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Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

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Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#81

Post by logfromblammo »

The only drugs I have observed personally are caffeine, nicotine, refined sugar, and ethanol. The only other drugs I have heard about or suspected are prescription drugs for diagnosed medical conditions, such as hypertension, pre-diabetes, and high cholesterol.

But people around here would tend to keep even the legal drugs out of public knowledge, as that sort of thing may affect background checks and security clearances. Everyone in my workplace is very square. My office-neighbor uses a nicotine vape and prescription mood-stabilizing drugs, and doesn't have a clearance explicitly because of the latter.

It would be nice to be able to get drunk or high a few times a year, but the career risk isn't worth it. I have worked exclusively in the Midwest and South. In general, people of those regions collectively have a rather low opinion of people who use drugs of any kind, legal or illegal, although the Southerners are a bit more hypocritical about it.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#82

Post by copper_think »

whalesalad wrote: post #28
Eilene wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very insightful, I think, about the exec at a big company. A therapist who treats tech people in Sil Val said she has been told there is coke being done openly at some exec committee/board meetings, etc. and pressure to do it. Like Wall Street in the 1980s. Do you think there's any validity to this?

I'm not so sure about that (never seen it myself)... but cocaine is a LOT more prevalent than people realize. There is a funny meme I saw recently that rings true: Two biggest shocks of adult life. 1. everyone does cocaine 2. cheese is fucking expensive

Man, I really wouldn't. My understanding is that of the people who present to the emergency department with chest pain, something like a third of them have been using cocaine. It causes Real Problems.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/drug-relate...

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#83

Post by mabbo »

I work in a major software corporation and have literally never seen or heard of drug use at the company, outside of non-work-related recreational drug use (and even that never ventured very far). Perhaps it's the stability of being at a fortune 100 company.

Those who work here went through a pretty intense interview process. They're pretty good developers, which means if they were fired it wouldn't take them long to find a job. So why bother taking performance enhancing drugs?

Of course, the coffee and sugar is readily available and free.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#84

Post by woah »

I would be careful of overestimating the amount of stimulant use based on comments and emails here. People who use a lot of stimulants tend to love talking about themselves and often have a belief that anyone successful must be taking stimulants secretly. It plays into the motivation of most stimulant users which is that the stimulants have given them a special cheat code in life.

I worked in construction in my younger years and saw this kind of attitude from the occasional meth user on the jobsite. I'm seeing more coherent echoes of it in this thread. Another theme that pops up sometimes is someone who says that they used to take stimulants and they were super productive, but they don't anymore, but actually they still do.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#85

Post by Eilene »

tekromancr wrote: post #54

Of the developers/tech folks I know it's mostly a weed/booze crowd. A few people that do party drugs. And a few people who occasionally do psychedelics. No one I know seems to have any outwardly visible issues with it. I do know one person who I am sure has problem with painkillers, but it's that scary blurry ground between "addict" and "chronic pain sufferer". I don't think it effects her work, but I wonder about th…

do you just steer clear of those using stimulants of some sort (when you say those you know are mostly the booze/weed crowd). Is the reason it's 'basically water' in the tech industry only because of the hours needed? What's the fear--if you don't keep up, do you lose your job? Does your career flounder?

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#86

Post by Jefro118 »

agoodthrowaway wrote: post #55

Haven't done anything myself other than smoke weed in the evenings. However at times I've wanted to give Adderal a try to get me through challenging times. When I was in college I used relatively high doses of pseudophedrine during exam times and found it helped me focus. I used it once during finals to stay up for 3 days. I aced those exams. Currently I am a high level IC at a major web company. The pressure and com…

Not necessarily endorsing stimulants but here is a good analysis of Modafinil suppliers: http://www.gwern.net/Modafinil#suppliers-prices. It's worth reading the whole page from the start though if you're interested. Includes some comparison with Adderall too.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#87

Post by Eilene »

logfromblammo wrote: post #81

The only drugs I have observed personally are caffeine, nicotine, refined sugar, and ethanol. The only other drugs I have heard about or suspected are prescription drugs for diagnosed medical conditions, such as hypertension, pre-diabetes, and high cholesterol. But people around here would tend to keep even the legal drugs out of public knowledge, as that sort of thing may affect background checks and security cleara…

Does anyone else want to weigh in about geographical differences in the use of drugs or the perception of those who do? It's very interesting to me how different your experience is from those, say, in the Bay Area or in big coastal cities.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#88

Post by IntronExon »

tjansen wrote: post #59

Wow, this discussion is mindblowing. Working in software dev for 20 years, in Germany, and I have never seen any developer taking any stimulants. But maybe this is because only my first job was at a young startup, and I quickly learned that working 24/7 just isn't for me and I need a more stable environment. Today, the way whalesalad and others describe the effect of Adderall sounds interesting to me, but I would nev…

I would apply a grain of salt to the claims of people who are avid drug users, as to the popularity of drugs. There is an incredibly strong “birds of a feather flock together,” effect at play. The social circles of people who think they need drugs to do their job are going to only minimally overlap with people who find that notion crazy and dangerous.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#89

Post by ryandrake »

Blahah wrote: post #42

I am open to discussing this in raw detail - contact in my profile. Most programmers, scientists, people in finance and startups I know take a lot of stimulants. I take a lot of stimulants. [Edit - as others have pointed out, there's a strong selection bias going on here. I actively seek out people who I know take stimulants, and we naturally congregate socially based on a bunch of subtle and explicit cues that signa…

I’m that squeaky clean guy in high school that (unbelievably) never even encountered anyone smoking marijuana back then. My social circle did not and still doesn’t really include much drug use. Yet I’ve directly observed Adderall abuse in Silicon Valley. That’s how prevalent it must be.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#90

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

Eilene wrote: post #69
ShabbosGoy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an odd assertion to make when the full pharmacodynamics and mechanism of action are unknown. Modafinil doesn’t increase your cognitive performance in the way that a substituted phenethylamine would. Focus and attention are certainly related to wakefulness, but wakefulness in and of itself doesn’t increase cognitive performance.

Can you tell me what substituted phenethylamine is?

Substituted phenethylamines[1] are derivative compounds of phenethylamine. Many substituted phenethylamines are stimulants, while some are psychedelic too. Dopamine, epinephrine, amphetamine, pseudoephedrine, MDMA, and many others are considered to be substitued phenethylamines.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substituted_phenethylamine

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