Discussion summary

The FAANG Simulator discussion covers game mechanics, realism, and social commentary, with players sharing personal experiences and opinions.

What the discussion says

  • Some find the game realistic and reflective of real life.
  • Others think the game oversimplifies or exaggerates certain aspects.
  • There is concern about the game's difficulty and fairness, especially for non-US players.
No option for the rat to bite you, you get rabiz, sue and cash out?
ge96
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jongjong

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  • Hacker News
  • Automatic lifestyle creep with promotions? Well, it's definitely not a FIRE simulator.
  • Are you suggesting that everyone with FIRE aspirations avoids lifestyle creep?
  • Neat, but font choice makes it extremely hard to read the text on mobile. Even harder when it's under the CRT style screen effect.
  • RAT RACE #1 · ACQUIRED sold the company at 27 · walked away with $13.32M · peak burnout 84%

    Gotta go grind out some AI B2B Agentic project now...

  • The hard part for B2B is the sales not tech. You are better off wining and dining a sales guy as your co founder than doing more vibe coding.
  • “You shipped the Al feature. It is a wrapper around an API wrapper around an API. Stock +9%. You feel nothing.”

    Anyone else in the club?

  • RAT RACE #1 · DECEASED* *dead at 25 · $164k unspent · the on-call rotation already updated
  • Form HR-1099-RAT · Exit Interview · economic status: locked in Permanent Underclass
  • The rate of success of side projects seems unrealistically high. Yeah, I know, it's the YC dream, but even acquisitions where the founders walk away with a few million dollars are rare enough, right?
  • I won by just grinding and touching grass
  • sad reality of life
  • I’ve had dates like that
  • I got into YC, immediately got a 6M offer from Google, sold and won.
  • Same.

    And since I won with an age, company, and title that is literally me right now... Well, I'm not exactly sure what to do with it information but some internalization is in order.

  • That's not cheating, that's the answer
  • Game seems to be heavily weighted towards building side projects. If only you could build a single side project without raising any funds and get acquired for 10M with an 80% cut...
  • this is possible now with AI
  • Well thats your problem, everyone knows you got to apply to YC to get funded

    /s

  • Yes, I really don't think that such a high fraction of people get purchased for fucking 15M after one year lol
  • Really? I did great just alternating between "grind" and "lay low". Retired with $4.8m at 25!
  • When thinking about years of work until financial independence, its worth understanding the impact that savings rate has - the fraction of post-tax income remaining to invest in growth assets after expenses.

    If you're not familiar with savings rate, here's a simple calculator to help build intuition. The assumptions of asset returns & portfolio required to sustain retirement are a bit optimistic, but it's directionally correct: https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement

    You need roughly a 15% savings rate to support traditional retirement age. If you're fortunate enough to create & sustain a situation where your income net tax is a lot higher than your annual expenses, the timeline accelerates significantly.

    by shoo
  • FIRECalc https://firecalc.com/ is another planner with more knobs. It has models for decreasing spending with age.
  • One thing I have wondered about these calculations: is one's annual income supposed to be inclusive of all remunerations? You know, things like employer matches in retirement accounts, health insurance contributions, etc.?
  • Really fun project, but doesn't take ageism into account, it gets easier the further you get whereas it should get be getting harder in certain ways
  • like family/personal time balance... neglect, and you get a message your teenage daughter is pregnant or your son joined a gang. game chugs along...
  • Maybe add a non-US-citizen mode where if you are ever unemployed for more than 2 cycles you lose, unless you already have a side project with enormous traction

    And if you are a US citizen and get randomly get thrown into a group of mostly non-citizen coworkers they will grind like hell due to the above, and if you don't grind extra hard you get the PIP faster, because you're stack ranked against them

  • US citizen and permanent resident are equivalent for the purposes of this...
  • Your second point is so bizarre. You're complaining hardworking immigrants make you look bad because you don't work as hard?
  • I don't know if I should feel sad or laugh at the pain at the same time lol.

    what a wonderful way to reflect reality for a good population of devs.

    you can hack the game i.e real life

    1. live in a cheaper location 2. do things that don't scale & do the ugly work

    that naturally extends your runway, you don't need to apply to YC

    remember the median Pay in the US - is 61800 based on ADP the largest payroll provider.

    so before aiming for millions aim for 85K. yeah a far cry from the FAANG wage - but one - you will never get laid off.

    85K - you can live everywhere besides the coastal US cities comfortably.

  • > 1. live in a cheaper location 2. do things that don't scale & do the ugly work

    From the creators of how to draw the owl, lol!