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Silicon Inquiry: A personal inquiry into the tech industry

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Re: Silicon Inquiry: A personal inquiry into the tech industry

#21

Post by awucs »

RestlessMind wrote: post #17

> What else was I supposed to look forward to, except mindless consumption? Wasn’t that the whole point of making that much money? Wasn’t that what drove people to work so hard in the first place? If you think money is only for mindless consumption, I wonder if you have experienced life with real responsibilities (mortgage, family, kids) and little money. Because while money doesn't get you everything, it can get you…

It is really really hard to buy time and freedom after the fact. I have seen many people try and eventually they tend to end up getting a slightly more expensive house instead. It is just that once you are on some track it is really hard to change, because most of the time you are giving up substance for money and they are both compounding. Or to put in tech terms, if you aren't doing what you see yourself doing in the future you are always building up some sort of debt.

Re: Silicon Inquiry: A personal inquiry into the tech industry

#22

Post by ksdale »

awucs wrote: post #21
RestlessMind wrote: post #17

> What else was I supposed to look forward to, except mindless consumption? Wasn’t that the whole point of making that much money? Wasn’t that what drove people to work so hard in the first place? If you think money is only for mindless consumption, I wonder if you have experienced life with real responsibilities (mortgage, family, kids) and little money. Because while money doesn't get you everything, it can get you…

It is really really hard to buy time and freedom after the fact. I have seen many people try and eventually they tend to end up getting a slightly more expensive house instead. It is just that once you are on some track it is really hard to change, because most of the time you are giving up substance for money and they are both compounding. Or to put in tech terms, if you aren't doing what you see yourself doing in t…

I was just writing a blog post about this, that people basically just find new ways to consume all the money they earn so that they're always on the edge. And a lot of people who make $40k scoff at the idea that they would still be scraping by at $140k, but lots of people go from making $40k in their 20's to $140k in their 40's and basically nobody retires comfortably in their 50's because $140k a year provided them with so much extra money. Rather, 50-somethings work just as much or more, they just tend to have much more expensive houses, cars, and hobbies than 20 year olds, and they still put just 4% of their income toward retirement, if they're careful.

Re: Silicon Inquiry: A personal inquiry into the tech industry

#23

Post by [deleted] »

awucs wrote: post #21
RestlessMind wrote: post #17

> What else was I supposed to look forward to, except mindless consumption? Wasn’t that the whole point of making that much money? Wasn’t that what drove people to work so hard in the first place? If you think money is only for mindless consumption, I wonder if you have experienced life with real responsibilities (mortgage, family, kids) and little money. Because while money doesn't get you everything, it can get you…

It is really really hard to buy time and freedom after the fact. I have seen many people try and eventually they tend to end up getting a slightly more expensive house instead. It is just that once you are on some track it is really hard to change, because most of the time you are giving up substance for money and they are both compounding. Or to put in tech terms, if you aren't doing what you see yourself doing in t…

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Inquiry: A personal inquiry into the tech industry

#24

Post by autokad »

I remember about 5 years ago when all my classmates were gaga over joining start ups. I was like why in the world?

- The chances of failure is really high - The pay is lower than big tech - The hours are longer than big tech - you bust your butt for someone else's dream - the benefits are non-existent

and this shouldn't be a surprise. yet she was surprised...

Re: Silicon Inquiry: A personal inquiry into the tech industry

#25

Post by autokad »

imbusy111 wrote: post #4

The article felt extremely relatable, but it did not arrive at any concrete point and has nothing original to say. It is talking about personal motivation and then leaps to describing the underpaid workers. Yes, I think most people in the valley can see your points and numerous discussions have already been had about them. So what? Edit: what I would have liked/expected to read is a story of someone making the aforem…

I was kinda hoping for: "I should stop acting like an 8 year old child" moment, but I suppose that's not happening yet. was hoping for any of the following:

businesses are made up of people. no one group of people are better than the other, since tech is also businesses, people shouldn't have inflated ideas that tech is "saving the world / making it a better place and all those other businesses are bad evil doers riding on the backs of everyone else".

or

We all have to do boring, non-impactful work at some point. especially starting out. We need to work hard to get to positions that make large impacts.

or

joining a start up isn't a great financial decision unless you really believe in what they are doing

Re: Silicon Inquiry: A personal inquiry into the tech industry

#26

Post by shady-lady »

paulddraper wrote: post #11
ChuckMcM wrote: post #9

This article does a great job of highlighting how broken the message is for people coming into the market these days. From the article: Google was supposed to be the goal, the reward people worked so hard for. When I was at Google and after I left people would ask me, "How can I get a job at Google?" or "Can you get my resume to someone at Google?" And I would always ask this person "Why do you want to work at Google…

> just piling on solving the same problem that others are solving, whether that is intermediating between buyers and sellers (I think of these as virtual market makers) or greasing ecommerce (branding, virality, advertising, shipping/billing logistics, Etc.) And yet, those are also enormously important problems to solve. What made Amazon worth billions of dollars to millions of people? Logistics. What made Facebook w…

Netflix & Amazon for sure..

> Facebook ..and being more liberal & exploitative in sharing user data than any company before

> Airbnb ..and subverting local regulations.

> Uber ..and subverting local regulations.

Re: Silicon Inquiry: A personal inquiry into the tech industry

#27

Post by gregdoesit »

As someone who works outside the Bay Area, this article feels weird to me. The summary of the article:

- Author interned at Google. It was boring but good pay.

- Because of this, never went back. Started a startup, built a product. Product did not make enough money. Realised making money is important. Tried to pivot something they thought could make lots of money but hated (adtech) and forced themselves to network with the adtech people they despised. It did not work out.

- Concludes it sucks that in SV engineers are highly paid and well treated and that they don’t organise to stand up for a totally different group who the author believes is low paid and not well treated.

- Concludes how tech is broken.

My two cents: welcome to the real world. Companies exist to make money. People will try to work at the best place they can make it to. Governments can shape the redistribution of wealth and social responsibility with rules and regulations, among others.

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