Conversation

Andy Matuschak
@andy_matuschak
This question's gauche, but: given the prevalence of $400k++ comp packages for ~30-year-olds in Big Tech, why aren't there lots more "gentle[wo]man scholars"? i.e. people quitting to do non-remunerative creative projects I can think of some, but shouldn't there be thousands?
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Andy Matuschak
@andy_matuschak
Right! The thing is… that doesn't seem to make this all that impossible? We have a nice condo in SF; our mortgage is ~$3k/mo. But an annuity which would pay that mortgage would only cost ~$600k; one could readily set aside triple that in a few years as a senior eng…
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sandy matuschak
@sandy_matuschak
Information please on mentioned annuity as why wouldn’t they be selling like hot cakes if that great? Sounds too much like a ‘free lunch’ which we know isn’t ‘free’..
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brian wickman
@wickman
Replying to
@andy_matuschak
@davezarzycki
and
@sandy_matuschak
you also need to consider 30 years from now that your property taxes are likely to be comparable or greater than your mortgage payment (which is fixed to present day dollars but your property tax is not, modulo prop 13 for CA folks.) lifetime annuity rates are < 3%.
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brian wickman
@wickman
also if you adjust your priors to be more conservative (4% nominal returns following 15 years of semi ridiculous market performance, so <2% real factoring inflation) then the math changes considerably.
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sandy matuschak
@sandy_matuschak
Replying to
@andy_matuschak
and
@davezarzycki
Don’t know about that sort of annuity, thought they started when retired so how do you pay mort until then which would prob be paid by retirement? 15 yr mortgage also more cost effective although some feel low int rates warrant keeping mort & using $ for other ventures