This company will fail. I don't see it being profitable on 3.99 per delivery... Nor do I see the interest in the service outside the Bay Area. Enjoy the VC money while it lasts guys
Work in itself is not fulfilling unless you are a simpleton. Fulfilling intellectual curiosity, relationships, pleasure, those things are fulfilling. Work is simply a means to those ends. It's amazing how many people don't understand this.
I'm not a hacker because I love programming and it's my purpose in life and the reason I live. I program because it's a relatively good career and an efficient way to make money so that one day I won't have to (and while I do, I still get 30+ hours a week to pursue the things that do bring fulfillment). Sure I'd rather be a programmer than a plumber, truck driver, accountant or even another highly paid profession like corporate lawyer, but I'd rather be an independently wealthy intellectual seeker, family man, world traveler, explorer and pleasure-seeker than a programmer...
The median in SF is much higher than that, and in the peninsula even higher. Also, middle class is all but the 1%. The top 1% is the capitalist class of very good jobs (high finance, specialized doctors, exectives, some lawyers, etc) or people who own a lot of assets instead of working, owning 40% of the wealth in the country and 34% of the income. So yes, programming is a middle class job, though I suppose 'upper-middle class' would suffice as well.
I'd agree with you if I was referencing some mysterious elite who lucked into their positions or had ivy league connections. I'm talking about my friends from college who had average grades at a top 30 small private school on the East Coast. Several of the ones who went into finance make more than I do, and some a LOT more. I have friends who frequently clear $300k with bonuses in very average wall street jobs. They are in their late 20s... how many enginers can make that much? They are also still early in their careers. Some I imagine will go on to make 7 figure incomes at their peak, whereas we can agree that engineers will top out at 250-300k with bonuses working at the best companies in the world.
Now, I'm not saying I'm struggling to buy food or anything on my healthy engineering salary, I'm just saying that I don't feel guilty AT ALL about how much I make, nor do I feel that I am overpaid in anyway. I do tend to think my contribution to society is at least as much as my finance friends, so perhaps either I am underpaid or they are overpaid.
I don't understand why tech workers in the Bay Area feel guilty about receiving 'high' salaries of $100 - $200k/year. This is not a lot of money... People on Wall street laugh at these amounts. So do specialized doctors, corporate lawyers, investment bankers, etc.
Software engineering is unfortunately a very middle class occupation at this point. I'd love to see it get up into the ranks of the upper class (at least for very experienced engineers!), but it has a long way to go...