It's on LinkedIn today, posted by John A. Byrne. Kid's taking it all the way to the bank,
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131114204433-17970806-sta…
My personal opinion -you don't have to agree with it - is that they overpaid. Assuming 0-5 years of experience, there's plenty of talent, some members active on this site, better than that kid.
Thoughts ?
it's not right but the market sets the rate, not morality
$522 is ok but not great. Don't get too jealous; the typical ORFE PhD at a top school probably graduates to earn more.
Do you have some kind of source on that? Even at Princeton that number sounds ridiculously high.
We had an ORFE PhD leave for a major systematic hedge fund with a $275 starting salary plus signing bonus. Given how bonus works at that firm, he can expect to clear easily double that. Unfortunately I can't give away his name or the firm (other than to say it's similar to an AQR, Bridgewater, DE Shaw, or Kepos).
It's really simple; if you can do stochastic calculus, stats, and code really well, and you're willing to work 60-70 hours/week, you are probably worth twice per hour what a web developer is worth, and if you do the math there, it's not too hard to get to $600K. And when you have teams of 10 people running $2 Billion AUM and they need an expert on GARCH, Markov-Switching Models, and signal analysis, and there's like 200 people in the world who can do this who might consider working in industry, $600K isn't all that much money to spend.
I probably shouldn't have generalized so much here, and I accept the correction on that, but I can cite instances of ORFE PhDs from programs like Princeton (and there are a good dozen or so programs that are just as good) graduating to earn $500-600K at hedge funds, and I can give you hedge fund managers who'd tell you they'd be thrilled to hire more ORFE PhDs.
Most people get a PhD because they want to work in academia. Most ORFE PhDs turn down these offers and call them silly. I don't know why; ask the Russian dude living on a mushroom farm with his mom who turned down a Fields medal.
We also had an MFin student who dropped out and is almost certainly clearing more than $522K now, but that is another story, although there are likely similar stories at other MFE programs.
Moral: 1.) There's always someone earning more, often for doing something you'd never be able to do. 2.) You can accomplish more when you're not worried about what others are making. 3.) You're often happier when you don't worry or care about what others are making and aren't trying to shock other people about it. (Before you ask, I don't make $500K, I drive a rusty honda, and drink Yellowtail wine because it's cheaper than beer.)
X is good but nothing special. This one guy out of a population of like 6 makes a little more. Yea, well Derek Jeter makes more than he does. Doesnt really make it relevant. You're talking about one guy out of a population (grads from ORFE PhD programs at top schools) that is annually in the teens.
Son, I think you just got trolled.
These people aren't Derek Jeters; they're normal top 5%, maybe 1% type people who managed to get into a school like Cornell, Columbia, or Princeton for an ORFE PhD. They're not really different from a Stanford MBA except for the fact that they're learning to create stuff that has value to folks. Since that is what they spend their time studying, they come out with more and better options. Similar stories for CS PhDs and Electrical Engineering PhDs also play out.
If you want to be more valuable to folks, don't build a network, just learn to build stuff. Our economy has too much grease and not enough gears. Become a gear and get paid for it.
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