Given the ability to charge $100/hr for your time (which is what this guy's rate works out to), would you prefer to make:
a.) $500,000 by working 100hr weeks
b.) $250k by working 50hr weeks
Me? I tend to lean toward secret option c: make $100k by working 25 40hr weeks, then spend the rest of the year squandering it on a beach with tall cold beers, good surfing/climbing and good wifi.
Spot on! I was on the verge of writing almost the same reply only to find yours.
Let's crunch the numbers:
52 weeks/year - 4 weeks for vacation = 48 weeks
$500,000 / 48 weeks = $10,417 / week
$10,417 / 1 week * 1 week/ 100 hours = $104.17/hr
As a freelance developer, in the US, and particularly in this startup economy (bubble?), it is entirely possible to earn 500k/year working 100 hours/week. Most modest freelancers I know these days charge at least $100/hr -- and many of them are clearly under selling themselves.
jasonkester above asks what I consider the better question: do you want to work 100hrs/week?
As a freelancer, you'd be better off charging a higher rate than $100/hr, if you have the skills and marketing to back it up, and working fewer hours.
Me? I'm with jasonkester. I'll stick my "anemic" 25-30 billable hours/week and retain some semblance of sanity.
Oh, and not working for the fat cats on Wall St? Priceless.
I recently quoted $100/h for a side job I am doing for somebody. Though, we decided on a second option where I'm working for less, but get to GPL the deliverable code when I'm done.
That isn't how salaries work though. For most jobs, someone who works 25% longer is more than 25% better. Someone who works 80 hours is generally better than 2 people who work 40 hours because that one guy has all the aggregated contacts and operational knowledge that would otherwise be divided across two people which would come with the overhead of those two people syncing up and communicating with each other. If this wasn't true, then every company would hire 2 people to work normal hours rather than one person who works twice as much (doctors, HFT, whatever).
I actually think that a good model for the way salaries work is with regards $/hours^2. So $500k for 100hr, that means its $50 / hr^2, then 50 hour weeks would get paid $125k, and 25hr weeks would get you $32k. (I actually think that is breaking down once you get down to 25hr though) If you are able to pull $100k working 25 hrs / week then you could be making a lot more than double if you worked 50 hours per week.
(I'm assuming you are a software developer or related job. I actually think this is job dependent; eg CEOs and janitors probably don't follow that trend).
Keep repeating cliches without thinking about them. Especially ones so obviously false. Let's consider two hypothetical options:
1) A steady, decent income job. Let's say you're making $120k/yr. After taxes, that's about $7.5k/month. If your expenses are $3k/month, you can save or splurge to the tune of $54k/year. Not bad!
2) A higher paying job, say $500k/yr. After taxes, that's $25k a month. Let's say that you need to spend $4k a month instead of $3 to deal with the extra stress. Now you're saving $252k/year.
At the end of five years of option 1, you've got over $250k in savings. You can probably buy a pretty nice place to live in your chosen location, but you have exactly one option going forward: keep working for the rest of your life.
At the end of five years of option 2, you have over $1.25 MILLION. This amount of money makes available to you the option of never working again in your life, if you so choose. You just bought an astronomical amount of time -- the rest of your life -- to do with as you please. Not only does this destroy your notion that money can't be exchanged for time, I think the exchange has been shown to be a pretty fucking good deal, to boot.
Because you can make enough money to retire before you are 30, which means you can spend much more time with your wife and kids when that time comes. I wouldnt want to be the type of dad who has to stress out about money issues.
Except I bet people that actually want to work 100 hour weeks don't retire when they are 30. And if they do, they probably go crazy (and drive their families crazy) because they don't have anything to do. I wonder how many rich, overworked people really do walk away long before retirement age?
It sort of runs in my family. My grandpa retired because he had a heart attack, then started his own company and had to stop that because he had a stroke. He sits in his house and watches fox news and I've never seen him unhappier (fox news doesn't help)
The only time my dad has worked less than 50 hours a week was when he was diagnosed as terminal and on medical leave for a cavernous malformation on his brainstem. He had brain surgery and now he's mostly better, and he's been back to 60 hours a week for a few years since then... except now he comes home exhausted, take some pain killers and lies in bed.
I make the same salary as he does, and I'm 25 working a bit more than 40 hours a week.
Replying to bmj (not sure why i don't see a reply link ...)
For me, and I think for a lot of other people on HN, retirement means not having to work for the money. Which, for people in some areas of the world, isn't really that much. And in that vein, if you don't have to worry about the money, you can afford to say "no, I would rather go see my daughter's choral concert than work". Obviously I would keep myself busy, but it would be under an arrangement where I could prioritize my family.
Given the ability to charge $100/hr for your time (which is what this guy's rate works out to), would you prefer to make:
Me? I tend to lean toward secret option c: make $100k by working 25 40hr weeks, then spend the rest of the year squandering it on a beach with tall cold beers, good surfing/climbing and good wifi.Gotta keep them priorities straight.