20
votes
US tech workers are paying $75K for leg-lengthening surgery
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- Title
- A leg-lengthening surgeon says software engineers from big tech firms like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are paying at least $75,000 to get 3 inches taller
- Published
- Sep 15 2022
- Word count
- 441 words
Sometimes I ponder about whether or not the greatest injustice and inequality in humanity might not between the haves and the have-nots — but between the beautiful and the rest of us.
Regardless of who and where they are, the beautiful will always be given many more opportunities in business, in culture, and in society among both friends and strangers.
I misappropriate Adam Smith a little here:
I read an article in Time For Kids about a girl who hoped a surgery like these would help her meet the height requirements to be an airline steward.
I know one woman got this surgery just for that. This was in some TV show years ago. I think by the time the show was made she was completely healed but had gotten rejected by the airlines she applied to for other reasons. I’m sure she eventually got a job.
On one hand it’s a shame people will risk intense bone-breaking surgery for something that’s cosmetic. On the other hand being taller seems to be pretty strongly correlated with getting higher paid leadership positions. So it’s not just a cosmetic decision.
So this is a wild thing. I was a pandemic hire at my current job, starting remotely instead of moving, and staying remote for quite some time before going back to the office was even really possible, since they took the time to do renovations.
I am definitely the shortest person in the entire office, as a 5' 6" (1.67 m) tall man. I think the next closest person is two inches taller than me. Several people are over 6ft tall, even the few (because rest in peace gender equality in STEM) women in the office are taller than me. I honestly kind of wonder if I would have been hired if I had needed to do an on site interview. While I am now looking to stay remote for much of my career for other reasons, it does seem to me like I might do better because no one will know how tall (or not lol) I am.
Wow, what you wrote hit me hard. I'm in a similar situation, and hadn't even considered how remote work might have evened the odds in this way.
It's well known that women generally favor dating taller men. I'd be very surprised if that wasn't the main motivation for these procedures. Tech workers are probably doing that more than others because they have the disposable income and are more likely to be able to work from home during this long, painfull, incapacitating procedure.
Years ago, I learned that this was largely used in China to make their volleyball and basketball teams more competitive.
I feel like adding 6 inches specifically to half of a patient's legs on a frame that isn't built that way would look odd. I would be interested to see the effects in person (as the before/after photos online don't really show it).
Some people start off with weirdly short legs for their torso. So I could see it working. But I also assume that adding 6 inches has the most health risks and side effects.
I'm curious why headlines about this focus so much on the "tech worker" part of it - I was wondering if there was some bio-hacking angle that was going on, but doesn't seem to be it. From the article, it's just wealthy professions in general (naturally, since you need a pretty good paying job to pay for a 75k cosmetic surgery).
Tech is going to be more present than other customers because in recent years it has had absolutely crazy salary spikes (a new grad from a well ranked university program can get 200k-300k/yr, 0 years of experience, just a 4 year bachelors), and is predominantly composed of young men - likely younger and more likely to seek cosmetic surgeries than doctors and lawyers (also mentioned as common customers) who at minimum need to through another 4-6 years of schooling and may be more settled in life.
They quote the surgeon:
This immediately makes me think of Gattaca.