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Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

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Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#181

Post by Havoc »

reuven wrote: post #156

I had a summer internship at HP while I was in college. (I graduated in 1992.) When I graduated, the assumption/expectation was that they would offer me a job. They hesitated, and a manager who was unusually nice to me explained that HP hires people who will stick around for many years -- and thus, they weighed every hire carefully. He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recess…

>the boss/owner should be paid last

Yup. My dad is big on that too. Always thought he overplayed it, but one day he explained that the people he employs are quite poor. So if they don't get paid they can't put food on the table - literally. While he has a bit more of a buffer.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#182

Post by simonh »

_pmf_ wrote: post #168
fastbeef wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scania, the truck manufacturer, did this during 08-09. 10% paycut, 20% time reduction and they encouraged people to use the time to study and improve. None were laid off.

Much of this is not due to goodwill of owners, but unions.

These are specific examples, not general trends, so you should be able to cite evidence that these examples were due to union pressure.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#183

Post by eru »

reuven wrote: post #156

I had a summer internship at HP while I was in college. (I graduated in 1992.) When I graduated, the assumption/expectation was that they would offer me a job. They hesitated, and a manager who was unusually nice to me explained that HP hires people who will stick around for many years -- and thus, they weighed every hire carefully. He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recess…

> If nothing else, I learned from these stories that the boss/owner should be paid last, after all of the employees receive their salaries.

That's exactly how equity works.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#184

Post by watt »

phd514 wrote: post #37

I was ~1.5 years out of college and at a small dot-com with a niche SaaS at the time. I distinctly remember 9/11 and the chill that came over our office that day. That passed in time, but our economic prospects never recovered. I used to hit the gym in the mornings and then work ~10am-7pm and I distinctly remember the day ~9 months later when the VP of engineering called me on my cell while I was finishing up my work…

> it turned out for the best for me

Survivorship bias. What could have happened is that you spend 12 months looking for another job, nothing, you lose your house, end up on street, take some minimum wage job, never comment on HN. We don't get to see stories like that.

The stories we see is where it did turn out good. That's the commonality: you must step out of the comfort zone for something good to happen. However something good does not happen to everyone 100% of time.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#185

Post by williamDafoe »

wishinghand wrote: post #85
williamDafoe wrote: post #77

In November 2000 my options were worth $2.4m on paper but they did not start vesting until January. In January they were worth -$1.5m and never exceeded the strike price again, at a company that is still public and worth > 10 billion today. They laid me off in february. I got healthy in 2 months and found a small startup with a 15% paycut but the CEO was a WeWork-level crook with a jet and he absconded with all the m…

I don’t know how stock options work. If you’re laid off do you no longer have access to them?

it depends on the company most companies take away your options 90 days after you leave and they are known as "golden handcuffs" because nobody wants to leave! Some companies like Lyft allowed early hires to keep options for up to 7 years. This can actually be a problem because there are SEC rules limiting private company stock (not option) ownership to 500 shareholders at most. Many companies let you exercise options when you leave by buying them. I did this at one company - but the owners were crooks - and when they raised a new funding round of $3,000,000 they just put it in their personal bank accounts of the CEO + 5 VPs and shut down the company!

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#187

Post by m0xte »

I was stupid and took a major risk. I had a nice secure job in the defence sector writing embedded software. This was a suddenly ramp up in work after 9/11. But i had some ethical issues continuing in this space. I also developed in internal web based asset tracking system and thought that was more interesting. So I decided right in the middle of the crash to bail out into a 6 person design agency start up. Fortunately they were vastly more competent than their immediate competitors and vacuumed up the rest of their work in no time at all.

For me, my salary doubled overnight, stress levels down, no bureaucracy, no horrid tools to use, much better place to work. Best decision ever! But boy was it a risk. Not everyone lost. There was a grand consolidation and if you were in the right place it was a win.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#188

Post by m0xte »

senderista wrote: post #160
reuven wrote: post #156

I had a summer internship at HP while I was in college. (I graduated in 1992.) When I graduated, the assumption/expectation was that they would offer me a job. They hesitated, and a manager who was unusually nice to me explained that HP hires people who will stick around for many years -- and thus, they weighed every hire carefully. He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recess…

Thanks Carly.

Yeah Agilent took the HP way with them...

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#189

Post by wjnc »

fastbeef wrote: post #164
reuven wrote: post #156

I had a summer internship at HP while I was in college. (I graduated in 1992.) When I graduated, the assumption/expectation was that they would offer me a job. They hesitated, and a manager who was unusually nice to me explained that HP hires people who will stick around for many years -- and thus, they weighed every hire carefully. He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recess…

Scania, the truck manufacturer, did this during 08-09. 10% paycut, 20% time reduction and they encouraged people to use the time to study and improve. None were laid off.

While I think this might be a good step in production work, it might be killing for firms in knowledge intensive industries. When this happens the first to move are the still employable and affordable youths. So the average age and salary might go up after a move like this. In the long run older firms get more trouble hiring youthful people, etc. Source: an interesting discussion with a union bargainer that was actually dismayed that young people disliked working hour reductions even though the firm promised no layoffs in return. My take away is that for some employees an honest severance package is better than working hours reduction.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#190

Post by eru »

patio11 wrote: post #165

Offered in the spirit of "don't believe everything you hear": I went into university and graduated during the post-bust winter. The few adults I knew, plus the Wall Street Journal, were unanimous in their opinion that engineering as a field was done in the United States and that all future hiring of software developers would happen in Asia. I got on a plane to Japan immediately after graduation. It's been a fun and f…

Though quite a few of them have been Asians. ;)

For most westerners considering a move to Asia, I'd recommend Singapore over Japan. It's essentially Asia-light, and salaries are higher.

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