At Tech’s Leading Edge, Worry About a Concentration of Power
So I am a machine learning researcher who moved to a FAANG as a research scientist after graduation. My salary is 10x against the grad student stipend. That does not even account for the free food, the healthcare, and other perks. However, I have not adjusted my lifestyle so it does not feel real.<p>The thing is, even though having 1000x the resources compared to university, that does not really make me happier about the work specifically. It makes some things easier and other things harder.<p>No, what I really feel is that at work I am not actually treated like a servant any more but like a person. I don't have to work weekends and nights any more. I can take vacations and won't be flooded with emails every.single.day during holidays. I don't have extra unpaid responsibilities that I have zero recourse against.<p>The thing that I just cannot stop wondering is, why, knowing the perks of industry, advisers still treated us like this. Even though ostensibly trying to keep us, it felt more like squeezing out as much as they could.