1. Not everyone gets 10% raises every year, in fact as a dev manager, only 1 person is allowed on my team to get 5-8% raise depending on how well our company is doing. The rest get 0-3%. That's the reality, and the team is around 10 people large. So you must invest a huge amount of time into your single job to be the best out of 10 people, which probably takes as much time and effort as doing 2-3 jobs.
2. You're not calculating in taxes, as secondary jobs can easily be pushed into companies or tax havens as you can also be a contractor on the side. At 1M income, you're talking a marginal tax rate of >50%.
3. Your chart says you'll start making really difference in the 30-40 year mark in your career, which means you've wasted most of your youth. I don't intend to be filthy rich at 60-70 years only to have to spend money on my health again.
4. Working a single job is not garaunteed of this success, you never know if there is another recession or depression or pandemic or war on the horizon. Very few people in the world actually have a 30-40 year non-stop career trajectory as this.
5. Using my own experience as a stat, only 1 person I know became super rich, 2 people I know became a millionaire, and the rest - 99% of people are average 9-5ers. They benefit the most from the job stacking concept as they can now make double and retire early.
6. I've see people working at companies for 30-40 years, and I don't see them as directors, VP or even CEOs. There are very few stories in the world where someone climbed the ladder, and the fact that we know these stories means how rare it is. Vast majority of people spend 20-30 years at a job and settle into a medium position and just work the average amount, nothing more, nothing less. Stacking jobs would benefit these people tremendously.
Thanks for the comments! And to be honest i mostly just posted this as a thought exercise, i'm not arguing one way or the other.
1. I certainly know not everyone gets 10% raises (although i wish i did :)). Although, I think this is fairly reflective of the trajectory of someone at a big tech company's first 10 years if they do really well -- some years they will get more than 10% raises and some years less, but it's a decent way to model it.
2. Taxes is a good point. Why is it thought that a second W-2 job can be pushed into a company?
3. Fair point, but that's a personal preference! Lots of people think and act differently in that regard
4. Certainly not a guarantee of success and having a diversified set of employers does de-risk things quite a bit. My employer just had a large layoff a few weeks ago so i'm acutely aware of this!
5. Here's where I struggle -- you say most people you know are average 9-5ers. But it seems to me if someone is to be successful stacking jobs, they'd have to be very motivated and do a lot of work -- a lot more than they do in their single job. Doesn't this seem to not make sense for everyone except the very motivated?
6. Again, if someone settles into a medium position at a job, doesn't that imply that they don't want to be doing the work requisite to do several jobs at once? I also admit that i'm looking at this from the lens of big tech which is incredibly skewed because of the growth trajectory of the last 15 years
1. Yes it's a pipe dream so not realistic since you're comparing both.
2. Getting a contract job is as a side job is far easier than getting another full time job. Also contracts are far more workable as stacked jobs since often time you're not on camera 8 hours a day.
3. Also you don't factor in inflation and investing, more money early is worth much more later.
4. Yup it's a high risk environment, and hoping you make it to 40 years career is not going to cut it in this environment
5. The reason why I use the average 9-5er, is that stacking 2 jobs is far easier for a 9-5er, than doing a incredible job that puts you not just 2nd or 3rd but #1 of your time. Typically that means you have to so 5x the amount fo work as the next person. Why not just do 2x? You don't need to be a super high performer to do 2x.
6. Having 2 medium position jobs is far better than doing 1 medium positoin job really well. That's my point.
I think fundamentally you're looking at people who stack jobs as A type characters, that's not entirely true in my experience. A type characters typically do what you do, 1 job and rise up the ranks, because they are highly competitive and highly visible. It is actually harder to be #1 of a team and stand out than it is to just take 2 jobs and do them very averagely.
The rationale behind your reasoning is flawed.
1. Not everyone gets 10% raises every year, in fact as a dev manager, only 1 person is allowed on my team to get 5-8% raise depending on how well our company is doing. The rest get 0-3%. That's the reality, and the team is around 10 people large. So you must invest a huge amount of time into your single job to be the best out of 10 people, which probably takes as much time and effort as doing 2-3 jobs.
2. You're not calculating in taxes, as secondary jobs can easily be pushed into companies or tax havens as you can also be a contractor on the side. At 1M income, you're talking a marginal tax rate of >50%.
3. Your chart says you'll start making really difference in the 30-40 year mark in your career, which means you've wasted most of your youth. I don't intend to be filthy rich at 60-70 years only to have to spend money on my health again.
4. Working a single job is not garaunteed of this success, you never know if there is another recession or depression or pandemic or war on the horizon. Very few people in the world actually have a 30-40 year non-stop career trajectory as this.
5. Using my own experience as a stat, only 1 person I know became super rich, 2 people I know became a millionaire, and the rest - 99% of people are average 9-5ers. They benefit the most from the job stacking concept as they can now make double and retire early.
6. I've see people working at companies for 30-40 years, and I don't see them as directors, VP or even CEOs. There are very few stories in the world where someone climbed the ladder, and the fact that we know these stories means how rare it is. Vast majority of people spend 20-30 years at a job and settle into a medium position and just work the average amount, nothing more, nothing less. Stacking jobs would benefit these people tremendously.
Thanks for the comments! And to be honest i mostly just posted this as a thought exercise, i'm not arguing one way or the other.
1. I certainly know not everyone gets 10% raises (although i wish i did :)). Although, I think this is fairly reflective of the trajectory of someone at a big tech company's first 10 years if they do really well -- some years they will get more than 10% raises and some years less, but it's a decent way to model it.
2. Taxes is a good point. Why is it thought that a second W-2 job can be pushed into a company?
3. Fair point, but that's a personal preference! Lots of people think and act differently in that regard
4. Certainly not a guarantee of success and having a diversified set of employers does de-risk things quite a bit. My employer just had a large layoff a few weeks ago so i'm acutely aware of this!
5. Here's where I struggle -- you say most people you know are average 9-5ers. But it seems to me if someone is to be successful stacking jobs, they'd have to be very motivated and do a lot of work -- a lot more than they do in their single job. Doesn't this seem to not make sense for everyone except the very motivated?
6. Again, if someone settles into a medium position at a job, doesn't that imply that they don't want to be doing the work requisite to do several jobs at once? I also admit that i'm looking at this from the lens of big tech which is incredibly skewed because of the growth trajectory of the last 15 years
Again appreciate the thoughts!
1. Yes it's a pipe dream so not realistic since you're comparing both.
2. Getting a contract job is as a side job is far easier than getting another full time job. Also contracts are far more workable as stacked jobs since often time you're not on camera 8 hours a day.
3. Also you don't factor in inflation and investing, more money early is worth much more later.
4. Yup it's a high risk environment, and hoping you make it to 40 years career is not going to cut it in this environment
5. The reason why I use the average 9-5er, is that stacking 2 jobs is far easier for a 9-5er, than doing a incredible job that puts you not just 2nd or 3rd but #1 of your time. Typically that means you have to so 5x the amount fo work as the next person. Why not just do 2x? You don't need to be a super high performer to do 2x.
6. Having 2 medium position jobs is far better than doing 1 medium positoin job really well. That's my point.
I think fundamentally you're looking at people who stack jobs as A type characters, that's not entirely true in my experience. A type characters typically do what you do, 1 job and rise up the ranks, because they are highly competitive and highly visible. It is actually harder to be #1 of a team and stand out than it is to just take 2 jobs and do them very averagely.
"some years they will get more than 10% raises and some years less, but it's a decent way to model it."
That's a handwavy explanation for your flawed assumptions if I ever heard one. Are you sure you're a data scientist?
That's what they call me! But who's to say what a data scientist even is, ya know
You're definitely not going to become CEO of Microsoft
Ugh that's probably true :(
Wrote a bit about this here! Would love you to subscribe if you're interested :) https://open.substack.com/pub/residualthoughts/p/jobs-where-no-one-is-mean-to-you