Techmeme: SF vibes are frenetic over the huge divide in outcomes and career uncertainty for software engineers; over 5 years ~10K people in AI attained retirement wealth (Deedy/@deedydas)

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May 16, 2026, 5:35 PM

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Deedy / @deedydas:

SF vibes are frenetic over the huge divide in outcomes and career uncertainty for software engineers; over 5 years ~10K people in AI attained retirement wealth — The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen. Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope

More: TechCrunch and The Decoder<br>X: @matthewstoller, @yuchenj_uw, @ilyasu, @petergyang, @gris2049, @andrewcurran_, @agustinlebron3, @jxnlco, @ramit, @anothercohen, @staysaasy, @buccocapital, @devahaz, @signulll, @lindytasteful, @staysaasy, and @packym

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Anthony Ha / TechCrunch: The haves and have nots of the AI gold rush<br>Matthias Bastian / The Decoder: AI made a tiny slice of Silicon Valley filthy rich and left the rest wondering why they bother

X:

Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller: Basically an oligarchy sucks for everyone, even the superrich. It's a culture of fear and deference with no meaning.<br>Yuchen Jin / @yuchenj_uw: I had my FOMO phase too: &ldquo;If I hadn't started a company a few years ago and had joined OpenAI/Anthropic/xAI instead, I'd probably have $100M now.&rdquo; But then I watched some of those rich people. Their daily focus became: &ldquo;How do I minimize taxes?&rdquo; &ldquo;Where should I buy a house in<br>Ilya Sukhar / @ilyasu: The solution to all of this is to have kids.<br>Peter Yang / @petergyang: If you're stuck in the Bay Area tech rat race / psychosis, make time to travel to other places. Go to a small town in Europe or visit Asia - you'll see that life can be about much more than whether you're IC7 or IC8 or what company you work for. Don't be the person to put on<br>Gris / @gris2049: @deedydas This is what Heidegger called thrownness. you didn't choose your starting conditions, the year you graduated, whether your college roommate happened to be starting a company in 2018 or if you landed at Anthropic or OpenAI. The people outside that $20M circle aren't failing.<br>Andrew Curran / @andrewcurran_: >Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but<br>Agustin Lebron / @agustinlebron3: Fascinating that it doesn't seem to occur to these post-economic people to pass on their knowledge and experience. Teach, coach, mentor some bright kids, etc. The fact it's seen as low status, when it even gets considered, says a lot about the solipsistic culture they're in.<br>Jason / @jxnlco: At the tender age 30 for my birthday I gave myself the feeling of being enough. Now it's all just fun and games<br>Ramit Sethi / @ramit: Would you rather make money slowly or make it all at once? My entrepreneur friends and I noticed some differences: - People who make a lot of money all at once (e.g., sell their company) often still feel scarcity about money after the transaction. Hard to change their<br>Alex Cohen / @anothercohen: This post is a nice reminder of why I don't miss living in SF. Loved the ambition, hated the culture<br>@staysaasy: When my wife was in business school, people would occasionally refer to someone else as &ldquo;first-time cool&rdquo; - meaning that they had been marginalized socially before (at prior jobs, college, HS, wherever), and were reinventing themselves in a new social arena. Often by trying a<br>@buccocapital: I can't stop thinking about this post. If you do one thing today, I encourage you to give it a thoughtful, thorough read... And then commit to never living your life this way. Life has wasted success on the people described in this post. It really is completely pathetic. They<br>Deva Hazarika / @devahaz: My message to most of the people addressed in this post is you are incredibly fortunate and can simply make a choice to be happy about the position you've gotten yourself into<br>@signulll: what's interesting to me is that the previous gold rushes didn't credibly threaten the safe path simultaneously while dangling the jackpot. like you could sit out the dot com boom & keep your accounting job. the current bit where the same technology is both the lottery ticket &<br>TastefulLindy / @lindytasteful: Only in SF do the $400k/year folks feel trapped in the &ldquo;permanent underclass&rdquo;<br>@staysaasy: Literally every person I know that got rich quick seems incredibly sad (some for over a decade now).<br>Packy McCormick / @packym: It is 70 and sunny in New York City, we're heading to a kite festival, and I haven't heard the words &ldquo;agent&rdquo; or...