<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>noname123</author><text>The one thing I never understood about in tech, people talk about so much about TC but never about take-home pay (after taxes, housing cost, lifestyle cost etc).&lt;p&gt;I have friends who work very boring jobs in the gov&amp;#x27;t or non-profits (who make 90K but have a 10% 403b matching or pension; a 750K house; and a 1 million liquid investment account of CAGR of 20%), drive beater cars but through shrewd investments and frugality are multi-millionaires. I also have friends who flex in fancy cars, fancy luxury downtown condos and fancy jobs (who make 200K+ but never contribute to 401K, no house b&amp;#x2F;c lives in HCoL and only a ~150K in savings b&amp;#x2F;c travels, eat out etc.) but spend it all and when I talk to them in confidence, am shocked they have a fraction of what I think they are worth net-worth in the bank.&lt;p&gt;I used to think these stories were some kind of Suzy Orman&amp;#x2F;Dave Ramsey made-up morality tales or exceptional one-off stories - but older I get, I realize they are not. It&amp;#x27;s just most people start off the same - and it&amp;#x27;s only after years, people&amp;#x27;s money habits dramatically compound over the years that these differences become exponentially large and comical.</text><parent_chain><item><author>UncleOxidant</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m in my late 50s. When I hear about the salaries that much younger folks are pulling down in the FAANG companies I&amp;#x27;m generally pretty shocked - I&amp;#x27;ve never made anything close to that and don&amp;#x27;t have any expectations to. My expenses are way lower than most of the younger folks in tech because my house is paid off (will be in about a month), we drive 20 year old cars and we&amp;#x27;re quite frugal. For most of the past decade I&amp;#x27;ve worked in startups where the pay hasn&amp;#x27;t been great but the work has been very interesting (in some cases, fun, even) so I&amp;#x27;m willing to make that tradeoff.  To summarize: I&amp;#x27;d be willing to work for $90K&amp;#x2F;year if it was working on something I found interesting in an early stage startup (You get more control the earlier you get in). Are my compensation expectations high?</text></item><item><author>parentheses</author><text>Ageism is often conflated with higher compensation expectations.</text></item><item><author>wickedsickeune</author><text>Thanks for sharing. If I may ask, when was the last time you looked for a job? I&amp;#x27;m saying this because maybe you&amp;#x27;re having trouble due to ageism that you didn&amp;#x27;t encounter before.</text></item><item><author>tarokun-io</author><text>Interviewed with about 28 companies for almost 3 months, without a single offer!  I was starting to get really worried about money and burned out from interviewing. In the past I&amp;#x27;ve never interviewed with more than 2 or 3 before getting an offer&lt;p&gt;I now this is incredibly privileged. I&amp;#x27;m not humble-bragging, just observing the change in the market.&lt;p&gt;As things usually turn out, during the last week of the 3-month search I received 3 different offers all at once.&lt;p&gt;For reference and if it matters: I&amp;#x27;ve got 14 years of experience.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?</title><text>I am assuming the market must be saturated with people seeking tech jobs. Is it difficult to get interviews? How have you been since you got laid off?</text></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>bckr</author><text>&amp;gt; Are my compensation expectations high&lt;p&gt;No... You really don&amp;#x27;t wanna work for less than $150k at a startup, at least on the west coast.</text><parent_chain><item><author>UncleOxidant</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m in my late 50s. When I hear about the salaries that much younger folks are pulling down in the FAANG companies I&amp;#x27;m generally pretty shocked - I&amp;#x27;ve never made anything close to that and don&amp;#x27;t have any expectations to. My expenses are way lower than most of the younger folks in tech because my house is paid off (will be in about a month), we drive 20 year old cars and we&amp;#x27;re quite frugal. For most of the past decade I&amp;#x27;ve worked in startups where the pay hasn&amp;#x27;t been great but the work has been very interesting (in some cases, fun, even) so I&amp;#x27;m willing to make that tradeoff.  To summarize: I&amp;#x27;d be willing to work for $90K&amp;#x2F;year if it was working on something I found interesting in an early stage startup (You get more control the earlier you get in). Are my compensation expectations high?</text></item><item><author>parentheses</author><text>Ageism is often conflated with higher compensation expectations.</text></item><item><author>wickedsickeune</author><text>Thanks for sharing. If I may ask, when was the last time you looked for a job? I&amp;#x27;m saying this because maybe you&amp;#x27;re having trouble due to ageism that you didn&amp;#x27;t encounter before.</text></item><item><author>tarokun-io</author><text>Interviewed with about 28 companies for almost 3 months, without a single offer!  I was starting to get really worried about money and burned out from interviewing. In the past I&amp;#x27;ve never interviewed with more than 2 or 3 before getting an offer&lt;p&gt;I now this is incredibly privileged. I&amp;#x27;m not humble-bragging, just observing the change in the market.&lt;p&gt;As things usually turn out, during the last week of the 3-month search I received 3 different offers all at once.&lt;p&gt;For reference and if it matters: I&amp;#x27;ve got 14 years of experience.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?</title><text>I am assuming the market must be saturated with people seeking tech jobs. Is it difficult to get interviews? How have you been since you got laid off?</text></story>