I understand that drivers can't count on tips to be consistent or even provided. It's also common to tip Uber drivers. I don't see these articles taking tipping into account. Probably fair since Uber probably didn't assume any tip in their $100k figure. I'd find it interesting to hear how tipping might change that hourly wage figure.

I know this will come across as being a Google fanboy, but I've been really impressed with Google recently, completely counter to the poster's question. We work in the same industry, but that doesn't mean a whole lot as there is no mention of what langue(s) they work with, so maybe it's something obscure that even Google isn't good at returning search results for. For me? I think it's great and I use it to do exactly what's described. It would take a lot of cycles to compute the exact amount of time Google saves me these days (compared to doing the same job in 2000, for example) doing exactly what it does today for queries I assume must be similar to the posters.

Some background. I'm a US tech worker. I worked in software development for a major US corporation starting in college and continued as my first full time "grown up" job until 2007 when I couldn't ignore the itch to get involved in the US's War on Terror; I joined the US Army as an infantryman, enlisted. I had very supportive colleagues who said "technology will always be there" but with the quick pace at which the sector moves I knew there was no real way to keep up. Fast forward to 2013 when I had done my time and was getting geared back up to re-enter the tech sector, I had a real fear that I wouldn't be able to get up to speed or keep up. Honestly, Google has helped immeasurably. Using Google, it's been way easier to get up to speed and stay up to speed than it was when I was starting out, and my mind was much sharper back then I think (age alone, setting aside the impacts of a few years at war and around my share of large explosions). I'm not sure I could have jumped back in, at least nearly as quickly, if it weren't for the present state of "search" and the advancements at Google. Plus, their services rock pretty hard.

I'm impressed when they search through the world of straight crap (unintentional) and the world of the intentionally misleading to deliver to me results I actually find useful. I don't think I'd get as useful a result from a search engine that returned results based on page content and meta data alone. Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't found Google lacking and because I had to get up to speed I'd wager I've used it more heavily than most in the last couple years.

I joined the US Army as an Infantryman. Can't get much farther away from IT than that. I wasn't trying to move away from IT, it was response to my country at war and the subsequent loss of a friend to insurgent action in Iraq that made my decision for me.

I obviously work with people in an entirely different way than I did in IT. For the record, I was a software engineer with IBM in Pittsburgh on the Websphere Competency Center team. I loved my job and still can't imagine a better group of co-workers and business partners to work with. Maybe I'll get back to tech after my time in the Army, maybe I won't.

In the Army I'm currently a 240B medium machine gun team leader. My age (29 when I joined the Army) and experience (good civilian job, college) earned me a little more flexibility in promotions, but no more respect with my peers. The average age in my company is approximately 21. It's been an uphill battle to compete physically, but it's a challenge I've found fascinating.

As for the money, better make sure you're in a good position before making a move like this. Thanks to my 7 years at IBM, I was, but it would be a nightmare to try to live off lower enlisted salary when you're used to much more.

My previous experience did land me one unfortunate headache, the CO/1SG found out that I was "good with computers" and stuck me in company operations for 10 months. Try to avoid talking about your previous IT experience if you go this route.