So I was reading up on the latest SAS layoffs and ended up at comprehensive.io where average salary ranges are displayed by job title. I had always heard that SAS underpays but I thought the perks made up for it, sort of. At least there wasn’t any layoffs. Now that has changed. Some will say that it is because NC is a cheaper area to live. While that used to be the case the area is now one of the most expensive in the south east. The founders made a lot of money from our hard work and it hurts that they weren’t more magnanimous with the company’s earnings. Now things are slowing down so let’s get rid of our greatest assets. Sad.
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Sounds like didn’t live within your means, keep up on skills, and now blame someone else for the position you put yourself in.
The message to younger people is do the things this person didn’t. Take responsibility for your career, personal world, and growth. There is an amazing amount of opportunity for those who do. It ain’t gonna be handed to you.
It is not unfair that wealth is not being shared. The owners have no obligation to do that, and they never promised it. When we agreed to work for them, we made a deal, and it was a fair deal, and a good deal at the time.
Whether this layoff is fair is a different question.
Edit @ckr+1nMZhzjI
REPLACE
"... successfully learn outside of SAS"
WITH
"... successfully interview outside of SAS"
By JG's calculus if you began working for SAS in the 80s, stayed for 30+ years, lived extremely frugally, purchased-paid off and stayed in the same house, drove inexpensive cars for a couple hundred thousand miles and got into conservative investments over time, then you should've retired with at least $1 million in longer term investments plus plenty of "dry powder" cash to live on top of your severance, buyout package, and/or Social Security.
That's ideally how the proletariat was supposed to function at SAS -- at least in the mind of the chief overlord. I am aware of a few people who did just this and are doing fine. Others added side gigs like real estate investing and are doing really well.
Of course, that era of SAS is long over.
A few (mostly) younger folks with the correct education or talent/experience were able to matriculate to companies that compensate them at a much higher rate.
At the end of the day, JG never promised anyone equity or considerable wealth. Well, I agree that the fair thing to have done would've been to have shared more of the spoils with the people who really made SAS happen, this did not occur.
Instead, we had a form of soft corporate Socialism with a lot of company, revenue going to support perks that not everyone benefited from. That said, the best and brightest were often promoted faster (often due to their own negotiations) and did make higher salaries.
Within R&D, the thing that made it difficult for even the best to leave was the fact that their expertise was in a very proprietary architecture/infrastructure. IOW, the very capital innovation base that made JG so wealthy was the technology that kept his best engineers working for SAS. The 35 hour work week was mostly a myth for these folks who often worked 45 to 50 an even more during crunch times.
Being a top performer at SAS kept the majority from having the time and energy to significantly learn new tools and technologies that would enable them to successfully learn outside of SAS. It was indeed rare for projects at SAS to provide these learnings as part of the standard work week.