Facebook interns make $6k / month???

[armadillo]

Armadillo smells a tech bubble coming. And absolutely disgusting - how about the 50+ years old who have experience and FB won't look at????:

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/07/08/silicon_valley_intern_pay_it_s_high_and_it_s_justified.html

[jimboivyo]

Armadillo smells a tech bubble coming. And absolutely disgusting - how about the 50+ years old who have experience and FB won't look at????:

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/07/08/silicon_valley_intern_pay_it_s_high_and_it_s_justified.html

 

 

Facebook ain't going anywhere anytime soon

[+ quoththeraven]

This doesn't bother me at all. It's better than not paying interns anything, and these organizations can very well afford to pay the amounts they're paying; as the article points out, the amounts paid approximate beginning full-time salaries.

 

In most cases unpaid internships are illegal. Internships can only legitimately be unpaid if they are educational in nature and primarily for the benefit of the intern rather than the company. But very few complain for fear (not necessarily unfounded) that the internships will dry up and disappear.

 

What this means is that only the children of the rich and near-rich can afford to take internships, and thus the advantages internships confer are confined to those who need it the least. Even more ironically, many of the entities that offer unpaid internships are so-called progressive organizations, often non-profits. Yes, they may have less money, but they're also acting contrary to their supposed ideals.

[nate_sf]

It's misleading that the articles make the comparison to the monthly income for U.S. households. The relevant stat is the median 1-person annual household income in SF of $72,100, or $73,850 in Santa Clara County. So the $6,000/month intern pay is about the same as the area median. Not bad for an intern, but by the time you factor in rent ($2,000+ for a studio), plus that they're probably being classified as independent contractors so they'll have less net pay than if they were salaried with benefits, the money is good but not crazy high. The article mentions free housing but I've never heard of such a thing (someone correct me if you have), though the free transportation and food is well known. The hours are long and the expectations high.

 

Jimboi is right that FB isn't going anywhere soon, but having been here through the dot-com bubble in the late 90s it does feel a bit bubbly right now. The local economy feels very distorted, specifically in that non-tech service businesses are having a hard time hiring even with decent wages, and people are having such a hard time finding places to live that they can reasonably afford. The main difference between now and the dot-conomy is that the current tech firms seem to be very discerning with who they hire (if Facebook is hiring you as a coder you're gonna have to be good), whereas the dot-coms had a reputation for not being quite as discerning. I wish the tech economy was more widely dispersed so it could enrich other areas a bit and be less hyper-concentrated here, but everyone seems to want to be where the action is.