> hold on, you can make $300k? Wait a second, that’s not a senior executive salary? That’s a normal-ish bourgeois white-collar HCoL salary that people make fresh out of school? Hold on, that’s basically a starting salary in that world? WHAT?

Is this world as normal and common as you describe? To me it seems more like a byproduct of a brief era in tech, today only accessible to people already in the system or creme of the crop students going to the right institutions and who have the skills, connections or luck to string together events that lead to them working there. Today, I know loads of people who did the right thing, but my current generation of graduates definitely isn't aiming for $300k starting salary, not even the best people I know can dream of that. Maybe it would be better to use a more grounded example, since many average workers in many careers will still take home considerably more than most PhDs - instead of using what feels like a closing window from a gold rush.

> But half the people call you a class traitor.

That doesn't make sense. You don't even change your class, you go from working for a wage to working for a wage. I only see the other reaction you mention, the "you're done, it's over, you wasted your life".

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throwaway_7274 7 hours ago | parent [-]

No, of course $300k is a very high salary even on a US basis, never mind a global one. I’m not confused about that. I went my whole life thinking $100k was like “you’ve made it.” But it turns out that if you have what it takes to get into a top technical degree program, you’re among people who have the opportunity to make that kind of money, and most of them know it. This is a very surprising fact. It did not fully occur to me that this was what so many people were struggling for and fighting over in their Stanford applications. My parents told me it was all about “natural curiosity” or something. I believed them. It offended me a whole lot, at first, when I was disabused of that fairy tale.

And, yes, it certainly is a closing window for a gold rush.

> You don't even change your class, you go from working for a wage to working for a wage.

True, but I’m literally employed as a capital-C Capitalist now. You’re technically right, but…

	▲	tavavex 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, at the end of the day I didn't say you were confused or wrong in your assessment, I just wanted to say that there's a more poignant version of that argument that can be made by using more 'normal' examples of low-6 figure careers that are ever-present and can be reached by more people. > I’m literally employed as a capital-C Capitalist What do you mean, is that your job title? Or do you own capital? I thought the class separation was only in whether you were recurrently paid to work for someone else or if derived your wealth from owning something.