Re: Down with the government

On Oct 19, 2010, at 9:46 AM, Dan Minette wrote:

>> When I talked about this last year with the Google people, they  
>> said that
>> they still believed that you got more dollars >for your money hiring
>> engineers in Mountain View than in Durham or Austin.
>
>> They could be wrong, but I wouldn't lay long odds on it...
>
> I'm curious.  Do they pay starting engineers $250k/year, and still  
> think
> that Berkley and Stanford are so much better than every other  
> engineering
> school in the nation that it's worth it?  If they don't pay that  
> kind of
> money, how can a engineer have a house and family?

They probably don't pay them that kind of money: I know, because I have
hired experienced engineers for much less than that. I make much less  
than
that with 20-some years experience. Then again, maybe I'm just a really
bad negotiator.

I paid half what my house is worth, but with refinancing and upgrades  
over
the years, my mortgage is above 3/4 of the current Zillow estimated  
value
of the property, so I can tell you that you can afford to live here on  
far,
far less than $250K/year. You just have to understand that you'll  
accumulate
debt doing so :-(.

Dave