Learning Japanese for career prospects seems to me like a terribly short-sighted thing to do. Japan is in decline, with a shrinking and aging population and Marshall plan chips cashed in - Korea and China are on the rise.
It's too bad people regard Japan's as a pet culture and refuse to let go of it.
Blah blah, stealth startup, blah blah, social media, blah blah we've solved the problem of advertising being nearly impossible to monetize, blah blah, equity, we know everyone in the VC industry, blah blah, how about 3% of our awesome trillion dollar cloud of vapor?
Might want to add that I pay myself about 50 grand a year beyond business expenses (which admittedly covers my "luxuries" - mostly my auto lease and eating out). Without leveraged overhead (mortgage, student loans, business loans, credit card, etc) it's surprising how little money I need to live a comfortable life.
> One guy goes to work straight out of college, saves strategically, quits and starts his own SAP consultancy in 5 years, and is worth a few million by age 30.
I guess this is me. I fit this rubric, and now I deal with $100k+ sums on a quarterly basis. On an annual level it goes into the hundreds of thousands. I'm by no means wealthy (I do not own significant amounts of property, for example) but I am capable of fundamentally understanding large sums of money on a personal and professional level.
Dealing with money is definitely a skill that is taught. If you don't have parents or a business partner or someone else in your life that teaches you the old-fashioned way (through unflinching and strict discipline and what borders on verbal abuse when you fuck up), you're never going to learn. The credit card companies and banks are not this person/entity.
You know, that's basically what Microsoft tried to do with internet explorer, but they ran up against such vehement opposition I'm pretty convinced that's why the concept hasn't progressed.
Next up is Google with Chrome/OS/Android, will they be perceived as Evil also? Only time will tell.
> programmer salaries in the 100-150k range is the norm
This is the norm outside of Wall St as well, for anyone who has actual talent and/or experience and isn't a spineless pushover. For example, a truly talented sales engineer can easily make $250k/year + benefits and equity compensation.
There's always some gearhead out there eager to pounce on every little inaccuracy in order to impress everyone with their deep knowledge of automobiles, isn't there?
Programmers (or software engineers, if you like) almost never ask / negotiate what they're really worth. I don't see how it would be any different in finance.
Get into computers/UNIX/Linux when you're 13. Start working at startups when you're 15 as a junior sysadmin/scripter. Continue doing contract work through college. Become an expert UNIX developer by the time you are 21.
After college, work a few years for a company doing a high-end specialty product such as enterprise search or ERP system. Work on big client accounts. You want to beef up your resume at this point.
After 4 years start your own consulting firm in this space. Earn $150/hr+ for 30 or so hours/week doing consulting work and charge $5k/month/server for managed hardware running aforementioned enterprise platforms.
At this point you'll easily be making $250k, probably closer to $350k.
Or you could learn how to program in college and spend years 21-30 writing shitty web apps for startups, hoping to strike it rich when you're not a founder (stupid). This is what most people do.
Moral of the story: either do high end enterprise work, or be a startup founder. You will surely get screwed otherwise. This is a brutal industry and those who don't choose their paths wisely become wage slaves who make significantly less than blue collar tradesman.
Right. Well, I'm real sorry you decided to get married early and have children, but don't take it out on those of us who know what's really going on in this world.
It's too bad people regard Japan's as a pet culture and refuse to let go of it.