301–310 of 328 posts
>I find this lack of diligence infuriating. These intellectuals — much smarter than me — imagine block chain technology for cryptocurrencies and how to cure diseases, but don’t put in the effort to comprehend ownership percentages or what a ratchet means in a down round. Why? Nice victim-blaming here. Why don't people spend tons of effort on a lot more things? They haven't got the time and don't want the stress. Don'…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are always jobs that are worse in some way. If a plumber screws up you might get a wet floor or sewage in the street. If some banking software makes a flaw, you can't just pick up a mop and clean it up. There are always jobs that come out worse in some category compared to programming. The problem here specifically is that given you have written 50% of the software people are using and investors are making some…
I think that's a disingenuous comparison. If you're comparing to banking software, imagine a plumber that causes four floors of a high-rise to get flooded, leading to 5-figures of damage and additional lost time. Or perhaps an underwater plumber, where the cost to fix the leak is high. If we're looking at house plumbing, it might be more fair to compare it to a CRUD app that facilitates iguana breeding (unsolved prob…
PROGRAMMER: What kind of problem?
BOSS: Call the Pentagon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But more money is always better - if you don't need it, donate it to an animal shelter or something. What do you think happens to money that you leave on the table? Someone else takes it, and they might spend it less responsibly than you would. So if it's there take it and then at least you can control it.
There is a cost to gathering up the money left on the table. That's the whole point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You finance people work under the assumption that everybody cares—or should care—about the underlying concepts of your field Those aren't finance terms, they are taxpayer terms! Long term capital gains, alternative minimum tax, everyone knows who the IRS are...
But those acronyms are vague and I had no idea what they were until you spelled them out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such a tribe would either be pre-technological then, or piggybacking on a technological society that did make those investments.
>piggybacking on a technological society that did make those investments. Indeed, every technological advancement has piggy backed on those before it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe in the Valley startup culture but I live very far from the Valley and that's not even close to my experience at all. What kind of "physical strain" does typing code result in? I seriously have one of the most flexible and lowest stress job than anyone I know.
Hmmm, "And if you go in on a Saturday afternoon, I can tell you which start-ups will succeed, without even knowing what they do. Being there on the weekend is a huge indicator of success" - Marissa Mayer Maybe you can get away with doing just your job and going home to relax. I would wager, you may have difficulty finding your next job however. Have you never programmed so much you start having dreams that it takes s…
That's just not how it works outside the Valley. I've only crammed extra hours in to meet a deadline a few days a year, and only at one company. I've worked at 3 different companies in two different cities 400 miles away. Nobody expected 80 hours a week or whatever and I, quite frankly, wouldn't do it because I value time with my family and I'm not productive 80 hours a week. We also highly value experienced programmers and they command a higher salary. I don't have a government job either and I never have. "Valley culture" isn't synonymous with programming as a profession.
Any Marissa Mayer? Isn't she mocked for her poor leadership?
There's a lot more to running a successful business than people being physically present on Saturdays.
You're running into quite the hyperbole. If programming literally makes your lungs stop working why keep doing it?
>You are most likely in your early 20s.
I am in my late 30s.
Programming in general is a really good cushy job. Valley culture is what is toxic. I'm sure it you worked construction 80 hours a week for however many years you'd be in much worse shape than if you were getting paid a large salary to write some CRUD app.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a total of 3 hours a day on a bus to/from high school. I wish I could have done homework during that time! But you know how spine-jarring school busses are. Maybe if I'd been able to complete it on a laptop instead of worksheets. But nah, with how I was treated by folks on my bus, my laptop would've been tossed out the window the second day.
I've often wondered about those that commuted long ways for school. Was it because the school was better, or because there was no closer school? If it was just a better school, do you think it was more beneficial overall to have that time used on the bus when it could have been put to work on something else, or was the local school unsafe? I was lucky enough to always live very close to my schools, so hours spent com…
The primary reasons the school-bus commute was long was a) meandering suburbia with only 1-2 students per stop and b) a 20 mile trek on the highway at 45mph.
If I had been able to drive (or carpooled), my commute would have been less than 35 minutes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've often wondered about those that commuted long ways for school. Was it because the school was better, or because there was no closer school? If it was just a better school, do you think it was more beneficial overall to have that time used on the bus when it could have been put to work on something else, or was the local school unsafe? I was lucky enough to always live very close to my schools, so hours spent com…
It was a magnet school that had resources (one of the best performing arts departments in the state; one of the only AP comp sci programs in a 45 mi radius) that my locally assigned high school did not. The primary reasons the school-bus commute was long was a) meandering suburbia with only 1-2 students per stop and b) a 20 mile trek on the highway at 45mph. If I had been able to drive (or carpooled), my commute woul…
I guess that makes sense. It's not just "better" in the sense of different schools in an area may be better or worse, but also highly directed in certain areas. I can see the draw of that.
> meandering suburbia with only 1-2 students per stop
Yes, come to think of it, people that rode the bus at my school probably had at least a 40-45 minute ride in the earlier stops just from this. I think I rode the bus once when going to a friend's house after school, so this didn't come to mind. The rest of the time I always walked (High School was literally across the street from my house, Middle School was a 20 minute brisk walk). Like I said, alien.
Thanks for your explanation. :)
I think it's mostly supply and demand, timing and where you live. But those are the factors we rarely talk about. Instead, people complain they are not compensated enough relative to the importance of their work, their intelligence, the hours put in, their title or the length of their education or the risk they take. If people were paid according to the importance of their jobs, I would argue that plumbers, sewage wo…
I totally agree. Being a developer is one of the best careers you can have right now. Well paid and high in demand everywhere in the world, very little "soul crushing" (and can even be very fulfilling) compared to most jobs and you can even get a job where you work from home, anywhere you want, with flexible time etc. What other jobs exist out there like it? And if your only complaint is "well my employer makes milli…
If there are millions to be made from programmers then must it not follow that programmers are actually underpaid (or that the services are over priced)?
Finance is evil. Day trading, investment banking, venture capital; they don't produce anything for society, they just sit at the intersection of various people, companies and industries and they capture big chunks of the money that flows between them - They rely on information asymmetry and market manipulation to do so; but 'information asymmetry' is just a euphemism for 'deception'. Even startups which are doing wel…
> Even startups which are doing well and generate profit tend to go on to raise money from VCs - This sounds ridiculous So how does one expand a profitable business? Save up those earnings until you can buy a factory outright? Good luck with that. Meanwhile, I'll be financing the cost and leaving you in the dust.
But how often does such a use case actually come up in the real world (in the tech industry particularly)? Not saying it doesn't happen from time to time but it doesn't seem like the standard case these days.
It seems like a lot of time, VCs are just throwing money at specific companies in order to 'outfund' competitors who are also receiving money from a different set of VCs (they're all trying to run each other into the ground by artificially lowering profit margins).
Eventually, everyone realizes that the funding ultimately did nothing to neutralize the competition; most of the competitors are still alive and kicking (and new ones have since spawned up) - And the market is simply not big enough to meet everyone's projections/expectations.