely bury it again in a vault because a particular subset of human beings and the occasional dragon regards it as "valuable" and wants to sleep on top of it to feel like it has an actual edge over others. True wealth is the actual production and potential of a people. Don't get hung up on the form of the exchange. It's the exchange that counts.
Tech doesn't have to mean software or computing. Whatever the latest technology driving massive efficiencies is, that's where prosperity will center around. Even last century, factories were the new technology driving efficiency globally and people who got into the factories early reaped for a while until factories became commoditized.
@@LogicallyAnswered Throughout the video I couldn't help but feel that a few decades later, someone is gonna make a video like this but tech will be replaced with AI.
I have been in tech for 11 years. My dad has not. We both only have a high school degree. My dad has been doing his job for 22 years, with 13 years at his current job. His income when he started was $10/hour or $20k a year (roughly) in 2001. Now he makes $26/hour. I bill invoices at $112/hour. This is specifically growing up in midwest in Kentucky.
I wish I was smart like you and your dad. I saw some vid around here; this white hat hacker guy easily makes 600k+/yearly but he does bug bounties for zero day exploits I think he seems to be very smart even by programmer standards. Best of luck.
@SlapStyleAnims Honestly this industry is quite large and diverse; you really can make it here even if you’re a complete buffoon. What matters is that you can put in the time to learn about programming or whatever niche you’re aiming at. Honestly there are a lot of non technical jobs in the tech industry (like sales for example) and they still pay quite well. So anyways if you’re interested I would suggest keep on learning about the industry and see what kind of career interests you and what you need to do to achieve it.
20 years in Tech and make 192k a year including my tech side hustle that I do while I’m working my full time job. Barely work 35 hours a week. Glad I found this field. No College degree and no debt. Grateful everyday.
You may want to change the title to Big Tech. I've been in tech for over 20 years and I don't make anywhere near $300,000. Hell I don't even make $100,000.
@mathemat3939 This industry encapsulates several other aspects that do not pose much earnings potential. Those who work as programmers for a biotech company, database admins for a university, IT for a hospital also work in tech and do not have these types of salaries. Not to mention working for some of the older players like HP, Intel, Cisco, IBM, will not give you such lucrative salaries.
@@gabrielgarcia7554 biomed is not consider tech. data base admins for education is not considered tech it is considered academia, it for hospitals is not considered tech. Tech means the entire company is geared towards tech. You can be a programmer for the government and you are not tech you work in government. I dont know why people extend that to mean every freaking thing that involves computers.
@@gabrielgarcia7554 CISCO still pays 300k+ for principal and higher and it is easy to get that unlike FAANG. Issue is low talent goes to HP/Intel/etc. because well so many go into software/electrical engineering because well it is higher paying but so many are horrible. I cant believe how bad so many engineers are. It is why even fizzbuzz can be used to weed out applicants at low tier companies.
I'm an applied physicist and recently we interviewed a few software engineers (having 2 years of work experience) to write and maintain programs when needed, for our experiments. I barely get paid £40k for all my intellect and writing grants, while the person we're looking to hire (for a relatively low intellect/effort role) would get paid more than £65k. I didn't become physicist for money, but damn.
Maybe with some of your intellect you could make a software solution in your field to make up the difference and off load all time you spend grant writing to the new grant writing AI systems
The level of compensation is ever hardly about the raw talent alone. You have the knowledge and the intellect which is a great starting point for future success. But now, the next step is to commercialize those attributes. You haven't done that step yet, which is why your compensation is low. Of course life is more than just making money, the contributions that you may make to science with your research can be a lot more rewarding than just having a pile of cash. Which is why I think you've chosen this profession in the first place. Keep up the good work.
$40k? Delivery drivers make more than that. And $65k for a developer must be someone fresh out of college having trouble finding a job. Perhaps UK wages are just really low.
Dude, no one in the 2000s doubted tech at all. Parents definitely didn't tell their children not do to CS just because the industry was making billions and not trillions. This part of the video went completely off the rails.
I'm a software engineer in Germany. This video really made me think. Tech salaries here have not exploded as they did in the US. I'm not sure why, though.
Germany is special case. Companies there cannot be seen overpaying one type of employees. Go to Netherlands and you will get 200k a year easily. Here is Slovakia they get double of other specialists. I was paid 2k a month in accounting development role on accounting side and tech roles gets upwards of 4k. I stopped putting in work when i realized i get paid so much less.
I get paid above 4k a month for software engineering, which is a great salary but nothing compared to the US. Interesting to hear that Dutch salaries are also higher for devs.
@@Zoltan1251 Where do you get easily 200k in the Netherlands? I didn't see anything like that. Still, the UK is one of the best in Europe, then probably Switzerland (but Switzerland's market is small). But still, we are talking about 100-120k roughly (as a permanent, contractors slightly more).
@@Zoltan1251 yeah 4.1K Euros brutto per month. It's still my first year after uni, though. I've talked to many others and they have similar salary in their first year
I like your work, but I feel like globalization and offshoring are ignored. The middle class refered back to are always cited as teacher, police, and firefighter....all govt employees. I agree with your point and am not trying to detract, but just can't see having a conversation about the American middle class that does not address the loss of industry.
I think tech pay will eventually normalize to like most jobs. Right now tech field is still like the wild west or early 20th century, when monopolies ran rampant. Today's Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. basically runs unchallenged and use anticompetitive measures to maintain super high profit margins and is able to use insane pay to suck up the limited pool of tech workers. But if history holds, eventually monopolies will be broken up. Once competition is restored, there will be a race to the bottom trying out to compete with all the competitors in the same market segment, and to be competitive companies will need to keep payroll expenses down. Tech will grow to be a bigger part of the economy but when it becomes most of the economy, the jobs are no longer special, and the pay will become ordinary like most jobs.
It won’t. The reason: tech industry is extremely vulnerable. If you pay less , people will break out and form a rival company. This is demonstrated by Fairchild Semi, Intel, Flipkart, WhatsApp and many more
Tech jobs are lucrative because the demand for technology vastly exceeds the supply of technologists. Most technologists do not work for big tech companies so their fate won't make or break that labor market.
Like most other industries, foreign competition will also play a roll. This is a big unspoken part of the mounting conflict with China. The way things are looking, up and coming countries will buy from China, because they know China just wants to sell, not use it as a control mechanism. US tech will dominate "the west" where populations are shrinking. It's not just about skill set.
I believe that tech was an accelerator of our economic downturn, but not its driver. If our economy was a tired camel, the tech transition is throwing on another bundle of sticks. Population collapse is our greatest danger, and that started showing in the 1970s. Personally I see myself entering the lower class lifestyle one day, and preparing for it as if it weren't a choice. Several bubbles seem ready to burst. I work in tech.
I disagree, I don't think we will have a population collapse, the whole globe isn't and won't be South Korea 😂. When peoples security, education and job are managed correctly people seem to like multiple children, probably around 3 on average, some people of course won't have any, so will have many, many more. I live in a country where the birth rate is one of the highest in Europe.
As a tech worker who has been working in San Jose, Boston and DC I can tell that tech employs some of the most unqualified people as well plain vanilla under achievers. Diversity has taken over and as an owner of a small edtech I can tell you that wages and benefits will be slammed in the next few years. Big tech is aware that the cheap money is gone and this orgy of 20 of obnoxious marketing and speculation will come to an end. They could layoff half of the tech workers and things would be fine.. Ask Elon about that and shareholders of these companies should demand the control of this overpaying.
Already happening. That's why I switched to the government who are offering higher pay for tech workers than they used to. Like 25% raise if you are in IT or CS related field. People can start close to or at 6 figures. Admittedly still nowhere near as high as FAANG pay, but not bad.
Appreciate this super thoughtful perspective! I just moved to the Raleigh-Durham area and am kinda picking up on the early signs of it becoming the next Austin (with regards to your observations of how tech companies have impacted the local economy). They're really tryna scale this place up to be the big city that it's not even close to being ready to be, if only bc there's plenty of working class people that are gonna get pushed out real quick if they're not more proactive about it. Apple is breaking ground on a campus here super soon. Meta already has a hub here. I'm def concerned.
12:25 finally, someone explained this. People think Blackrock controls the country when they don't even have the assets to control California. And even if they did, it would require a 100% allocation to real estate, which no Investment firm would do. Same with Blackstone.(people mix the two up). So just stop. Thank God someone finally said it's just tech and high income people. Half my friends make a half million a year, the other half, 50k. That means, houses are unaffordable for 50%.
In essence, the technology sector is generating an excessive amount of wealth, particularly for the leading corporations, to the point where they can offer extremely generous compensation packages. This, in turn, has significant repercussions on the lives of other individuals. I believe that over time, compensation in the tech industry will become more even or comparable to median salary, with only highly qualified individuals with Ph.D. qualifications in cutting-edge sectors earning substantial incomes. Others may find themselves replaceable and making less due to the influx of numerous graduates and the growing use of AI, which will simplify many job roles.
I feel like there’s going to be a resurgence of non tech. Covid was the final lesson in just how badly we people need community. I think a shift to more local community businesses will be seen in the coming future. As long as the government doesn’t stop ot
It's quite stupid to blame tech employees for everything. Not the tech employees created a shortage of houses, the government does it. And the decline started much earlier (including with money printing) than high salaries started in tech. Today it's almost impossible to build a house, whilst before that the government even encouraged building (by building roads and utilities). Probably you are just too young so you don't remember those times and you just cherry-pick a few issues in some cities (like Austin). But this is a problem everywhere. The houses are expensive because of stupid government policies. And only the government can fix this problem (but they are not interested).
I've been working in tech for 40 years and never understood why it's paid so well. It's not that hard. "The consequences" section was very interesting. So it's really millions of wealthy people consuming stuff that drives up prices for not so wealthy people. And Warren Buffett would have almost no impact on prices because he doesn't buy expensive things.
To say tech is destroying middle class is kind of backwards. They had a lot of money and actually paid their workers that. Something we should all advocate for. We should be asking why the big companies are not paying their workers more.
I first discover your channel with a video about Saudi Arabia oil reserve. Since, it has been almost exclusively video about Tech and in particular tech salary. Even thought most are interesting, it would be nice to change the subject from time to time please.
Fortunately, most middle class shrinking is from people moving to the upper classes but the real problem is people cannot afford housing with all the zoning laws, healthcare with Obamacare and endless regulations and protections, and education with the student loan bubble. The economics behind this phenomenon are more complex than just tech.
Going against the flow here, but I believe you're wrong. Yes, it does affect inflation in the big cities. However, we are seeing inflation in many different countries where tech workers don't make as many times as the median like in the US. We even see inflation on rent in small cities that have no tech centers in miles.
I feel like many people don't fully understand how big a deal this goalpost-moving really is. When firefighters, paramedics and teachers (people who, you know, do some of the most important jobs that exist) are becoming "lower class" financial citizens it isn't just unfortunate anymore; it's a civilization-threatening crisis that should slam the brakes on basically everything else until addressed.
Wouldn't it be relevant to include the total number of tech employees vs total American workers? Highly doubt tech workers are a driver or this or than in certain cities like SF, Seattle, Austin, etc.
Hmmmmm.... we need to understand what middle class means based on a few standards otherwise it doesn't make sense to use the term any more. The casual middle class family used to be owning a house, a car, a pet, having family with 2 kids, and all that by your mid 30s based on the income of only 1 of the 2 parents. And that was considered a very humble average at the time. This is obviously not the case now. IMHO there's a manual labor working class, a digital labor working class, and then there's different types of middles classes at this point. Owning a house or an apartment by your mid 30s on a single full time job income is close to impossible in big cities around the world.
There's an XYZ factor: boomers. Yea. The parents of millennials. And I also put myself a son of boomers, and in a very similar context in growing up in another country (now I live in the US), but the story is... the extreme of the extreme over here. Boomers started their careers in a prosperous economy with very cheap real estate. That's why they own so much. They are also the ones, in the US, that made ridiculous things such as HOAs so strong, and they're actually, still nowadays, the majority of the politicians. They're the ones who think that a high-density residential building cannot be built close to their house because it blocks their view (as the land, blocks away, belongs to them). And they fuc*ing win... the point is: it's not fair. They're spending the resources that our generation desperately needs, which is... space. With the growth in the population in the US, the need for housing has increased way more than the "view" allows. I see my generation, millennials, are not really seeking a single-family house with a yard. Basically, the major problem right now in the US is that the desire is being restricted. My generation (millennials) is not really looking for a suburban life with a big yard. We're actually looking for city life. And then, it comes that most cities are actually purposely blocking verticalization... because of boomers who insist on lobbying rules to block housing construction because they don't want their land to lose value because of a lost view, eg. Governments around the US should allow... building. Building up. More dense areas. That's when the millennium will be able to afford housing. Going to the video... it's easy to blame tech "compensation". Start looking at areas South of SOMA, in San Francisco, in the Bay Area (which is where I live). Go to... San Bruno, San Mateo, Redwood City, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Santa Clara. Try to find a residential building that's higher than 5 floors. You won't find it. In the Silicon Valley area, if you make less than 300k a year, you won't be able to buy a simple single-family house. Minimum prices: 2.5M. There are no options. At the end of the day, tech didn't destroy the middle class. The fact that the supply (especially real estate) couldn't keep up with the demand, mostly because of boomer-laws (protect my view and blablabla), is making part of the middle class in the US disappear. It's not tech's fault, it's government/boomers' fault. New technologies have always paid more to their employees in history, but what we see now... has never happened.
The only thing you don't mention is how most tech companies are located in extremely expensive cities. Sure, you get paid 300k but look at house prices in the Bay Area.
Good video. About 6:30 you compare the average MS salary to median household income and list it as only about 50% higher. That's comparing a single income to an average (even in 1995) over more than one person. So even then the average salary at MS was closer to double the median salary.
This seems like a legitimate reason for some of the wealth disparity. However, gov’t policies have had a huge impact. Trickle down economics & Union busting have obliterated middle class salaries. For profit health insurance, monopolies in every sector etc.. The top 1% made 63% of all the income from 2020-2023. That’s just absolutely bonkers.
Those compensation package numbers include stock compensation. Obviously tech stock prices change quickly but getting a 300k comp package and then having it be worth more than double is an exaggeration. The stock would have to like double in price. I think your overall points still stand, just the compensation is exaggerated-it’s just ~300k everything included (salary, bonus, and stock).
This is not indicative of “middle class” America… Look at this growing wealthy field of expertise! That’s gonna be the new middle class and if you don’t fall under it well then you’re out of luck? What? Points at single area of exponential growth, feels like a massive oversight in my perhaps misguided opinion. Trade jobs are going to have to balance the field otherwise the market will become far more polarized than I’d be comfortable with. If the market does end up here than you’d be better off leaving America as a young adult which is not something that is good for a capitalistic society, or any society at all. Tech can only go so far without other industries feeding into the population. Not everyone can be in a single industry without it collapsing. This shift will change I just wonder how painful the next change will be for the new “middle class.” It’s the next big question on people’s minds.
The Industrial revolution in 1830-1890s is what gave rise to the Gilded age of the 1890-1900s. It seems like we are going through another cycle of that, but this time with information technology.
I think you should study Marques Brownlee or any MC on how he control his face to not be too serious and pleasant to look at when talking about serious topic.
Technology has helped shaped society for the better. While I do think some people have mixed opinions about it, technology has revitalized our own capability as human brings in leading a great future for more future generations to benefit from.
These valuations are not sustainable, though. We're in for a crash at some point, at which point hopefully there will be better options for those who aren't passionate about technology.
if tech companies were treated as the monopolies that they effectively are - their valuations/stock earnings would reduce as well as their average salaries. so yeah...rapacious/crony capitalism IS the problem. they use their size to influence the legal and political ramifications against them - a model as old as the railroads or the steel mills with a shiny new coating.
Tech is what's pushing our civilization forward, and it's producing a lot of value in the economy. That's why people are willing to invest and compensations are high and also why people not leveraging tech will not be able to keep up. I don't know why you talk about it as if it's a surprise.
What you dont understand is when you say top tech everyone in a google or faang level company are already in the top of their field. Thats like comparing the top 10% of banking they too make hundreds of thousands of dollars or lawyers or doctors or even other engineers.
The pay might not be as high in Europe as it is in the US but it's almost always still a decent chunk of change above whatever your country's average is, especially when you consider the often very benefit-heavy compensation packages that EU companies love to offer. If you then add going freelance you can very often come close to matching US pay rates. I'm well on my way to make 150k euro this year for instance, and expect to hit 200k in a couple of years. Even 250k and above are not unheard of in the freelance world.
I think if the bank keep refresh the highest saving individually every day and allow spending daily to a limit the they can increase if make more deposits but never run down
lets be honest why everyone outside of tech earns scraps. the exploitation rate is much higher. its harder to have overview to not get scammed by your employer and thus they scam you with the scraps and dust. paying you just enough to pay rent and afford vacation 1x per year. while they live in mega mansions. technology.
dude they destroyed california. It's mostly homeless now here. California homes are like 1 million min. If you can jump ship to cheaper country I recommend it or cheaper state.
Radios have been off lately. Why don't you look up people who work on elevators? People who work with their hands are becoming more and more valuable. It's absolutely insane
