Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee • Hacker News Board

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#261

Post by i_cant_speel » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #149

nichochar wrote: post #42

This is rather true in practice, but I find it tremendously depressing. I have found that the executive path is actually the one that most of the scumbags take, it is the one that attracts the most people, and those people are usually not likable, they're salespeople that sell themselves all day. The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of mone…

> The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of money and prestige. I think this is a damn shame, and we should be striving to stop that. You may like Eric Dietrich's book Developer Hegemony[1]. He talks about both why the third group is less successful and how people within that group can potentially improve their situation within the current sy…

> He talks about both why the third group is less successful and how people within that group can potentially improve their situation within the current system.

Are you able to provide a cliff note or two about why they are less successful and how to improve their situations?

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#262

Post by clra » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

urda wrote: post #159

Akujin wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand where people get off telling someone who makes six figures that they should "get a roommate" just so that they can actually save some money.

Typically it is one of the following: - Someone who is completely disconnected from reality - Older generations where "a firm handshake a smile got me my job and education, why are you younger folks so poor? Why didn't you buy a cheap house decades ago like I did?" - Someone who never lived in the Bay Area, yet feels like they should comment on those trying to make a living there.

Mostly came in here to say: well said sir, on both comments.

> - Someone who is completely disconnected from reality

I totally agree that on this one, but have found that this group can come in quite a few more shapes and sizes than your original comment suggests. Not everyone is as out-to-lunch as your parent: I know a healthy number of people down here who are just fundamentally optimistic about things, and will tend to think positively at all times (and probably right up until the moment that the guillotine falls).

I have one friend who just put down roots with a house and recently had a child. He insists that the price tag on his place (well over $1M+) is perfectly reasonable, even though it's right at the fringes of the city and would be considered a worn-out hovel by the standards of almost any other North American city. The house's previous owners bought in a few decades ago and paid ~$50k for it.

In a few years he'll be putting his child through the city's public schooling system, which is broadly considered to be a nightmare by any standard, but he insists that SF's schools are great at the municipality is doing an excellent job. He harbors no resentment for major failings in public policy like Prop 13, despite the fact that he's probably paying on the order of 10-20x as much property tax as the vast majority of all his neighbors.

Despite a myriad of failings on the part of policy planners in everything from traffic to cleanliness to crime, he has a way of not seeing any of it. I envy him because it's a bit of a survival adaptation: he's happier on average than anyone in the area who thinks about any of this stuff regularly.

Suggesting getting a roommate would just be not that big of a deal to him because you're still in the city and still having the fun, even if there maybe should be a greater existential concern about workers making six figures being put in this situation.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#263

Post by leeoniya » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:19 PM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #237

leeoniya wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not really. my family moved to the states from moscow when i was 7. we spent all our money that we got from selling a crappy apt on the move itself. we lived on food stamps, had to learn english, my parents (both with technical university degrees) went to community college and worked low wage jobs to pay the rent, bills and tuition. we had a super old used ford that was rusting everywhere a vehicle can rust and the d…

In this context, wealth doesn’t necessarily have to start out as financial wealth. You came from an educated family, so even if your parents were materially poor, they created an environment that ensured you would be on an upward trajectory compared to them. This is a common story among educated immigrants from poor countries. But then there are those who are both materially and educationally impoverished - those who…

> In this context, wealth doesn’t necessarily have to start out as financial wealth

i'm fairly certain the comment i was replying to was using 'wealth' in the literal, financial sense.

nevertheless, breaking the cycle of being disadvantaged by taking drastic measures and risks is something that's required in all cases. for us it was leaving everything behind and coming to the US with nothing. for someone who does not come from a background of education, delaying having children and spending more to go to school and establish a good base income would be a significant change from the norm perhaps.

different situations require different measures. as long as you have your health, there's little excuse to continually blame external factors, at least in the US.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#264

Post by vvanders » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:19 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #252

nichochar wrote: post #42

This is rather true in practice, but I find it tremendously depressing. I have found that the executive path is actually the one that most of the scumbags take, it is the one that attracts the most people, and those people are usually not likable, they're salespeople that sell themselves all day. The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of mone…

I have a different (admittedly controversial) take, having been on the "tech ladder" for some time now (as a Senior SWE and Lead Engineer): most individual contributors overestimate how much value they actually provide, especially in the Bay Area. That isn't to say we're not under-appreciated and under-compensated (we are both). But realistically much of the time work we do is easily done by literally thousands of ot…

Everything you listed is just a multiplier on if the technology actually works.

If you have a sucky multiplier of course your product won't do well but if it isn't technically executed right you still have a zero.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#265

Post by s73ver_ » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:20 PM UTC

ivanjovanovic wrote: post #93

nichochar wrote: post #42

This is rather true in practice, but I find it tremendously depressing. I have found that the executive path is actually the one that most of the scumbags take, it is the one that attracts the most people, and those people are usually not likable, they're salespeople that sell themselves all day. The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of mone…

I overall agree with your sentiment. I would though not agree fully about where you assume value is created. Usually, developers / middle managers do not create value. Mostly they are implementing ideas of others and in these ideas is most of value concentrated. I would say they deliver value but don't create most of it.

Ideas don't create value. Ideas represent the potential for value.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#266

Post by gxs » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:21 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #218

gxs wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an insult to the thousands of people who make it in the bay area on barista wages. Just fucking wow. You can save in the bay area, live with roommates and pay comfortably . You don't even have to do that forever, just long enough to move up a bit in your job and save for a downpayment if buying a home is your goal. Not to mention if your spouse works and makes similar money then you can live a really high qua…

>> live with roommates and pay What if you are married with children? Not sure about you, but I would definitely not feel comfortable having roommates in my 1.5BR. With me + wife + 5yo son + 2yo daughter, how would the logistics even work? -- where would the roommates sleep? In the kitchen? In the kids' bedroom? In our bedroom with my wife and me?

That is admittedly a tougher situation - my comment was geared towards someone making 100k as this post's theme has been "technical workers".

Your situation is definitely tough and would probably mean having to live way out of the bay area and commute to work.

I mainly reacted to OP saying it wasn't possible. How can you say that when people commute from Vallejo into the city everyday wasting 3 hours a day so that they can provide for their family?

It's hard, but to complain that it isn't possible is especially unnerving since if you are a tech worker you're probably in the class of people for whom it's the most reachable.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#267

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:21 PM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #79

dredmorbius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to switch to not being a contractor. I'm also not all that certain that down markets don't hit all categories with similar force. Contractors may be cut slightly earlier (discretionary spending), but that depends on contracting terms and duration (there are set-length contracts), and as a bonus might be hired back earlier. Much depends on whether or not you have a specific skillset that's in demand, and…

> It's possible to switch to not being a contractor. Sure, but during an economic contraction is typically not a good time!

It depends, much of that on your relationship with clients and their own savvy.

If you're a valued contributor and your client is aware of that, they may be able to swing things. That may end up being a zero-sum game, with existing headcount being eliminated. Much depends on the organisation's own policies and savvy.

It's an argument for maintaining good relations, though.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#268

Post by jandrewrogers » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:24 PM UTC

technofire wrote: post #230

cachemiss wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are bootstrapping, and you are starting a company in an area that does not need the top tier of engineers (which is most of them, regardless of how they talk about hiring the best), I'd consider starting someplace low cost. I think college towns in the midwest / rust belt are untapped resources, or areas that used to have strong technically focused companies that moved away. I've personally seen founders boots…

> you should at least try and do some time in SV / Seattle etc. I'm curious to know what your current thoughts are behind this. As someone who intentionally has steered clear of both those areas in order to try to optimize financially I sometimes wonder whether I'm missing out on something. Obviously one can learn more from better engineers, but don't the brightest ideas from the brightest engineers wind up being wri…

On your first question, there are many areas of deep, hardcore technical domain expertise in things like databases, high-scale systems, parallel computing, AI, etc where much of the existing knowledge and recent advancements are poorly represented in public literature, conferences, etc due to layers of operational secrecy. What you would learn from the public literature or is shown in conferences is often quite misrepresentative of the state-of-the-art.

This becomes tribal knowledge. The way most people become experts in these domains is by working with or around people that are already experts, which requires being in an engineering environment where you are likely to come into contact with some. This type of expertise is far from evenly distributed.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#269

Post by mo1ok » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:25 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #252

nichochar wrote: post #42

This is rather true in practice, but I find it tremendously depressing. I have found that the executive path is actually the one that most of the scumbags take, it is the one that attracts the most people, and those people are usually not likable, they're salespeople that sell themselves all day. The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of mone…

I have a different (admittedly controversial) take, having been on the "tech ladder" for some time now (as a Senior SWE and Lead Engineer): most individual contributors overestimate how much value they actually provide, especially in the Bay Area. That isn't to say we're not under-appreciated and under-compensated (we are both). But realistically much of the time work we do is easily done by literally thousands of ot…

I agree and both disagree. I'm working right now for a client that is a large corporation that didn't do any of those "fad" things - and it is _tremendously_ costly.

For example, one team has spent several weeks and thousands of dollars to get another team's SOAP integration working correctly, when it would have taken five minutes in REST.

The codebase did not follow a "elegant" practice and is an absolute spaghetti mess. Things that should take 30 minutes take one week and this add tremendously to personnel cost.

I agree though that working together is tremendously undervalued. A decently smart person can be taught anything (which is part of the replacability problem you mentioned), but how to not be an entitled ass is nearly impossible to teach in a workplace environment.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#270

Post by urda » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 7:25 PM UTC

gxs wrote: post #247

urda wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically it is one of the following: - Someone who is completely disconnected from reality - Older generations where "a firm handshake a smile got me my job and education, why are you younger folks so poor? Why didn't you buy a cheap house decades ago like I did?" - Someone who never lived in the Bay Area, yet feels like they should comment on those trying to make a living there.

You can see how I might have been confused about which site I was on since the level of entitlement is exactly the same. Not sure your preaching about this not being Reddit contributed to this discussion anymore than my comments. Admittedly I could have reigned in the language, however. Finally, to address your points: >>>How can you expect a technial worker Shining example of my point about entitlement. >>>Someone w…

> Not sure your preaching about this not being Reddit contributed to this discussion anymore than my comments.

Yeah and it was painfully pointed out in two comments (and your downvotes) that your behavior is unacceptable here.

> You can see how I might have been confused about which site I was on since the level of entitlement is exactly the same.

Entitlement? You're the one assuming that it's all A-OK in the Bay and clearly it's people not spending their money correctly. I'm sadden to have to type this: but this statement clearly demonstrates you failed to ready any of my comment.

> On my part at least, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

1) Again, it was demonstrated you have no idea how financing and salaries are working in SF.

2) I really don't care what age anyone is, but it is a common anthem that those that "got there's" think it's because younger groups are not working as hard. See also: NIMBY's that are blocking a lot of SF development.

3) That remains to be seen, or you haven't kept up with SF. Source: I've worked at a few startups and 1 IPO'd company in the Bay, and even as a "higher paid" individual I had to balance the bottom line after taxes and cost of living. I'm lucky that I could live there, but for many below my position it's not possible. Oh and I would commute up to 1-2 hours one way just to reduce my cost of living into SF.

At this point I will not engage with your comments any further, as you have demonstrated you do not meet HN standards here. One last note, try to lay off the vulgarity and memes in the future.