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Your incentives come from where your money comes from. This is a pretty basic concept and it's absurd to brush it off as a form of No True Scotsman.

You can get money from both labor and capital. This is called "middle class." Don't let it melt your brain, but don't oversimplify to "you owned a stock so are capital class" either. Just give the labor/capital percentages (ordinary income / capital gains) and note how it leans.

New grad tech worker: 100%/0%

Mid career tech worker: 50%/50%

Late career tech worker: 10%/90%

Retired: 0%/100%

by porridgeraisin17 hours ago|

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Exactly. The original comment in this thread asked if most tech workers here are part of the capital class themselves. Which was answered by saying that if you're employed by someone else, you are part of the worker class and thus tech workers are part of the worker class.

Introducing the fact that it's a spectrum and that equity ownership (which a vast majority of people in this industry have) makes you a capital owner is exactly my correction to that.

by smallmancontrov9 hours ago|

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No. If you agree with the "percent of income/gains" framework we have no fundamental quarrel, but I want to point out that the way you phrased your point was indistinguishable from partisan economic-right opposition to this idea, which aims to bait people into betraying their class interest by understating their labor interest and overstating their capital interest. "You own some stocks in your 401k so you are capital class" is the usual argument, but the overwhelming majority of non-retired people with a 401k get more income from working than from the appreciation in their 401k and should vote accordingly.

by OGWhales1 days ago|

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They provided a decently accurate description of the working class vs the capitalist class. I don't think your reply fits here.

by lovich1 days ago|

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Most tech workers do not get compensated with stock. A fraction of the best compensated get stock. The next tier down get options with so many caveats that they are effectively worthless, and the tier below them are straight salary with no equity even entering the horizon for them.

And yea, once you start getting actual capital and start reaping the benefits of that wealth you start being identified as a capitalist in the socialist world view.

Edit: the comment I replied to originally had this sentence at the end

> Very typical for a certain type of folk. It's also utterly deranged even when you just consider that most tech workers get compensated with stock.

by porridgeraisin1 days ago|

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Eh? Which tech company doesn't give RSUs to fresh grads? Startups of course give options.

And how many american middle class+ (generalizing beyond tech workers) don't own equity?

by officeplant1 days ago|

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Our corporation gives us worthless certificates for "money", that only pay out conditionally based on if the company gets re-evaluated for worth.

Our 401K match maxes out at $50 per paycheck.

by lovich1 days ago|

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You are in a bubble if you are surprised at the idea of companies not giving out stock, much less RSUs specifically. While it’s common in the big tech Silicon Valley companies there are thousands of other tech companies where the most they give are options, and I must repeat with a litany of caveats that make them effectively worthless, and even more where they only pay salary and have no way to gain equity at all.

I am in a lower tier of the market than Silicon Valley and after 15 years of making over six figure salary I have not been given a single stock, and none of my employees or members of my social circles that don’t work at FAANGs have either.

by eudamoniac6 hours ago|

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I got RSU at Cisco, Boeing, Home Depot, not exactly FAANG tier companies

by porridgeraisin17 hours ago|

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Considering how my second paragraph was ignored, I assume you own stock in major companies either directly or through indices, thus making you a capital owner that makes money from other people's work (work used in the literal sense)?

Note that around half of the US stock market is passively owned, so this is not a small number on aggregate

Further see: my reply to a sibling in this same thread.

by lovich13 hours ago|

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I “own” stock through my 401k. The “own” is in scare quotes because I cannot liquidate it other than as a loan for a home, and then only with my employers permission which is an odd definition for ownership and which most of the middle class in the US is bound by.

Considering how you ignored the response to you asking

> Eh? Which tech company doesn't give RSUs to fresh grads? Startups of course give options.

I assume you are not here in good faith and just want to argue that all is well and good.

Don’t try and hide behind your second argument when your first point was contested and then act all indignant.

Edit:

Responding to

> Further see: my reply to a sibling in this same thread.

I found your other reply here[1], quoting in case you edit it

> Exactly. The original comment in this thread asked if most tech workers here are part of the capital class themselves. Which was answered by saying that if you're employed by someone else, you are part of the worker class and thus tech workers are part of the worker class. > Introducing the fact that it's a spectrum and that equity ownership (which a vast majority of people in this industry have) makes you a capital owner is exactly my correction to that.

You are still assuming that most tech workers are given stock grants and have equity. I fundamentally disagreed with that.

I do not believe that the vast majority of people in this industry have been given equity.

Don’t try and pretend that I am wrong because I disagree with you. Show your work or be dismissed.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48742201

by eudamoniac6 hours ago|

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FYI 401Ks can be withdrawn from penalty free via a Roth conversion ladder.