Many people in this community have investments heavily concentrated in employer or founder stock, and face diversification trade-offs: tax drag, risk vs return.
While there's a number of investment portfolio and retirement simulators out there, surprisingly, I couldn't find any simulators that help with this common scenario, so I built one that helps explore those trade‑offs. You plug in your position, timeline, and taxes, and it creates a monte carlo simulation of how different sell‑down schedules might have played out using historical data and gives you visualizations for outcomes at different diversification rates, an efficient frontier chart (return/risk), tax drag, etc.
It's a labor of love: local and private, no monetization, no overselling of capabilities. Just hoping it helps other folks. I had a lot of fun diving into it and trying hard to get the details right, but I'm not a PhD in financial simulation so hit me up if I got something wrong (or right!), happy to fix it or add meaningful improvements.
Many people in this community have investments heavily concentrated in employer or founder stock, facing the problem of diversification trade-offs: tax drag, risk vs return.
There's a number of retirement calculators out there, but I couldn't find one that helped with this, so I built a simulator to explore those trade‑offs. You plug in your position, timeline, and taxes, and it creates a monte carlo simulation of how different sell‑down schedules might have played out using historical data and gives you visualizations for outcomes at different diversification rates, an efficient frontier chart (return/risk), tax drag, etc.
It's a labor of love: private, no monetization, no BS. Just hoping it helps other folks. I had a lot of fun diving into it and trying hard to get the details right, but I'm not a PhD in financial simulation so hit me up if I got something wrong (or right!), happy to fix it or add meaningful improvements.
I want to add something to my snappy answer. Age discrimination is just another facet of lack of diversity and rejection of difference that plagues many industries.
Your well-intentioned comment has the pattern:
"I've worked with some extremely smart <class of people>, who <positive comment>. My impression is that usually, in my experience, <display a different pattern of thinking to what I expect>. They also seem to usually not go out to happy hours/events with the team to get to know one another as often, so they're excluded a little more, which leads to fewer people getting to know them.
It's just that most of the <class of people> I have personally met seem to have the traits I described above. This would give me a little pause when choosing between equal candidates for, say, an angular dev position where both candidates have equal experience in the stack, but the <class of people> one has the baggage(?) of <difference>. I would likely have an unconscious bias to hire the <more similar to the norm> one."
Now, replace <class of people> with "women" or "muslims" and think about how it feels for people to be cast in a generalization. If it's not right in those cases, it's not right for experienced developers either.
Glad you recognize it for what it is: bias. This is exactly what prejudice looks like. Take a small sample, derive a generalization, rationalize it, let it affect your judgement. At least you're aware of it, and hopefully fight it within yourself to try and work with the most talented people regardless of background.
> Since you're posting from a throwaway account (149 days old with no prior comments)
I just didn't find it necessary to comment on anything until I saw your comment yesterday. And, honestly, I don't see any reason why I should disclose my identity to you.
I don't know how long you've been at Google, and I don't know what culture you're drinking from. At my Google we tried to listen carefully and respect opinions and arguments without regard to who issued the opinion. Doubting a person's background just because they are presenting conflicting arguments wasn't part of the Google I worked at.
It's ok to be proud of one's company, but it's dangerous to bask on reflected glory and put oneself above others based on that. Ego is a reason killer.
Disclaimer (or, using less of a humblebrag, "my claim"): I'm a former Google engineering manager.
I was hired when getting into Google was arguably more difficult than it is now (2007). During my years at Google, I conducted hundreds of interviews and managed dozens of engineers at Google. I left of my own accord, in case there's any temptation to question that.
In my personal experience, the high false-negative rate in exchange for hiring only the best people is a myth that perdures from the early times. It's also a great morale booster for those who need to feel part of a select elite.
I had the pleasure to work with many exceptional people at Google and I learned more from them that I could have ever dreamt. As the organization grew to tens of thousands of engineers, I've also worked with many who are definitely not the cream of the crop. Same for management (proof: they hired me). And sadly saw very talented people rejected for stupid reasons because they just couldn't, or didn't want to fit into a mold.
Of course, you'll point out, this is just anecdotal data, and you have internal, non-shareable data that proves you right and we just have to believe you because you're currently an SRE at Google.
My point is that bringing a tired, cold argument about false negatives sounds elitist and inconsiderate. It's obvious that discrimination has taken place that has affected a fellow engineer and human being. I would be amazed to be helped at an Apple Store by such a talented individual. I would love to chat with him about his past work and share war stories of he had some time.
Your comment and posterior response smack me of elitism and lack of sympathy and tact.
While there's a number of investment portfolio and retirement simulators out there, surprisingly, I couldn't find any simulators that help with this common scenario, so I built one that helps explore those trade‑offs. You plug in your position, timeline, and taxes, and it creates a monte carlo simulation of how different sell‑down schedules might have played out using historical data and gives you visualizations for outcomes at different diversification rates, an efficient frontier chart (return/risk), tax drag, etc.
It's a labor of love: local and private, no monetization, no overselling of capabilities. Just hoping it helps other folks. I had a lot of fun diving into it and trying hard to get the details right, but I'm not a PhD in financial simulation so hit me up if I got something wrong (or right!), happy to fix it or add meaningful improvements.