Twitter CEO Says Its a Matter of Time for Lightning Network to Come to Cash App - <AUTHOR> https://mybitcoinnews.co/blockchain-news/twitter-ceo-its-not-an-if-its-a-when-squares-cash-app-integrating-lightning-network/ <comment><USER2> Last year Alexis O'hanion predicted BTC would be 20k and ETH 1.5k by this time too. Many executives seem over enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies to me.

<comment><USER3> Maybe they are bag holders.

I am still long term somewhat bullish on the tech but I can't see any of the current generation working beyond niche use. Its not just efficiency but also economics. They are significantly more deflationary than gold, meaning there is never any incentive to do anything but speculate on them. If they gain any utility they will "moon" again and the resulting price instability will once again drive off everyone except speculators.

<comment><USER4> Bitcoin has plenty of issues but being deflationary isn't one of them. Real estate is deflationary and people do not refuse to trade land.

<comment><USER5> Lots of people refuse to trade land because they think it will be worth more in the future. Look at the housing markets of major cities. And that is when you have a highly localized set of potential buyers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is anyone else having trouble parsing that title?

<comment><USER7> Yeah, they should have said "Square CEO", "Twitter CEO" seems irrelevant in that context unless you know it's the same person.

<comment><USER8> He's way more recognisable as Twitter's CEO

<comment><USER9> but I don't know what cash app Twitter makes so the title makes zero sense to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does LN still have that crazy design where if you lose connectivity your deposit could be lost?

Also doesn't it make Bitcoin even more hyper-deflationary by forcing money to be locked up in LN nodes?

<comment><USER10> _> if you lose connectivity your deposit could be lost_

i haven't heard of that. if you aren't monitoring on-chain transactions the other channel party may commit an out of date state, and you may not manage to issue a justice transaction in response.

"watchtowers" are currently in development, to which this burden can be outsourced.

 _> doesn't it make Bitcoin even more hyper-deflationary by forcing money to be locked up in LN nodes_

lightning channels do not permanently lockup bitcoin, no. the channels have a timelock based maximum age, but cooperative peers can agree to finalise and close the channel at any time.

in any case, value can circulate via the lightning network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > We have this massive seller network of small and medium, and large > businesses

What are the expected transaction fees?

I remember Steam dropping bitcoin when transaction fees started costing more than actual games.

<comment><USER12> That's the main difference of the lightning network. It's a secondary later, ultimately backed by the Bitcoin ledger, but is capable of performing many transactions that are all backed by a single transaction on the primary ledger.

This drops transaction fees by a massive amount, and allows for much quicker transactions.

Edit to add: I think Lightening is a really interesting tech, and I'm really curious to see how it handles scaling out in the real world. All that said, I think it's far too early to say how effective lighting will actually be for storefronts like Steam.

The promise is that it will help, but we have to see if that promise bears out in the real world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why would you need the cash app if BTC with LN works without it?

<comment><USER12> If Cash app will offer an option to receive BTC and automatically convert it to USD, then suddenly thousands of businesses have a zero-cost, zero-risk (assuming square takes the risk) of accepting BTC for their store-front.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> what's the difference between this and venmo?

<comment><USER12> There's not a big conceptual difference.

I like the cash app slightly more, since it doesn't publish transactions to a friend network by default. The network effects are still in Venmo's favor, though, so I definitely carry both.

<comment><USER15> I have a similar experience. I prefer the Cash App because it's visually more pleasant to use and I don't have to publish to the whole world that I paid my roommate $5.76 for lunch. That said, everyone in my circle of friends uses Venmo and I've turned off all of the social aspects so it works just fine.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you find articles that you submit to HN? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll](https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Survey

<comment><AUTHOR> Twitter or other social networks</comment></comment>


Tech Companies Leave Phone Calls Behind - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/technology/tech-companies-leave-phone-calls-behind.html

<comment><USER3> 1). Phones are really expensive to answer. Budget $7~12 a call for competently designed call centers staffed by Middle American housewives, probably 10x that if you have e.g. engineers doing things ad hoc. That's about an order of magnitude more than email support and, um, "a whole lot" more than a blended, scalable FAQ > self serve tool > email system. (You see this pattern all the time for a reason.)

2) "Insufficiently technical skill to use email forbids customer from successfully reaching support" is a feature not a bug. (For a software business.)

3) Ask me about the six calls I got from a customer a) arguing over the color of text on my page (grey vs. black) b) asking how to operate a third party's voicemail, c) confirming receipt of an email five minutes after it was sent... all happening on my emergency line between 2 and 6 AM.

4) Customers frequently perceive negative value from phone support. Think of companies with _excellent_ phone staffing like banks or insurance firms. How happy are online reviews for those numbers? (Terrible, largely because the state machine on the phone is enforcing business rules that the customer does not care for. You know what the #1 call Facebook would get? OK, password resets, not a great example. #N? "Why does Facebook let X do Y?" "<That's a product decision>" "Can you change it?" "No." "It causes me social problems! I will now abuse you personally!" "Still no." "I have a lawyer." "No, in six minute increments." "Pretty please?" "No, I don't even have a button to do it.")

<comment><USER4> We have gotten phone calls from people wanting help running and installing completely unrelated software, in some cases on platforms we don't even develop for. We don't publish a phone number for tech support anymore and this sort of service request is more common than actual tech support on our own products, which is nearly always done through email. The people telephoning fairly often will say something like:

"I didn't want to waste your time with an email, I just have a quick question that won't take a moment. I am having trouble installing Outlook 97 on a computer I got at an auction, it's an SGI Workstation?"

"I'm not sure why you're calling, we don't produce or support Outlook, that version has been obsolete for many years, and was not written for SGI."

"You were so helpful getting your software installed before, I really appreciate it, and no one else has been able to help me with this."

"We don't support that, also it's not possible."

"Surely there is some way. Let me read you the serial number of the computer plate. Do you need the Outlook license key?"

"I can't help you."

This goes on for a while. I stay on the line mostly because I am amazed by the call.

Anyway the basic insight I have is that anyone with a reasonable request understands the information we have about email and forum support and uses that. It's only the unreasonable customers who feel sufficiently motivated to track down the phone number and make a call. As the parent post mentions, these sorts of calls often come in at weird early morning hours and weekends. We also get calls from people wanting advice in their life about non-support related things like where to go to university to learn to write software like we do or whether to buy a new car. Again, reasonable people understand that support is by email, unreasonable people don't and this explains why most phone calls are unreasonable requests. I still handle these politely, perhaps so I can later tell the stories to people as I am now. Maybe also I am a bit of a sucker for whackos!

<comment><USER5> ... it's an SGI Workstation.

"Good choice sir! Do you have a support contract with us?"

SGI's were such cool machines I might actually talk to that person and explain what they are and why you can't help.

<comment><USER4> Oh I did that! This particular guy worked in a machine shop, he was in charge of the warehouse. He would watch the local classifieds for estate and defunct business auction notices and go and buy weird random stuff for no reason. That's how he got the SGI, but he didn't know what it was and thought it was a weird sort of PC that someone had installed Linux on. He was hoping to get Windows on it, and he had an installer for Entourage someone had given him or he had found at Goodwill or who knows, and his work used Entourage so he thought he would get that working for some reason. No one could help him but we had provided such helpful service in the past for our products he thought he'd give us a call at weird hours and see what we thought about his problem. This was not the only call from him, he made several over the years, he had my private line number because of a previous legitimate call that had gotten escalated to development.

He's just one example and one of the more unusual ones. There's also the calls from somebody that wants you to write custom software that only they could possibly ever use for them for free, they'll even be willing to forgo their royalty! Those ones are more frustrating.

Having a public phone number for Twitter to take random calls from free customers who are too impatient to wait 2 days for an email response since their fundraising twitter account was suspended for (quite reasonably) looking like a violation of service terms sounds like a nightmare. It's quite bizarre that the NYT was taking their side in this in the referenced article, or even writing an article about it at all. The people mentioned have a crazy level of entitlement and insane expectations from a free service serving tens of millions of people. Their bad attitude and whining at the end was infuriating even to me as a bystander observing the story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The thing I've wanted is a way to post a per-message "non-nuisance bond" on incoming communications.

Basically, a recipient can define multiple channels (mailboxes, call, physical mail, fax) to contact, and set a price for unsolicited communications on each. Maybe I'd say $1000 to take an unsolicited phonecall at night, and $1 for an unsolicited email during the day.

If the message was of value to me, I wouldn't collect the bond. If it was a waste of my time, I'd collect, which should be high enough to compensate me, as well as high enough to deter future communications. Pricing could adjust over time.

This would also serve to push users to contact me in the most convenient for me way, or at least to expose my priorities and preferences to the senders. When I'm driving, my phone call price drops below my email/text (instant response) price, but for $100k, I'd probably be willing to pull over and read an email once notified.

(There are lots of sender-bond systems, but they are all designed around spam, not nuisance email or even just unwanted email. Plus, they're per-sender, not per message. Mail from someone you like could be inconvenient at certain times, so with a sender-bond system, you'd be forced to choose either no-op or a lasting ban, which is lame.)

<comment><USER7> > The thing I've wanted is a way to post a per-message "non-nuisance bond" on > incoming communications. > > Basically, a recipient can define multiple > channels (mailboxes, call, physical mail, fax) to contact, and set a price > for unsolicited communications on each. Maybe I'd say $1000 to take an > unsolicited phonecall at night, and $1 for an unsolicited email during the > day.

A good idea, but people will detect the perverse incentives and respond negatively. Give the bond to a (GiveWell recommended) charity instead, and it's perfect.

<comment><USER6> I don't see what the perverse incentives are here (you are paying to interrupt someone), but setting a way to donate 0-100% to charity transparently would be a great extension.

If it's an iterated game, there don't seem to be bad incentives. If it's one- off, sure, but very little gets accomplished in a single message and reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The simple math around this is the incredible asymmetry of the entire customer base of these companies, compared to the number of employees. It might seem obvious to us (or at least it does to me) that a multi-billion dollar company like google should have a set of operators prioritizing calls, particularly for the ones that really do need human attention - but, when you have billions of people using your service, if just 1 percent called you in a year, that's still 10 million+ calls you would have to triage.

An eye opener for me, was when I finished Diablo, and watched the credit - <USER2> saw the many, many, many pages of customer support staff for that application. It looked like they numbered in the hundreds - and, all to serve just 4 million customers that had each paid $60.

There is no way that Google/Facebook/Twitter/Linked in can handle incoming voice for all their free users.

<comment><USER9> Google doesn't even handle calls/customer support for paying users. Google Adwords/Adsense support is completely automated and also completely useless.

<comment><USER10> Except for, you know, everyone who purchases Google Apps and has 24/7 phone support...

<comment><USER11> But Google Apps has been around since 2006. They only added 24/7 phone support last year.

Google has no credibility regarding customer service, both online and by phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This completely depends on the type of business. For us, all tech support calls are considered sales calls because we charge for tech support.

"People get aggressive or aggravated; people are depressed or crying. It's just hard talking to customers" - these people tend to be the ones happiest to pay tech support, because you solve their problem and prove that you care. If you are a small business, especially one selling higher-priced services, make it a core part of your business to provide personal service.

This is also one thing I love about new start-ups: I can call/skype the founders and have the most interesting and insightful conversations while testing out their product and this has sold us on many services.

Having said that, with my ISP they provide a chat app so I will always use this instead of calling them, as it keeps a historical record of our conversations and technical problems so I don't have to repeat myself.

</comment><comment><USER13> They said it: Facebook has one worker for every 300.000 customers, witch is exactly what lets them provide their service "free" or cheap(you pay with your personal information).

A significant part of the population(more than 10%) have real problems in their life. The median number of friends per American is 0.7, one of the lowest in the world. People need someone to hear them, they will use anything as a excuse for calling.

So you go to the bank and you see people talking about their lives most of the time. It makes it human contact, but is very expensive, in money and in time, as it makes other people wait.

If only 10% customers called facebook for support over their lifetime, that means 30.000 customers per employee to handle!!

What NYTimes expects? Multiplying the labor force(and cost of facebook, Google, Amazon,vimeo...) by 100?.

<comment><USER14> > The median number of friends per American is 0.7

I think you might have gotten a bit confused here. I don't understand how a median can be a non-integer.

<comment><USER15> Strictly speaking it can be with an even number of elements in the sample but yeah, your parent probably meant mean number.

<comment><USER16> But even then, it can't be a non-half integer multiple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As most of these companies are Web-based and use automated systems for support, it makes little sense for them to implement call centers with live operators.

It's not an issue of scalability IMHO (although it's harder to scale telephony than text), but a matter of cost: human phone operators are much more expensive.

They could create _better_ automated voice replies, though - in fact, I believe that will be the case soon, what with voice recognition and TTS getting a lot better every day...

</comment><comment><USER18> Facebook providing phone support to their users would be like a corn farmer providing phone support to their corn stalks.

</comment><comment><USER19> The weird thing is that sometimes it does work.

I called Yahoo on the 4th of July 2006 because of a password problem relating to my Flickr account, and Ronald answered after two levels of voice menus (the number I used: 408.349.1572). I doubt they still offer this sort of service (having a phone bank of people dedicated to customer problems, let alone being paid to work on holidays).

As crappy as it is on a user side, vendors that offer pay phone support have a pretty good business model. I'm willing to bet that a company with a lot of nontechnical customers (such as Intuit or similar) makes as much or more money on it's paid phone support and consulting than on actually selling their software.

But in reality, the invasiveness of phones is a liability. Being able to barge your way into absolutely anything else the person is doing (no matter how important) via phone is somehow tolerated as not rude, when in any other circumstance it would be.

<comment><USER20> That's what silent mode and voicemail is for. For the caller, there is plausible deniability that they were interrupting anything, so it's up to the recipient to manage phone availability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> When I was interviewing at tech companies in NYC, I was surprised to find one well-known one that simply had no phone number.

I'd wanted to call them back after my interview, and realized I'd never been given any phone number for anyone. When I went back, I discovered that, with 20+ employees, they literally didn't have a phone in their office. People have their personal cellphones whenever they need to receive calls.

I'd stopped having a landline ten years ago, but I had no idea businesses could do it too!

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know one NYC startup with which I have any association that has a landline. In one company in particular, even HR uses their personal cell phones (reimbursed by the company, naturally.) I interviewed at a few places a while back where I didn't speak to anyone until the actual interview. I love it. When you call me, you're demanding me to drop everything and deal with your problem. To me, phone calls are exceptionally intrusive. Of course in a sales environment, intrusions are vital (that means someone wants to buy something, usually.) Still, I'm glad to see the death of the business landline. Now if we could only kill off the fax machine..

<comment><USER22> What do you still use the fax machine for?

<comment><AUTHOR> HR uses it. Insurance companies are still stuck on faxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Makes sense for consumer based products, when you think of how much cisco phones cost. For enterprise solutions, obviously, not so much.

Phones makes people feel better - and if your clients are worth enough, and you can control the volume, it's a good idea. Heck, even Google offers to let you call them for $2.

</comment><comment><USER24> Huge productivity benefit to not having a phone on your desk: not having to deal with voice mail.

<comment><USER25> Agreed. I don't miss having a phone on my desk _at all_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Customers expectations have changed as well, when I started my business 14 years ago I would get daily calls from customers. Now it's not unusual to go a whole month without a call.

</comment><comment><USER27> the companies they refer to are primarily getting their income from ads, most likely a very low income per customer. So a single phone call would properly cost more than their average revenue per customer.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm really interested in the Facebook message they describe in the article. Anyone have the number they are referencing?

<comment><USER29> Perhaps they called the number listed in the box on the right hand side of the article?</comment></comment>


ICML 2015 and Machine Learning Research at Google - <AUTHOR> http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2015/07/icml-2015-and-machine-learning-research.html

<comment><USER2> Is anybody at Google planning to address the whole patent situation?

<comment><USER3> Patents in machine learning? Can you elucidate on the "whole patent situation"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Might be a referce to the Google patent on Word2Vec?

[https://groups.google.com/d/topic/word2vec- toolkit/1hID9F74_...](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/word2vec- toolkit/1hID9F74_Ho)

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=9037464.PN.&OS=PN/9037464&RS=PN/9037464)</comment></comment></comment>


Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46023450 <comment><USER6> The UK has gotten very frustrated with the slow movement of international lawmaking in this space. With business rate slashes to help struggling retailers (retaliation against Amazon) and mental health funding increases for schools (retaliation against Facebook/Google), I'm quite happy to see something happen at last.

I expect other governments to follow suit.

From a tech defence angle, I can't see Trump rallying in support of his good buddy, Jeff Bezos.

<comment><USER7> > _The UK has gotten very frustrated with the slow movement of international > lawmaking in this space_

The space of... international laws to transfer money for literally no reason to the government of the UK, even though they have no services or investments to recuperate related to the money in question?

I mean, it's fair that everyone asks for a slice of the pie, but that doesn't mean it's fair that they take it.

<comment><USER8> I think the space is _their market_ , in which they set the rules and may want to tip things one way or another to prevent starvation and entire dependence on external parties.

In the general case, it's once thing to let an industry shrink because they are out-competed, it's another entirely to let them shrink to the point where recovery is extremely hard or event nearly impossible because of the loss of domain knowledge.

In addition, there's also first mover advantage, and in some industries that can mean the first mover dominates to such a degree that fair competition (market information is distorted) is hard. There's nothing inherently wrong with trying to alter the market, it all depends on the goal and methods. If this were applied towards bolstering competition by incentivizing Europeans offerings, that might benefit everyone eventually.

<comment><USER9> > I think the space is their market, in which they set the rules and may want > to tip things one way or another ...

So far I'm with you.

> to prevent starvation and entire dependence on external parties.

Heh. Man I remember when I used to think like this. I remember the time fondly, oddly enough. Sadly, sorry to say, you will be cured of this.

THIS is also the UK government:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Inquiry_into_Child...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Inquiry_into_Child_Sexual_Abuse)

or, perhaps,

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_United_Kingdom)

The UK KNIGHTED the person who lied in court to get the government out of paying compensation for ONE VICTIM that the UK government, after being forewarned of exactly what would happen ... to which the UK government didn't react to save a buck. Resulting in a problem that could have easily killed 1 million UK citizens, majority of them children. Needless to say, the UK government did impose incredible costs on some of it's citizens, in almost all cases with very flimsy justification (one person's wife being forcibly kidnapped, without informing the guy or their families, never to be allowed to see each other again, after the government killed her. I mean, it's almost a Disney villain plot, except without the good ending)

Sorry to say, but if you think the UK government has either your or any of it's citizens' interests at heart. Or any other government. You're sorely delusional.

<comment><USER10> What does any of that crap have to do with the UK taxing these companies on sales?

<comment><USER9> The point is to disavow the GP of the notion that the UK state is trying to do anything but generate more income for itself by illustrating some of the more recent utterly disgusting decisions the UK state, as an organization, made.

So:

Fairness - <USER5>

Fixing competition - <USER5>

Altering the market - <USER4>

Incentivizing European offerings - <USER5>

None of this is a goal. Another example linked to is that the UK state is an organization that has been known to use violence to kidnap child abuse victims, and lock them in with other sex offenders, then afterwards refuse so much as acknowledging that might have been a wrong decision, when the inevitable happens.

Such an organization, I'm sorry to say, can be reasonably assumed not to have the interests of you, or me, or anyone but itself, at heart. It's on the side of big companies and tax law is just driving a hard bargain. It is very much not about making their own job harder by doing such things as massively increasing the number of people they need to negotiate with (otherwise known as "competition").

But go ahead, down vote me, of course the state is the epitome of all that is good of the universe. I understand that if that were to be a flawed way of seeing things, social policies start to sound a lot less like they're helping, and much more like they're cynically designed to increase the abuse suffered by the "helped" people, and prevent them from finding actual help, get out of their situation, or find redress. This shows you a new way of thinking about social policies and why they're made. Anti-child abuse laws are about encouraging child trade (and with that, inevitably, abuse), and preventing at all costs any means those kids might want to prevent the state from harming them further, and above all, to eliminate any legal redress such children might have against the state, at the damage done by it's agents to them.

Of course, one can easily make the determination about these policies. Find a few homeless, find a few now grown adopted children, and find a few that look smart, and ... ask them.

We all know what view they will have. The irony is that usually people turn those opinions into "see ? We need more child care/job programs/homeless assistance/...". A method for preventing those very programs from inflicting future damage as was done on these people is never discussed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a pretty good idea. Tech giants make money in Europe paying little to no tax incorporating in Ireland, while all small to medium businesses incorporated in the UK pay the usual tax. Its simply unfair.

<comment><USER12> The global arguments about multinational tax usually conflate at least two issues:

\- total tax the corporate pays globally; and

\- share of the cake paid 'locally' vs in the home jurisdiction

This measure seems to me to be more about the second of those than the first, but politically thats a hard sell so you see all the statistics about how much tax they paid 'in the UK' etc etc. Most people misread that.

Politically of course agreeing on a fair share of the cake is much harder than saying 'we should tax them more globally'.

<comment><USER13> The fairest way is to pay tax where you do business, you know, like you're supposed to.

It's not really different for tech companies or global companies.

<comment><USER12> But it's much more complicated than that because the system is not meant to either incentivise or disincentivise insourced vs outsourced functions (and what you seem to be suggesting would create incentives for offshore outsourcing for them, which would be politically unpopular). And corporation tax is a tax on profits, not revenue (VAT already exists and is a tax on revenue and Amazon UK pays a very large amount of VAT).

Maybe a couple of examples: if I buy clothes from Amazon's own brand/white label, which are manufactured in another country, what is the appropriate amount of profit that Amazon UK should be allocated and taxed on for my purchase? Now what if Amazon sold that operation to someone else? Should they then be allowed to deduct it? If you get that wrong, then you create a tax incentive to either insource or outsource functions (since for the same cost structure, one will save tax over the other), which is an undesirable outcome.

Or let's say I'm a UK Amazon Prime subscriber. I use some of that for video content, some for other services like postage. Some of that video content was created by their own studio in the US or Canada and is only available on their platform; some was licensed from a third party. How much of my prime annual fee should be allocated to the Amazon UK operation? How much to the internal Amazon studio? What about other bits of Amazon which are involved? Again, how do you ensure that that doesn't created a non-level playing field vs third- party studios? Third-party hosting services or CDNs? Third-party payment processors? Etc

Then consider that until last year, Amazon in the US would have also been taxed on the whole empire's worldwide profits but been able to deduct taxes already paid under various double tax treaties. So if the UK taxed amazon more, the US would have received correspondingly less. This is still partly true.

None of this involves anything which is tax motivated - it's all business motivated. Layer in tax incentives various government put in place for other policy reasons and it becomes even more complicated.

"Fair" is very hard when you get to the level of complexity involved in these types of businesses.

<comment><USER14> > Amazon UK pays a very large amount of VAT.

Amazon collects a very large amount of VAT, no? It's the customers who are paying, not Amazon.

<comment><USER9> By that reasoning, it's the customers paying company tax, too.

Hell, customers' are the ones paying Jeff Bezos' capital gains tax by that reasoning.

<comment><USER12> Corporate direct tax incidence is typically thought of as applying to some split of capital providers (shareholders and lenders) and employees. Most economists think it falls mostly, if not entirely, on capital providers.

Customers might figure in that in an even smaller way but its probably very minor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This will start out as 2% in 2020 but probably be 10% by 2030. That's usually how these things work in the UK.

<comment><USER16> for some value of "usually"

corporation tax: 30% in 2008, 19% in 2018

zero rate band of income tax: £3000 in 1990, £11850 today (the increase is more than double that of inflation)

<comment><USER17> Personal allowance (zero tax band) raised to £12,500 from April (in the Budget today).

This gives money to richer voters because the higher your earnings, the more tax saved. But corporation tax takes money from rather anonymous entities, which of course affects voters too in the end but in a rather indirect way.

<comment><USER16> > This gives money to richer voters because the higher your earnings, the more > tax saved.

a rise of the zero rate equally effects anyone earning above the new zero rate threshold (regardless of how much they are above it [1])

a full time minimum wage employee earning ~£14,000/year gets exactly the same reduction in tax from this specific increase as an engineer on £90,000/year

[1]: once you get above £100,000/year your personal allowance goes down (ultimately to zero)

<comment><USER17> The Resolution Foundation disagrees: [https://twitter.com/resfoundation/status/1056969156741029889](https://twitter.com/resfoundation/status/1056969156741029889)

However I agree that anyone earning over £100K won't be affected because of the peculiar system where you lose the personal allowance in steps over this threshold.

<comment><USER16> they don't disagree, your point was:

> Personal allowance (zero tax band) raised to £12,500 from April (in the > Budget today). This gives money to richer voters because the higher your > earnings, the more tax saved.

the conclusion of which is factually incorrect, and unsupported by your linked chart (which includes more than just the increase in the zero rated band)

<comment><USER17> What's the mechanism which is causing a benefit from the 1st and 2nd (the very poorest) groups in that graph, which is caused by adjusting a threshold at £50,000?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I know this gets said a lot, but I live for the day the world sees innovation and quality tech companies from Europe instead of taxation and regulation.

<comment><USER19> There's lots of innovation and quality tech in Europe. We just don't see it because Europe has much greater diversity of language and culture than North America. This means that companies can target a niche in their country that has zero relevance to Americans.

Not everything of value needs to be a billion dollar unicorn. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

<comment><USER18> English is the business language of the world. I highly doubt there's some tech epicenter near Brussels that would rival Silicon Valley (or even New York City, Seattle, or Austin) if only those companies spoke English.

And sure being a Unicorn is everything, but it sure as hell isn't nothing. I have no doubt there there is _a_ company in Europe doing something amazing, but Europe doesn't have a culture that continues to churn these companies out and I can't help but believe that their approach to regulation and taxation is apart of the problem.

They get so giddy about regulation that it's kinda baffling. Regulation should be thought of an unnecessary evil - not some exciting project.

<comment><USER20> I remember some tech crunch reporter claiming they'd never heard of a nine figure tech sale in Europe, the same day as a local business in my home city (Nottingham) was sold for over £100 million.

It's not that we don't have a tech industry in Europe, it's just that US tech reporters are often insular, ignorant and lazy.

<comment><USER21> > US tech reporters are often insular, ignorant and lazy.

And then there are the bad ones…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ed Sheeran pays more tax in the UK than Amazon.

<comment><USER23> Ed Sheeran is a person and is taxed differently than a company. That article is manipulative clickbait.

UK Amazon executives pay more taxes than Ed Sheeran.

<comment><USER24> "Ed Sheeran" isn't a person. There is a person by that name, but when you high "Ed Sheeran" you don't address the check to him. It goes to a production company who then deducts associated expenses, from his personal trainer to his airfare. That company then pays the flesh-and-blood Sheeran a salary for services rendered. If he is anything like the other 99% of celebs, he keeps money in his production company and pays himself a salary low enough to meet his immediate needs, thereby avoiding or at least delaying income tax. This company will continue to pay him this salary long after he disappears from public life and, theoretically, could be making payments to his estate long after his death. Should he want more money for something like a house, as the only shareholder, he can issue to himself a dividend and pay income tax on that amount when it hits his personal account. Or he can take the money as a loan, and delay those taxes until later. Or his production company can "invest in real estate" by buying the house and renting it to him for dollar a year.

Celebs are not people. They are businesses.

The people who really get shafted on taxes are the like of professional athletes. The services they render their employers occur at very fixed times. They don't get to spread their income over decades as entertainers do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "The Treasury forecasts that the tax will generate £275m in 2019-20, rising to £370m in the following year.

It then expects that digital services tax receipts will reach £400m in 2021-22 and £440m the year after. "

Smaller amount than I expected, but still a good chunk of change.

</comment><comment><USER26> One thing that will be interesting around this is any future trade negotiations the UK has with the US, especially after we leave the EU.

This tax will target the US giants.

<comment><USER27> Agreed - it's scheduled for 2020 and it looks like it's just on the books to be negotiated away in that deal. Not a bad idea though, it's a free concession that they didn't have before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This looks like it is on gross sales? If so that would hurt low-margin companies quite a lot; I imagine Amazon would be essentially forced to increase prices by 2% for example.

<comment><USER29> The problem is for highly global, IP based companies it is very difficult to tax profits.

You can just create a 'cost' (platform license fee, trademark cost) in another sister company (that is in a low/no tax jurisdiction) and charge it to the UK based one that is equal to the profit. Boom, no profit due to tax.

Not really sure what the best solution is. The UK isn't really big (or competent, depending on your outlook) enough to make tech giants like the US, so tech US companies dominate.

This has led to a massive outflow of tax revenue to these US giants. Eg, most advertising revenue pre internet would have stayed in the UK and been taxed in the UK. Post internet it is all flowing out to Facebook, Google et al who pay close to zero UK tax on tens of billions of (very high margin) sales.

<comment><USER20> We've had 6 tech companies breakthrough billion $ threshold this year.

We're the biggest tech company creator in the EU.

Sounds more like you've got a small (or incompetent, depending on your outlook) source of information.

 _In the past year, the UK has added six billion-dollar tech companies worth $12.4 billion to its club of 26, more than any other European market, and has produced the highest number of billion-dollar companies in Europe since 2000 – contributing $64 billion to Europe's $240 billion ecosystem of billion-dollar tech companies_

[https://www.information-age.com/tech-titans-europe-end- big-t...](https://www.information-age.com/tech-titans-europe-end-big- tech-123473280/)

<comment><USER29> Not talking about market capitalisation. Talking about profits. The UK doesn't have anything on the scale of FAANG generating enormous (taxable) profits. We are literally 2 orders of magnitude off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Any supremely-profitable industry is bound to be taxed sooner or later, esp if its foreign.

I haven't seen any details though. Is it a % of ads sold? Or some other mechanism?

<comment><USER31> It's going to "happen" in 2020. Plenty of time to change their minds...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's nice to see they can plan a road map for tax but for brexit....

It sounds good but something tells me it will end up increasing prices for consumers.

<comment><USER33> They did have a plan for Brexit but I think it amounted to 1) eat cake 2) still have total access to mainland Europe's cake markets too.

On a more serious note a tax plan is easier because the government only has to negotiate with itself while Brexit actually involves outside countries who are disinclined to give the UK a cushy deal.

<comment><USER32> I know it's different things but at least this has a road map of what is planned and when by.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why would that bother anyone but the customer? Tech giants will just add it to the tab.

People have no idea how much digital service is worth so if they want it, they pay whatever is the price. I don't think 2% (or even 10%) price hike will cause them to not advertise online their one simple trick to improve health of your joints. What are they gonna do? Print newspaper ad?

<comment><USER35> And how would that work? Google and Facebook could charge more for ads which impacts mostly the advertisers, Amazon could in fact increase the prices impacting average Joes in the UK, but they would lose the advantage over smaller competition unaffected by this kind of tax. This is a globalisation tax that would most likely not affect "normal" people while still bringing quite a few pounds to the national budget.

<comment><USER36> > Google and Facebook could charge more for ads which impacts mostly the > advertisers

How does that work? There is no level of indirection after which the money somehow comes from some magical place. This is still paid for by the consumers in the end. Somebody pays for the ads and the cost of that is factored into whatever the ads are for.

<comment><USER9> You cannot explain to the "tax more" crowd that tax can only ever confiscate a part of existing economic activity. I don't know why, it's a perfectly simple and straightforward argument, but their argument is just "x pays a%, y pays b%, why doesn't everybody pay max(a, b)% ?". It's jealousy, really.

Now that's not to say there isn't merit to both sides of the argument that some level of tax is too little and some level is too much. But not in the UK. The UK is firmly in the tax too much camp, as is most/all of Europe.

If I want to pay someone to, say, be my lawyer. And the person I hire for that wants an iPad, then of every 1GPB I pay to the lawyer, 23 cents ends up as revenue for Apple (making revenue for apple is WHY that person wants to be my lawyer, in other words, it's the reason for there to be any economic activity at all in this relationship). 77 cents ends up in the governments' hands to spend (of which, I might add, the government spends about 104 cents). That's ... just not reasonable (and also why every UK company lawyer has to defend all the executives for free to keep his job, to cheat this system)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Discrimination aside, isn't the UK providing the favorable tax haven to begin with (Double Irish)?

Also, how is revenue classified? If someone buys ads on Facebook do you now have to count and prorate clicks based on where the user comes from?

And now with GDPR (or whatever the equivalent is in the UK) What if the user does not accept tracking where they come from? Then there's the clause that says the business must track the minimum needed to comply with tax law even if the user does not opt in. So there goes privacy.

Seems like there are a lot of laws that contradict and negate each other. What a mess.

<comment><USER38> > Discrimination aside, isn't the UK providing the favorable tax haven to > begin with (Double Irish)

The Republic of Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom

<comment><USER39> That´s not... exactly... what was being referred to.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement)

<comment><USER40> I'll repeat the parent.

"The Republic of Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom "

The Double Irish arrangement refers to the Republic of Ireland, a separate country to that of Northern Ireland, both of which can be found on the island of Ireland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> TL;DR:

Uk wants to pass a new sales tax, that applies only on "established tech giants" that generate "at least £500m a year in global revenue" of 2% of sales made in the UK.

<comment><USER42> Revenue tax not sales tax maybe you should have read it.

<comment><USER41> Revenue = sales = top-line.

<comment><USER42> That's not what a "sales" tax means a sales tax is levied on the consumer not on the turnover of the company eg VAT in the UK and the various "sales" taxes you have in the USA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Good. It is becoming more and more apparent that there is a toll on society created by these companies. They have a negative impact on our domestic businesses (traditional brick and mortar, as well as home-grown digital businesses) not to mention our mental health and even democracy. By taxing them, hopefully we can go some way to reversing some of that damage (although I'm less hopeful of that...).

<comment><USER44> So you see it as a tariff? Do not let the more efficient foreign player in, to let the local equivalent develop?

Economically it does not make sense, if we are looking for a _global_ optimum (literally); this is the standard free-trade argument.

It may make sense if there's no global trust; you don't want to depend on products of a potential unfriendly party, or let them have a large foothold in your economy, just, well, in case.

But here I (also) see the desire to milk a cow that can be milked.

<comment><USER45> I take your point, but I think you've over simplified the situation. For example, in days gone by, the UK tax system happily forced retailers to pay vast amounts of tax ("business rates") based on the shops they occupied in town centres. This was part of the total tax burned on retailers. Online retailers avoid this tax and thus could be considered to have an unfair advantage over bricks-and-mortar stores.

<comment><USER46> Yes, excellent point. It's not correct to say a company is more "efficient" in the market simply because it can undercut another company due to being taxed differently. If the global companies are able to still compete effectively while paying the same taxes, then they are still welcome to displace local businesses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The same country that will not lift a finger to stop money laundering from around the globe, being used a the basis for offshore tax havens, and non-dom shenanigans will quickly do tax to the hilt.

<comment><USER48> Yeah fair call this. Their property market is essentially black money bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> [https://twitter.com/hmtreasury/status/1056942074271072258](https://twitter.com/hmtreasury/status/1056942074271072258)

</comment><comment><USER50> I'll remind every person here that you are taxed on your revenue, not your profit. It's worth thinking about because it's not always been the case in the past that companies had more rights than individuals.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually not the case - expenses related to earning your income are usually (with a few notable exceptions) deductible. Also, capital gains are a real thing, and you are taxed on realized gains - not the full amount you sold for.

<comment><USER51> If you're employed in the UK there's very little you can deduct - mostly it's salary sacrifice arrangements like pension, childcare vouchers etc. The only real deductible I can think of at the moment is mileage allowance, and since very few people do anything but commute to and from their place of work, they can't claim that. It's only if you're a salesperson or area manager driving your own car.

If you're self employed however the picture is a little different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> When thinking about the UK rolling out new taxes, this inevitably comes to mind: [https://youtu.be/pmgcylAxjfY?t=118](https://youtu.be/pmgcylAxjfY?t=118)

</comment><comment><USER53> The reality is that the large US tech giants this is aimed at are essentially mercantile companies. Paying little or no UK tax on significant UK revenues, which are then remitted via tax efficient structures to the US parent. Profits are a Will-o'-the-wisp which appears and disappears in whatever tax jurisdiction is most efficient at the time. For this reason I don't see corporation tax (which is <10% of total tax receipts) being something future governments can count on (unless that government is home to the mercantile company). TLDR: Find somewhere else to get the 9%.

</comment><comment><USER54> Gotta pay for the Brexit fuckup somehow.

</comment><comment><USER55> I was scared for a minute. I thought this was about taxing consumer for accessing internet.

It's fine. It's about taxing giant corporations who are evading taxes.

<comment><USER56> They aren't evading taxes. If they were evading they'd be prosecuted rather than a new tax being introduced. They're avoiding. Like we all do with our ISAs and pensions.

If you misuse the terms it makes it harder for everyone to talk precisely about the issue.

<comment><USER57> >Like we all do with our ISAs and pensions

I think it's a bit disingenuous to suggest it's like that, because the average person is not worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Sorry but you cannot in good faith compare the impact of tax avoidance by Amazon to an individual's pension.

The problem really is that the loopholes are inaccessible to regular small businesses. A lot of small companies _do_ pay a fair level of tax which makes it difficult to compete with a company that doew not.

<comment><USER56> It's fine to debate morals.

But it's important to make a distinction between legal and illegal.

You're accusing them of having a different opinion on a moral isssue to you. That's one thing. Accusing them of doing something illegal - that's something else. And it's now super clear that it's legal, since we've decided we have to introduce a new tax to tax them.

My issue isn't with the debate - it's about being precise. If you say everyone's evading then you ruin the power of really saying someone's evading. You're crying wolf.

<comment> Joe-Z I don't get it. On the one hand you say you just wanted to make clear the distinction between the two terms, on the other you claim when facebook and Amazon are avoiding taxes that's the same as when ordinary people try to save for retirement.

If you didn't want to be quoted on that you shouldn't have put that comparison in.

<comment><USER56> I don't mind being quoted on anything.

It's either legal or it isn't. For one you can prosecute, the other you can only criticise. It doesn't matter if it's a single person or a massive company. Either we have made the solemn decision as a country that it is prohibited with the force of the state punishing you, or we haven't. It's a huge difference.

Think about it like this. The next time someone is really evading tax and you call them out on it people will think 'oh well nothing we can do about that without new laws' because you've conflated it with avoidance this time.

<comment> Joe-Z Look, we disagree on how tax avoidance should be dealt with on a personal and a corporate level and that's fine. But you're constantly conflating a valid point (which is a proper distinction between the two terms and which I agree with) with your opinion on the matter.

If one were less charitable you could call that a strawman.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I give it 20 minutes before one of the big accountancy firms find the (totally unintentional) loop hole to evade this tax.

<comment><USER59> It's getting much harder since you have to register tax evasion schemes now... But probably yes.

In the other hand I can't believe it is expected to raise so little.

<comment><USER60> Tax _avoidance_

I imagine if you registered your tax evasion scheme you would receive a knock at the door in short order

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> They'll probably back down when companies threaten to leave. Like Amazon did when threatened with the Head Tax. Or how Dole left Hawaii.

<comment><USER62> It's just another sales tax. Amazon already deals with hundreds of different tax rates in different jurisdictions. They'll just price it in.

<comment><USER63> Amazon's not always the cheapest as it is. If it prices it in, then competitor's start to look more attractive; which is exactly the point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I wonder if the recent "link tax" forced into the proposed EU copyright legislation has something to do with making this "digital tax" work in practice. Wouldn't be the first time that copyright law is used for something completely different to what it was meant for.

<comment><USER42> Nope its on faking low profits aka tax avoidance

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> This will only hurt the people who live in the UK. Those companies will just raise their prices to cover the tax. Sure maybe the local companies could then undercut Amazon if they somehow don't have to pay the tax, but eventually they'll just raise their rates to match because why give up the profit margin if they don't have to?

It doesn't matter anyway, the tax will never happen. They're just using it as a point of negotiation for a new US trade deal after Brexit.

<comment><USER66> >Those companies will just raise their prices to cover the tax

How exactly will Facebook raise prices in a way that it will hit the average consumer?

<comment><USER67> > How exactly will Facebook raise prices in a way that it will hit the average > consumer?

The average consumer is also a worker and depends on an employer that will be paying higher advertising costs for the same benefit.

<comment><USER68> And now %X of that cost will return to the economy instead of going overseas. Ad costs should stay roughly the same, since they are the result of bidding. It's not like Facebook leaves $2 on the table and says we'll keep that there for you guys unless we get taxed.

When something has near zero marginal cost, it is all just about demand. The only scarcity is caused from other bidders.

Why should a country send %X margin on all of their consumer products overseas (via ad costs) to someone who is selling their own citizens' content and capturing the users/locking them in with network effects? There is a lot of innovation at Facebook et. al., but they get a massively outsized portion of the network's value when you compare what they put in vs. what users are putting in.

Where it could hurt would be a service that can barely break even using ad revenue and goes under as a result. But for big corps with network-effect lock-in in their segment, it seems like a net win for any country that does this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I leave finance to become a developer? - <AUTHOR> I've been thinking about this for years, and wish I'd asked this earlier. Here is my rationale:
--Work with people who have more similar personalities/outside interests/sense of humor as me
--Sick of envying developers have fun, make cool shit, and make money
Here are some details:
--I work as a quant doing research at a firm on wall street (recently got masters in financial engineering). I thought going into finance my salary would surpass ~200k after a few years, and as a developer, it would max out around that level. But, my salary now is about 100k (w/ 25k bonus) and I feel like I could be making way more as a developer right now...and I'm always thinking "that could be me" about my developer friends.
--Whatever I need to get done, I kludge away (usually in Python, R, or C/C++/C#) until it works; I have no concept of elegance in this context. Also, I'm usually the only one writing the programs--I've never worked in a collaborative development environment, since I mainly do research. I'm not sure how to get from this level to being a developer?
--I write programs to analyze data, which frequently involve machine learning/AI algorithms. Are companies looking for this in a web developer? Or should I try to tailor my skills more towards a data science position? Or is there a path you would recommend particularly for someone with this skill set?
--I want to stay in NYC
What I'm hoping to get out of asking this question on HN is some guidance to help me realize if I'm on the right track, or if I should completely change my life and go down an entirely different career path as a dev. I'm pretty lost when it comes to the tech industry right now and am glad I started reaching out for help. Any advice you could give from your experience in this industry would mean a great deal to me. <comment><USER2> IMHO, not only is this a "grass is greener on the other side" situation, it is a drastic abandonment of accumulated potential energy (your degree + industry experience).

You would be abandoning a true niche skillset: there are some positions that are open only to people with an MS in FE plus C++ plus x years of industry experience plus a cogent answer to "What happens when there is a race condition between an Order Cancel Request and Executions? What FIX tags are involved? Give me an example". Many people would seriously envy you if you told them what you do.

BTW, many startups (not all) are all about the kludge : they are always in a time crunch and that's why languages that allow rapid iteration such as Ruby or JavaScript (quick wins, but long-term technical debt accumulation) win out over the more sturdy-but-time-consuming enterprise choices such as Java or C++. If your startup may not even exist 3 months after inception, it makes sense to rapidly discover if we can even get customer no. 1. For Goldman Sachs or other big bank with deep pockets, they can afford to allow you time to do things the right way from day one.

For some people, kludging is a personal habit. It is a dangerous one. One suggestion I have is to spend at least an hour daily on reading.

The way I see it, you only need a change of job to a better pay and more respect than $125k in NYC. You may be happy after that + finding more like- minded friends outside work? (maybe attend some tech meetups on meetup.com in NYC?) If your heart strings still tug at you, you can always consider switching over :-)

I used to work in the financial industry and switched over to a startup recently, but it was a decision that made sense for ME, not necessarily others. If you want to talk to me, please don't hesitate to contact.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi vijucat, thanks for your response. I think you're right that if I left my current industry, I would feel like I wasted the time I put into getting into finance. That's what's holding me back.

I actually have no idea how to answer your race condition question because I'm not involved in parsing the FIX logs. I could probably start doing this kind of thing at my current job though. Are firms actively looking for people with these kinds of skills?

Also, I'm pretty opposed to working at a bank because of their hierarchy, culture, and morals. Knowing this, would you still recommend I stay in finance? (Pauses for laughter to subside). If you're wondering why I got into finance in the first place, it's because I wanted to work for buy-side firms, and wanted a lucrative job, and was a little naive. I fell into the sell-side, but work at a company much smaller than a bank.

Finally, you mentioned I'm underpaid--what do you recommend I ask for in terms of a raise, and after how many months would it be appropriate? I'm a few months in and this is my first job ever because I did the master's right after my bachelors.

<comment><USER2> I just gave the FIX log example because that's what I am familiar with, that's all. :-)

> Are firms actively looking for people with these kinds of skills?

Generally, I used to use efinancialcareers.com and other industry-specific recruiters to gauge demand. On the flow side / sell-side, unless you have elevated into a more quant-focused role, the IT folks often end up dealing with FIX, but I suppose it also depends on which instrument...I was in equities.

> Finally, you mentioned I'm underpaid--what do you recommend I ask for in > terms of a raise, and after how many months would it be appropriate? I'm a > few months in and this is my first job ever because I did the master's right > after my bachelors.

Honestly, I don't know. I'm in Hong Kong and I don't have a pulse on NYC salaries right now. I somehow thought you had some years of experience, so the salary you mentioned may not even be low if this is your first job?

If I was in your situation, I would do a survey among my friends to gauge the appropriate salary. Be careful about recruiters' opinions, though : it benefits them to make you feel dissatisfied at your present job, so they may exaggerate how much you could get if you jumped jobs. If the gap is too much, I would immediately put in a word in with my manager : "Hey, I was just talking to my friends and I found out that I started off at the lowest salary among the bunch. On the average, the difference is $40k or more. Do you think you can revise my base or bonus at some point in the future?". It is politically important to put it across as a concern / request, not as an aggressive stand. If the gap in salary between you and your batchmates at other places is not that much, you can wait till the year-end / half-year review...

Plus, there are all the other issues of your employer's brand-name, the kind of work you do, how nice your colleagues are to you, how nice of a person is your boss, etc;...All these have tremendous value, too, and employers are keenly aware of their brand-value as well as whether the work you are being allowed to do is coveted, and don't hesitate to pay you less than market-rate if either factor comes into play!

> Knowing this, would you still recommend I stay in finance?

Yes, finance is so large an industry that stereotypes need not apply to you. For example, Jane Street is much more respectful of good coders / thinkers has a startup feel to it. You can aspire to join such a small firm rather than JPM, GS, or other axis-of-evil participants. :-) Or you can join a smaller buy-side shop, etc;

The top three things I would suggest doing are a) network; need not be aggressive; just do things you like with other people. Go to an R meetup or python meetup, for example. Meetups hosted at other firms' offices are a great way to check them out and get intel on what the industry is like outside your firm b) identify fields of interest and become good at them; could be tech, could be particular instruments of trading, etc; c) wait. Wait until the field and the players become more clear. Wait until you come across a firm or opportunity that makes you go, "Wow, I'd like to work there / on that!". Then the energy will come to you naturally. Or maybe you see them all and it becomes really clear that you don't even want to be in NY?

I think it's great that you posted on HN and asked for advice. It's great that you acknowledged that you are dissatisfied. The tricky part after seeing a problem is waiting. :-) The natural tendency is to jump to a solution, and often, we just simply pick the thing that looks most different from where we're uncomfortable (startups instead of finance; SV instead of NY, etc;). Staying with the discomfort till your feelings crystallize more clearly is probably the most tricky yet important skill for anyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So if you were making $200k+ you wouldn't be wanting to be a developer?

In which case, you either don't generate enough value in your current role or you haven't negotiated your salary effectively. $125k pa does seem low for a good quant on Wall St. The amount of effort required to be a good, thus valuable and well paid developer, is considerable. Similar level of effort invested in your current skillset might see you advance in your present career track.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good question - between the financial crisis, regulatory overhaul on Wall Street, and tech boom, I've run into many people in this situation in recent years. In NYC, the quant-to-data scientist transition has been the more seamless one. Alternatively, I've occasionally worked with quants who are genuinely excited about web development - fortunately, NYC has great options for learning & networking here.

You provided a decent background, but I don't want speculate and offer counter-productive advice based on limited information. Depending on your interests and experience, as well as the the different types of companies & roles, there is much to consider!

I'm happy to discuss options further - feel free to e-mail me at email@example.com.

<comment><USER3> If you ever write a blog post about your perspectives on Wall St, please post a link here - would love to read it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone for your replies. I think vijucat's phrase "grass is greener" describes what most of you are saying, and gives me hope to continue with my current career path.

My performance review is coming up and based on what a lot of you are saying, I'm underpaid and should ask for a raise. This is my first job (did BS then MS right after) and I've only been here a few months. Any tips about how much I should ask for? Based on Glassdoor I'm thinking about asking for 120K + 25K bonus, but is this still too little?

</comment><comment><USER5> I think there are _great_ and _shitty_ jobs in every industry. Switching to tech isn't necessarily a silver-bullet, there are more than a few soul- crushing tech jobs out there (think Office Space), and comparing-yourself with peers won't stop just because you switch industries. The feeling of needing to keep-up-with-the-Joneses is a pretty universal phenomenon.

That being said, yes for your skillset you should be able to pull in a slightly higher salary soon (if not immediately). But I'd be very picky about what company you switch to. With many startups comes a very large amount of risk (the bank accounts of many startups will have less than 1% of the funds of your current employer). The hours will be insane, and it's quite possible that you'll never actually make any cool shit...or money. But that's all case- specific. Do your research on the particular organization you're thinking about joining, and make sure you _love_ the people there, because you're gonna be spending a lot of time with them.

If you'd like to wade in / test-the-waters, try to freelance on the side for awhile; or join a startup that isn't looking for a full-time commitment.

</comment><comment><USER6> That's funny, because I'm currently a developer thinking of jumping to finance for the money. No matter what I do, I will always continue doing development on my own time in the form of side projects. Today with stuff like Github and if you have the time, mingling with other developers isn't too hard (if you don't mind the distance).

<comment><USER3> Whether you work in finance or as a developer, your worth to your employer is dependent upon the value you bring to your employer. Might be an idea to look at what you enjoy instead of being fixated on the money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Its ironic that a lot of developers feel the opposite of what the OP is describing. Developers think wall street pays more and wall street (OP) thinks developers make "way more".

Like others have already pointed out, OP you seem to be underpaid in NYC in your position, but I wouldn't rush to switch fields. Stay with what you are doing and try to identify your value and skillset which you can then use to negotiate a higher salary.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think the question you need to ask yourself is what do you actually want to do?

As someone who works as a developer in the HFT space, I can back up what others are saying - you could be making more than you are now either as a quant or a developer (without switching industries, if finance really interests you).

Do what you think will make you happy in the long run, and then spend the time to invest in those skills.

</comment><comment><USER9> Money, People, & The Actual Work involved are the primary drivers influencing any career move.

Leverage your quant & trading background-- look for developers working on tools/programs/services for that space. Reach out to them for professional networking. See if they would be open to sharing their perspective. Linkedin is a good place to sort profiles.

</comment><comment><USER10> short time to read/comment: software developers don't operate in an idea/knowledge vacuum. Your current profession will be your greatest source of those ideas - don't abandon it. Work on both.

</comment><comment><USER11> do you want to manage finance in your life or create softwares ?</comment>