That drives the costs down, sure, but then you end up with food that's been sitting around as the driver goes from restaurant to restaurant and then travels from house to house.
> They paid $544m more to drivers to deliver food than they took in. Why?
Maybe it's just not a very profitable business to send some guy in a Prius across town to pick up a burrito, then drive back across town to deliver said burrito.
I've tried it a few times and it took an inexplicably long time to get my order, and the food arrived cold and unappetizing. Never again.
I guess my concern is how salaries grow with experience, in a place with cost of living comparable to or higher than Manhattan.
A software engineer, a management consultant, a white shoe lawyer, and a banker may all start out at a "modest" $100k-$125k salary. Maybe a bit lower, maybe a bit higher.
But in only one of those professions is there a fairly low ceiling for salary growth and a tacit belief that your value decreases with age and belief (or, at least, a tacit belief that younger workers can do "good enough" work with lower pay and longer hours). The consequences of this are why having engineers go all in on a startup with hopes of delayed compensation is a huge ask.
Again, people are happy to do it, so it's not Sam's problem. It's certainly not my problem. But this system has grown dependent on a continuous stream high-profile IPOs making the gamblers rich, drawing in new and optimistic workers to take their place. If that stream dries up, I won't want to be anywhere near SF/SV during the fallout.
If he's a good interviewee, did summer internships, and got decent grades, he should be able to land something in that range. There's some competition, but for the reasons I stated ($100K goes a long way almost everywhere except SF, due to the very high cost of living), SF companies covet recent CS grads who work very hard and don't have many expenses (kids, car, house, etc.). It would probably be great experience and exposure for him though, and worth it while he's young.
So you get a small, shared apartment, dinners at work, no car, and $2k/month left to save. Honestly, that's not bad, but I'm guessing you're young.
Consider you're slightly older and thinking of starting a family. Will your income cover: extra food and clothing for a child? day care or maternity leave? saving for college? saving for retirement? a larger apartment for your growing family? a down payment on a house or car? car payments or a mortgage? investment income? Is your company paying for your dinner because they expect you to work at night?
$100k in SF is a reasonable amount of money. But as your expenses begin to grow, you may wonder when your earnings will grow in proportion. Unfortunately, while many industries value their workers more as they grow in experience, the SV software industry has taken a unique stance that experience is actually a liability. Perhaps because the SV software industry runs on the notion of maybe-someday compensation, which is a palatable proposition mainly to the young and naïve.
You have suggested that Silicon Valley is successful, in part, because workers accept a notion of "long-term compensation" [1]. Long-term compensation, perhaps better called maybe-someday compensation, requires SV software engineers to work for relatively less (factoring in cost-of-living) than many other skilled professionals, with hopes that they'll be rewarded with a big windfall in the future.
With the rising cost of living in SF/SV, young engineers are expected to shoulder much the risk of startups while putting their long-term financial stability on the line. All in hopes of maybe-someday being compensated. And let's face it, the lion's share of these rewards will not be passed to these workers who put all their eggs in one basket, but to financially-secure VC's who have hedged their risk across many companies. If this is how SV works, do you truly believe this is a strong foundation for the industry? Obviously it's good for founders and VCs, but I'm considering the perspective of engineers.
We seem to be enjoying go-go years of investment and profits, everyone is starry eyed, and the system is working. What happens when the present-day strain on workers exceeds the allure of maybe-someday compensation? Also, why shouldn't talented workers move to an industry that provides guaranteed compensation for hard work in real time?
Of course, start-ups have a much different risk profile than banks, consulting agencies, large corporations, etc. And as a result, the long-term compensation model may be a necessity. But in the end, it sounds like SV works because there's a large supply of people willing to gamble on their future financial stability.
I haven't heard this expression before, but it sounds like he had the guy fired. He didn't like the guy, or felt that the guy wasn't functioning well in his position at Sun.
"Sure, hun, the Porsche was expensive, but it's not that much in regard to all the money spent in the world!"