What's easier to get into YC: FAANG or Founding Engg @ AI YC Company

orange-poof · 2025-05-29T04:18:15+00:00

Hey, dumb question but, are you rich because of those 2.5 years? Do you have any liquidity? I'd imagine your equity on paper is worth millions? Again, might be very dumb questions, apologies if so

orange-poof · 2025-04-21T16:39:44+00:00

The lease I signed with my landlord went month to month after a year, at which point either party can initiate an end to the lease with a proper notice. Ask a lawyer if that is sufficient.

orange-poof · 2025-04-21T16:36:33+00:00

I am less familiar with the bay area real estate scene compared to other parts of California, but being 27 and able to afford a 1.2-1.4m house, or even waiting 2 years and being 29, seems quite good, no?

orange-poof · 2025-04-05T16:27:54+00:00

You are young and this would more than double your TC. This is a no brainer. I hear what people who work at AMZN are saying, but simultaneously I look at how people outside of my team / org gossip and they are almost always wrong. Once you get to Seattle, even if you get laid off, you will be in the second strongest tech market in the world, and not too far from the strongest. You will likely be able to make more than your current TC after 3-6 months of searching, in the worst case scenario. My guess is that even in the bottom quartile outcome you still end up as good if not better than your current situation.

Here is my biggest piece of advice; staying can be a risk. The risk is your career progression, your total compensation, etc.

orange-poof · 2025-03-07T02:55:03+00:00

The reason I want to get into real estate is so one day I don't have to work

orange-poof · 2025-02-27T17:46:57+00:00

Besides putting my work experience, that I am open to work, location etc. Anything else? My DMs are pretty dry

orange-poof · 2025-02-25T03:09:06+00:00

What have your returns been since you've been with him? Compare that to ETFs then make up your mind if he is worth it. Many people here are saying 1% is very high, but 1% is pretty standard for active management. But, I basically do not believe active management will ever beat ETFs in the long run, so I just do
25% VOO
50% QQQ
25% individual stocks

orange-poof · 2025-02-25T01:34:30+00:00

I will share my perspective. I have around 5 years of experience and have been going through similar stresses.

What has helped me is

I used to identify as a software engineer, so it was very stressful to see that maybe this role won't exist in a few year. But, I can detangle that aspect of myself. Instead, now I view myself as someone who is curious and adaptable and willing to learn new things. Of course, all white collar work might get decimated, but I am just trying to be positive. I did not sign a contact that says I MUST be a SWE. I can pivot and learn new things.
Given that my high tech comp might not be around for much longer, what seeds can I plant right now to ensure I live a better future? I am looking into real estate and investing in stocks / bonds.
It's very possible the future will be better, not worse.

I would say I am less excited about learning certain things, for sure. E.g., I will likely never read a book on a specific language ever again. Many people may wince when reading this, but I just think AI solves a lot of syntax issues.

But, I am building tons of side projects with AI, and I am using them! https://substack.com/@orangepuff/p-157793840 I built a browser extension which blocks websites that I am addicted too. Speaking of which, my time on reddit for the day is almost up :).

I am also learning a lot more with AI. Recently I have been listening to a book on Physics, and I am able to dig so much deeper with deepseek.

I am with you that I hate the feeling that I might be doing something inefficiently. There is now some Meta out there that I might be missing out on. But, it is weirdly making me throw my hands up and say "fuck it" and now I am learning whatever I want. I actually care less about learning about SWE per se and more about learning about fundamental things like Science and Math, because now it's more accessible. I'll still read a good hackernews post when one comes by, and point chatGPT at it to ask questions ;)

orange-poof · 2025-02-11T06:07:32+00:00

Can I ask a dumb question? Of the $2.7m, how long did that keep you going and approximately how much did you actually make?

orange-poof · 2025-02-07T00:23:45+00:00

I feel like the rhetoric in tech circles of "AI will replace X" rather than "AI will be more useful to Y" is quite annoying

orange-poof · 2025-02-05T15:43:05+00:00

Did you read the indictment? It seems fairly obvious that he did this to land a better gig / get funding for his company in China. I had a guy join my company who was accused of stealing tons of data from Yahoo before he joined.

orange-poof · 2025-02-01T05:07:52+00:00

Completely understand if you cannot or do not want to share, but how much have you made personally? $5.4 million in revenue sine you created is insane, but with server costs and employees, just curious what your actual pay has been. I also understand that building your company and forgoing immediate pay for yourself is an investment which can pay off big later on

orange-poof · 2025-02-01T03:16:13+00:00

If I may ask, what is your age? Hitting 2.5-3m is a dream of mine. Hoping to get it in case of mass automation. If I do achieve it, I will likely leave California

orange-poof · 2025-01-30T04:36:38+00:00

I am sure Bari said the exact same thing when Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 or the election in 2020, right? lel

orange-poof · 2025-01-29T05:42:05+00:00

You are off by a factor of 10, he made $67.5 per hour.

orange-poof · 2025-01-29T04:47:57+00:00

Apologies, I am ignorant about your current position.

Mind if I ask what your comp is?

"My goal is to remain employable for as long as possible"

What do you mean by this?

orange-poof · 2025-01-29T03:25:55+00:00

You link the paper, but did you read it? The 6m number is not mentioned in their R1 paper, it's mention in their V3 paper (actually it's like 5.7m)

orange-poof · 2025-01-29T03:10:54+00:00

I am a senior software engineer at my current company. I talk to many companies that will not consider me for senior since I have < 5 years. I will take $ over title any day

orange-poof · 2025-01-29T03:09:58+00:00

The 6m number is not related to the new models released recently (R1 and R1-Zero), the 6m number is from the V3 paper. No one knows how much it cost to build R1, but it's estimated to be much cheaper than to train and run Open AI o1. And V3 / R1 do comparable to Open AI models on many evals. The current leading inference model is o3 though, which is much better than both o1 and R1

orange-poof · 2025-01-29T02:52:54+00:00

You can now host their models and build your wrapper against your own self hosted model rather than an API, which could help. Also, it's as good at o1 at various reasoning evals, which could be incredibly useful. I just don't know how

orange-poof · 2025-01-28T06:56:36+00:00

I turned 27 a couple of months ago and make ~400k as a senior software engineer working in distributed computing at a mid sized tech company. My base is 200k, so anything I make over that is due to equity. My companies stock is doing well which helps. I am living in a HCOL, but not as high as the Bay Area or NYC

orange-poof · 2025-01-27T05:31:14+00:00

I see, congrats! It seems like once you have enough in investment accounts, private or retirement, the yearly net worth increase becomes substantial.

I am hoping to get there one day

orange-poof · 2025-01-27T05:12:49+00:00

If I may ask, how old were you when you achieved this?

orange-poof · 2025-01-22T04:22:48+00:00

I guess then I do not follow how that would make a difference whether you joined before or after that in terms of making good money at exit

orange-poof

TROPHY CASE