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The Top Paying Tech Companies For Interns 133

theodp writes "For those students for whom it's all about the Benjamins, BusinessInsider's Alyson Shontell has compiled a nice list of 20 Tech Companies That Pay Interns Boatloads Of Money. 'If you intern for a high-profile tech company,' notes Shontell, 'you can make more money than the average US citizen. Facebook, for example, pays its average intern $6,056 per month. That ends up being a base salary of about $72,000 per year.' Sure beats making a 'measly' $5,808 per month at LinkedIn, where you might find yourself having to participate in embarrassing sing-a-longs and Flash Mobs!"
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The Top Paying Tech Companies For Interns

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 03, 2013 @07:26PM (#42781493)

    Here's the fluff, all on one page:

    http://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-richest-interns-in-tech-2013-1?op=1

    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 03, 2013 @07:42PM (#42781591)

      Posted here because it's sooo sloooow to load. Where's the Coral Cache when you need it?

      Again, apologies for the blatant copyright violation and thanking my lucky stars the publisher isn't Co$. For the duration of the slow-load any reasonable person would call this reposting "fair use." The /. overlords are welcome to delete this when it is no longer needed, if they wish to do so. I wish Slashdot's overlords would come to some kind of caching agreement with newly-posted stories so the publishers can keep their ad revenue without being beaten into submission by traffic loads.

      Anyhow, here we go....

      http://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-richest-interns-in-tech-2013-1?op=1 [businessinsider.com]

      00--snip--00

      20 Tech Companies That Pay Interns Boatloads Of Money
      Alyson Shontell
      Feb. 2, 2013, 8:15 AM

      If you intern for a high-profile tech company, you can make more money than the average US citizen.

      Facebook, for example, pays its average intern $6,056 per month. That ends up being a base salary of about $72,000 per year.

      But there's another tech company that pays its interns even more than Facebook.

      Glassdoor, a career and company rating site, helped us compile a list of tech companies that pay their interns the most. Its salary data is based on anonymous salary reports voluntarily shared by current and recent employees, including interns.

      The following list combines monthly average pay with hourly monthly pay to take into account a larger data sample among tech interns. Companies were only included if they had 20 or more salary reports within the past two years.

      Here's who pays its lowest level people thousands of dollars every month.

      20. Cisco Systems pays its interns an average of $3,930 per month

      Annually, that would be: $47,160

      "Great company, very knowledgeable peers from top universities, work is good, good compensation and you learn a lot. Flexibility and work/life balance is unmatched. Free movie tickets, tickets to amusement park, free frequent lunches, great gym, free train pass, lot of intern events with free food, pays for your tuition, San Jose a good place to live. College grads like me these days wants to work for more recent brands like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter but companies like CISCO and others who have been there from decades are great places to start your career." -- Former Cisco Systems college intern (San Jose, CA)

      19. IBM pays its interns an average of $3,942 per month

      Annually, that would be: $47,304

      "Tech giant with massive resources and really talented people. You work on products that are touched by millions in mission critical areas. For such a big company, it feels very nimble. You can easily reach any employee worldwide through Same time. It feels like a tight-knit environment, even thought you are 1 or hundreds of thousands. Every manager I have dealt with is awesome. Uber professionalism throughout." -- IBM software engineer intern (Austin, TX)

      18. EMC pays its interns an average of $4,004 per month

      Annually, that would be: $48,048

      "EMC is a great company with great employees. Seniors are willing to help and easy about timelines. Its was a awesome experience as a starter and provided me a good learning experience. With that said, it has good salaries for the intern." -- EMC software engineer intern (Hopkinton, MA)

      17. Hewlett-Packard pays its interns an average of $4,008 per month

      Annually, that would be: $48,096

      "Great place to start working, a lot of opportunities, resources in other departments, great pay for an internship, great company to start a career with." -- HP intern (San Diego, CA)

      16. Dell pays its interns an average of $4,024 per month

      Annually, that would be: $48,288

      "Excellent community, with an open atmosphere. The company is reshaping itself, there is a lot of room for upward movement, and it is clear that Dell will

      • Interns at large tech companies get paid well; news at 11.

        I'm somewhat surprised that VMWare made the top, and that Adobe pays more than Google and Amazon, but aside from that, it's all kinda duh.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        I'm not sure how I should feel about all this.

        I started out earning $60k in the tech industry. A dozen years later, I work for the same company and my salary is $90k. With fifteen years experience, I'm only making about ten grand more than interns? And I know most of the other people doing my job make about the same I do (I work at one of the few biggest software companies on the planet) Last year, I earned over $150k -- but that included various bonuses and is not my actual base salary.

        At this rate, I gues

        • I'm not sure how I should feel about all this.

          I started out earning $60k in the tech industry. A dozen years later, I work for the same company and my salary is $90k. With fifteen years experience, I'm only making about ten grand more than interns? And I know most of the other people doing my job make about the same I do (I work at one of the few biggest software companies on the planet) Last year, I earned over $150k -- but that included various bonuses and is not my actual base salary.

          At this rate, I guess, twenty-something interns are soon going to be earning more than people in their 30s with two decades of professional experience. Meh.

          I wonder if these salaries are mostly for the Bay Area. Where, for example, does IBM hire interns? A few of the reports either mention Bay Area cities or mention companies based here.

          Also, I'm wondering where you live. I have about two year's experience as a web developer, currently work for an ecommerce company (not tech), and my base salary is above yours.

          Maybe it's true people are better compensated here in the Bay Area. I'll also add that the higher cost of living doesn't really show up for me. Since I

          • by Anonymous Coward

            My salary is based on the Bay Area, but I moved away a long time ago to the midwest, retaining my salary scale. I guess I should probably clarify that I'm not a coder, though. I do advanced tech support (for example, I do not write code but I do review code to help diagnose problems and file bugs where necessary and so on so I'm not the guy you call because your printer isn't working), so I don't really know the true pay scale among my peers for that other than the actual individuals.

            The primary reason I le

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 03, 2013 @07:30PM (#42781517)

    You can make more money than the average US citizen

    Which makes sense. These interns are top students from top schools, generally more qualified than the average US citizen. Internships are a recruiting strategy, and undergraduate internships are essentially 3 month interviews.

    • should be apprenticeships not tied to being in school and being in a tech / trades / Community College should not lock you out. And if they are full time jobs then forcing some one to be in school with the college time tables does not really work.

      • should be apprenticeships not tied to being in school and being in a tech / trades / Community College should not lock you out.

        The standards for interns are lower because they're not done with school yet. If you're not in school, you'd be expected to apply as a regular employee and already have skills comparable to someone with a degree. Theoretically, you can do this without a degree from a top university, but in practice recruiters use the university as a first line filter, particularly if you have no experience.

        And if they are full time jobs then forcing some one to be in school with the college time tables does not really work.

        Internships are usually in the summer when students wouldn't be in school anyway. There are some longer co-op programs

    • I've met many interns in IT companies and to be honest, many of them are _better_ than senior employees.
      Younger, talented, they work non-stop (they work at night, during the day, etc. Not saying it's a good idea, but they almost all do that. Good luck beating it with a regular schedule and kids).
      So yeah, they get shit done, in general, they get shit done very well too.

      Thus, I'm not exactly surprised either that they get a good salary, close to what regular IT people get (or egal, sometimes)

      • by CodeBuster ( 516420 ) on Monday February 04, 2013 @01:35AM (#42783289)
        Except that the code they write is often of poor quality or doesn't follow company guidelines or isn't the best approach to the problem at hand. Some of this is to be expected, they're interns after all and many of them have little or no real project experience. However, to say that the average intern is better than your senior employees strains credulity. Just because somebody works "all of the time" to "get things done" doesn't mean that the work is of good quality. It's more likely that these interns produce work that's of the same quality that one might expect of an apprentice still learning the skills and tools of the trade. I remember getting paid about half that much when I was an intern, but that was over a decade ago now (makes one wonder about the value of a dollar anymore).
        • by Machtyn ( 759119 )
          How is that any different from a new hire or, in some cases, an entrenched employee? Bad code happens and it can happen from anybody. The Daily WTF reminds of this.
          • How is that any different from a new hire or, in some cases, an entrenched employee?

            Internships are by definition temporary or at least seasonal so most interns are by definition new hires, albeit with nearly zero experience, hence the intern designation. The entrenched employee or bad new hire do occur, but general lack of experience makes poor code more likely amongst interns. That being said, it's also more tolerable in most cases because interns are expected to still be learning the basics and aren't usually given mission critical assignments in any case.

            Bad code happens and it can happen from anybody.

            We all have our bad days, that'

      • by Anonymous Coward

        I worked with an intern once. Very bright guy with some fairly impressive qualifications.

        He wasn't overly fond of the code he was given to work on. He kept on subtley pushing for re-design of the code. He asked why we didn't use design patterns and many C++ features that were avaiable to us instead of sticking to plain old C. I told him that we were working with a very resource limited setting.

        He came back with some analysis to show how much resources we had left and he said that he could get his component

    • Wait, I thought everyone was supposed to work for free on some hippie FOSS project.

      [ducks]

  • Many degrees (I know education) have required Internships. If you don't intern - you don't get a degree. Means that there is strong demand to get an internship, and no demand to provide one from the various institutions that use people with education degrees. Of course these become unpaid internships.

    Companies need productive work out of interns - so they pay them to get the work done. I do not see how many of the random unpaid internships even work. I go in to work a full week unpaid - then have to pi

    • In Education, medicine, and some other fields, your internship will be a lot more supervised than your first-year post-training job. Some fields, like medicine, even require a post-degree form of "internship" (e.g. residency, post-doc, etc.) for certain career paths.

      That's not necessarily true in all technical fields, particularly if the job you are doing literally could be done anyone who knew how to code as well as a typical about-20-year-old Computer Science sophomore or junior.

      When I did the equivalent

    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) * on Sunday February 03, 2013 @08:29PM (#42781831)

      This seems like criminal exploitation to me

      At least in the USA, it is. Unpaid internships are illegal in the USA [forbes.com] unless they meet all of the following criteria:

      • the internship is similar to training in an educational environment
      • is for the benefit of the intern
      • does not displace regular employees
      • is closely supervised
      • does not provide the employer with an immediate advantage
      • promises neither a job following the internship nor wages in exchange for the intern’s time.

      If your unpaid internship violates any of these rules, it is illegal.

      • This seems like criminal exploitation to me

        At least in the USA, it is. Unpaid internships are illegal in the USA [forbes.com] ....

        So is speeding, of course, and multiple other things that people do on a daily basis. No offence intended - it's just that because something is illegal, doesn't mean it's not done.

        • So is speeding, of course, and multiple other things that people do on a daily basis.

          This is not a comparable situation. I cannot sue you for speeding. Only the police can enforce it. But if I spend a summer working for you in an unpaid internship, I can demand to be paid after-the-fact, and sue you if you fail to compensate me. If there is a group of interns that were not paid, I am sure they can find a lawyer that would be happy to help them out for a reasonable contingency.

      • Of course, these laws are rarely if ever enforced, just like many other labor laws, such as age discrimination. Companies politely urinate on these laws and keep on going exploiting desperate young people for corporate gains. There have been many reports about this, for example:
        http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html?pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]

        Laws mean nothing without enforcement. Corporations are bribing government not to enforce the laws. Until we put a stop on the abuse, corporations will keep explo

      • On another topic, this is part of whats wrong with this country. Not only is everything on that list highly subjective. But it's just down right stupid. Try getting an Engineering Job without an Engineering degree. Next, try getting one without any experience. I, even if you have the degree In these situations, the Interns are adults, capable of make rational decisions, and are getting much more out of the internship than the company. Why can't we infuse a little common since into the law.
      • hardy har har. People think you are nuts when you inform them of this. Part of the problem is that college kids are some of the worst negotiators on the planet, so they have put themselves in a permanent bottomed out price war with each other. "Would you like to like envelopes and file invoices all week while occasionally getting shit on by a vindictive boss... for free?" "Sure!"
      • If an internship were to satisfy *all* of those conditions, why oh why would a company even take on an intern in the first place?

        A company would be well advised to simply pass on the whole idea of internship.

  • The biggest draw is that it is a chance to pay back some of those student loans which you accumulated.
  • Missing a few.... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They missed Altera and Palentir, which both make it into this top 20. Palentir outpays the top company on this list, if I'm not mistaken.

  • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @07:47PM (#42781627)

    Didn't "intern" used to mean little to no pay at all, because you were getting school credit and were willing to sweep floors for it rather than take an elective?

    • Maybe earlier. Now, they are the tryouts for a permanent job. If your smartest interns don't like the program, that means they are going to work for your competition.
      • Word gets around campus fast that so-and-so company or such-and-such department is THE internship to go for and AVOID even applying at such-and-such employer, and heaven help you if you get stuck in this-or-that department.

        At least it did when I was doing that sort of thing.

      • Well, that's fine. The interns don't have any useful skills anyway, they're not even up to the level of entry-level fresh grad. And 99.9% of them think programming is all about social apps or other web sites. If they go somewhere else to get trained at someone else's expense then there's no problem. Interns are a major pain to hire, you have to hand hold them the entire time because they have little idea how a corporation works, how their computer works, how to work independently without bothering everyo

        • Re:Pay? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by russotto ( 537200 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @09:03PM (#42781995) Journal

          Well, that's fine. The interns don't have any useful skills anyway, they're not even up to the level of entry-level fresh grad.

          Fortunately that first part's not true. The second part isn't either, if you compare interns to average new grads. And not all interns are undergrads either; some interns are MS and Ph.D. students.

          And 99.9% of them think programming is all about social apps or other web sites.

          Well I guess if they're interning for Facebook that's a good thing.

          If they're paying $70,000 a year, stop calling it an internship and call it a temp job

          Why would these be mutually exclusive? A paid internship is a temp job.

        • Well, that's fine. The interns don't have any useful skills anyway, they're not even up to the level of entry-level fresh grad. And 99.9% of them think programming is all about social apps or other web sites. If they go somewhere else to get trained at someone else's expense then there's no problem. Interns are a major pain to hire, you have to hand hold them the entire time because they have little idea how a corporation works, how their computer works, how to work independently without bothering everyone else. Or you get an EE intern doing a job requiring some programming and you have to waste time telling them why their program doesn't compile.

          I interned at a start-up while working toward my S.B. EE/dual Ph.D. and left a self-made millionaire before completing the latter due, in no small part, to all of the contributions I had made, ideas I handed out, and so forth; one of the other interns there, who was also from my alma mater and working toward her Ph.D., also left a millionaire for the same reasons. Suffice to say, your comment about interns being worthless and having no skills is utter nonsense. Moreover, I'm sure there are plenty of stude

        • by mcmonkey ( 96054 )

          Well, that's fine. The interns don't have any useful skills anyway, they're not even up to the level of entry-level fresh grad. And 99.9% of them think programming is all about social apps or other web sites. If they go somewhere else to get trained at someone else's expense then there's no problem. Interns are a major pain to hire, you have to hand hold them the entire time because they have little idea how a corporation works, how their computer works, how to work independently without bothering everyone else. Or you get an EE intern doing a job requiring some programming and you have to waste time telling them why their program doesn't compile.

          Maybe the problem is not the intern. I've had some great experiences with interns, and have some great work to show for it. Part of that is luck--getting the right person to work with. But a lot of that is understanding the situation and handing out appropriate work. Yes, you're dealing with entry-level skills, so put the intern on an entry-level problem. Yes, they typically don't know about corporations and office politics and government regulations and all the other practical considerations that we d

    • I was a "summer intern" at a job that had no connection with my schooling.

      Basically, I was a temporary employee and they called me an intern for HR purposes.

      As far as pay went I got paid what any other temporary employee with my skills and education would've gotten.

      By the way, I was a "real" employee, not an employee of a temporary-employee-outsourcing firm.

      • Things change I guess. We used to call those summer jobs or temp jobs. Intern means you can legally pay below minimum wage because it's educational.

    • by Seumas ( 6865 )

      From what all the news articles have told me in the past two years, new graduates won't work for a pittance anymore. Young people expect and demand that they immediately be given the job of top executive and a six figure salary plus an iPhone and constant facebook and twitter access at work.

    • by Shados ( 741919 )

      Huh? Even in the blackhole of the dot com crash I was still getting paid enough while interning to pay for an ok-ish living. It wasn't luxury by any mean, but it was a full salary.

      And the dot com crash is long behind us...so its not surprising.

    • by Bigby ( 659157 )

      It is being used as a way for the company to try out an employee without hiring them full time. Then they don't need to deal with benefits or the repercussions of laying them off. Basically the same as contractors...

      I think it is stupid too. Just call them contractors.

  • I wouldn't want an intern who focused on their pay as an intern.

    What you should be focused on is how much you will learn. In a good intern position the company is investing in training a prospect. If you were paid your real net present value you would be lucky to get minimum wage.

    IMHO, a company paying more than that is looking to hire a temporary grunt who has learned some syntax -- not someone they want to train.
    • That's not true at all. The top students at the top 10% of schools are worth far more than min wage even has freshmen summer interns. One, common sense is present or not at this stage. Two, many of these kids come from upper-middle or better backgrounds and know how to conduct themselves in business settings. Many have leadership experience from shift leads in high school jobs, clubs, sports, and even directing household help like the maid.

      Upbringing isn't just education, much of our practical knowledge is

      • Why anyone in the world would want an intern with "leadership experience" ( == unproductive manipulative asshole obsessed with controlling people)?

    • Then you'll get what's left at the bottom of the barrel, the ones that no company actually paying interns money scoops up before. It may surprise you, but especially in IT a lot of what's coming as "interns" needs less training than some old farts who refuse to even consider learning any new tricks.

      IT moves fast. And choosing between an intern that knows the latest tricks of the trade and some old, high priced programmer who considers anything but Cobol a fad that will fizzle is kinda easy for companies li

    • Did you look at the list? They're the same top companies from every list of tech companies: Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. They're not looking for mindless grunts. They're all very aggressive about recruiting top talent, which often leads to them competing against each other. The wages reflect that.

  • Sing-a-longs huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 03, 2013 @08:10PM (#42781739)

    Wonder why no outsider takes software developers seriously? Imagine telling a mining engineer that they have to participate in sing-a-longs. Or telling any highly skilled professional that they can have free pizza and ping pong in place of pay reflecting their hours. It's still fucking amateur hour, and it hurts us all in the long term.

    • So we should squeeze into bad fitting three piece suits and talk in inane buzzphrases, i.e. turn into a middle management idiot? Sorry, but then I couldn't take myself serious anymore.

      • by dasunt ( 249686 )

        So we should squeeze into bad fitting three piece suits and talk in inane buzzphrases, i.e. turn into a middle management idiot? Sorry, but then I couldn't take myself serious anymore.

        Well, you could squeeze into good fitting three piece suits. Since we're all geeks who should be able to adeptly use the Internet and learn new things, one would imagine, in theory, that we should be able to learn enough fashion to pick a good suit. In theory. In practice, for a group of people who seem to be quick to deri

      • That's correct. The only two possibilities in the universe are sing-a-longs or badly fitting three piece suits. You see, the universe is actually quite simple.
    • Wonder why no outsider takes software developers seriously?

      Wonder why the global software industry is worth trillions of dollars?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      WalMart has pre-opening pep rallies, but definitely lack the pizza and ping pong. That said, the Google* or SAS model where lots of services are high quality and available on-site (cafeteria, day care, doctors, rec facilities) makes a lot of sense - saving employees as much time as possible in transit and on errands is a great way to keep them fresh and focused at the office and enhance the work/life balance without giving up productivity.

      *I'm more familiar with SAS, but have seen articles praising Google

      • WalMart has pre-opening pep rallies,

        Oh yes, and Wallmart employees have the respect and envy of the world.

        Premium jobs those are.

    • Wow, I am not surprised someone tryies to troll devs on /., I am surprised there were 5 butthurt people with mod points to make him visible for everyone. Lighten up, guys, work doesn't have to make you feel like killing yourself!

      (@AC save the snarky remark :)

    • by MTEK ( 2826397 )
      Professionalism aside, for any type-As reading, introverts are not broken extroverts. For many of us who are not social butterflies, these "team building" exercises are NOT particularly helpful, but rather demeaning.
    • Wonder why no outsider takes software developers seriously? Imagine telling a mining engineer that they have to participate in sing-a-longs. Or telling any highly skilled professional that they can have free pizza and ping pong in place of pay reflecting their hours. It's still fucking amateur hour, and it hurts us all in the long term.

      I'll skip the sing-a-longs; but pizza and ping pong sound good to me. Of course, I'll take it in ADDITION to pay reflecting my hours thankyouverymuch. It doesn't have to be one or the other you know.

      Where I work, the pay is pretty good (not great, but pretty good - somewhat above average); overtime is either paid out or given in lieu (preferred to be given in lieu whereever possible); we get 30 days paid annual leave per year plus public holidays; no fixed start or finish time (just a certain "number of h

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • At Apple, interns are writing code that ships.

      Oh. That explains everything.

      At other companies, you might end up getting treated like a data-entry temp.

      I have seen code written by an intern in a company other than Apple, however before it was included into anything that shipped, it was checked and heavily modified by a real engineer.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Sunday February 03, 2013 @09:46PM (#42782231)
    Am I the only one to find annoying these multiple-page, sliedshow-like article?
  • That is less than I was paid as an intern at a tech company in 2001, when you could still buy a coffee for 50 cents! I was a higher paid intern at the time since I already had some degrees, but not by a whole lot.

    I thought most tech companies paid interns about the same as an employee with a roughtly equivalent background... I guess not.

  • Don't forget that you can get the same amount from other companies as well.

    About 4 years ago I was an intern at another large company, and received an internship offer from Microsoft. I was making about half of what Microsoft was offering. I didn't realize at the time that interns could make such a high rate. I talked to my supervisor at the time and told him about the Microsoft offer, and he offered to match Microsoft's offer if I was willing to stay, as well as some other perks.

    This could apply to your

    • This could apply to your full time job as well--if you're eyeing another company because of their pay rates, try getting a job offer and using that to leverage yourself into working where you want, for the amount of money you want to get paid and the benefits you want.

      Parent really needs to be modded up.

      Far too often, I see people complaining about their pay and jumping around different jobs. I've been with the same company for 11 years now (in two locations), and believe it or not, there are companies that do still care about company loyalty. If you're good to them, they'll be good to you.

      Many times in my career so far, I've been offered positions elsewhere for significantly more pay. Twice, it was a very tempting offer (good company and good environment in addition

  • by Osgeld ( 1900440 ) on Monday February 04, 2013 @12:52AM (#42783173)

    for an intern its about how much you learn, but aside from that, you can make 120,000 in new york and live just as well as someone making 30,000 in Atlanta, location has a big impact

    I live in the southeast, and got offered 40k to move to California. 40K a yea where I live gets you a decent sized house with a good sized chunk of property and a couple decent cars. In LA that gets you a next to crackhouse apartment and a an 83 civic.

    • That usually makes me want to move, because, yes, that's true. :P

  • Intern? Pay? Bwwwaaaaaa ha ha haaaaa ha haa ha!

  • In Mexico, that is the salary of a top notch, international software programme manager with more than 10 years experience in management... The type of guy that would run a national software government project... or an SAP project... nevermind. Typical salary for a bright web programmer in Mexico, just out of college: USD 1.2 K dollars per month...
  • Buddy of mine worked as an intern for SGI in the late 90's out in the Bay area. I believe his hourly rate worked out to $75,000 a year, but he made very little money because most of it actually went to rent.

  • Haven't they outlawed them yet?

    • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      Haven't they outlawed them yet?

      No, I think there's something that prevents that -- a "right to assemble" or other such nonsense.
      Have you checked the Bill of Rights lately?

  • My cousin just landed a summer internship at NVidia for $25/hour

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