How the Valley treats experienced people • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#231

Post by castlecrasher2 » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:45 PM UTC

pvarangot wrote: post #220

slics wrote: post #88

If one thinks 35+ is to old to code, well I have news for you. At 35+ you learn how to manage time and prioritize better. Life throws another ranch in your bucket of problems, marriage and children. When you are young, you are hired as an engineer to work 40 hours, which we all know very well that working for startups that means 80 hours or you are not putting good effort. Well with a family that’s not possible, as y…

I'm 34, left my 7 years relation two years ago, am gay and never thought I could have kids and am not planning on having kids any time soon. This kind of thinking about that the traits that one develops with age and experience only come about with raising a family kind of worries me, I have a pretty good idea on what I'm missing on since absolutely all my good friends from university and most of my close friends from…

> I just don't think I'm in te proper situation to do it.

In my experience there are two kinds of pre-kid people: those who aren't ready for it and those who lie about being ready for it.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#232

Post by mcguire » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #110

ianai wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society in general is pretty hard on older people and it increases with age. Think of the way older women are treated as “grandmas”. They can be shoehorned into a role they may not want to play.

For men and women it tends to be equal and opposite. Young men are at their lowest social value when young, they're disposable, expected to destroy their bodies to make a living, etc. As they get older their social value goes up. It's the opposite for women whose social value peaks at 18 and declines over the years with a significant drop in the 30s when fertility wanes.

I suspect the (young, male) workers at the FAANG and the (older, male) workers in this thread would be counterexamples.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#233

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #150

halfastack wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A startup that really wants people working 80 hours a week" sounds like the most US thing I've heard/read this month. The US work culture is utterly insane. They say that the Japanese work extreme long hours, but from my experience, it's quite similar for big cities in the US. Sounds like a sure way to a burnout, getting fat, and losing your family.

I wonder if I'm just a lousy human being, or are these startups full of cheats. For me, working 25-30 hours a week (really working, not pretending to work or sitting disengaged in meetings) is probably a long-term maximum of sustainable effort. How the hell are these people working 80 hours a week?

[deleted]

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#234

Post by hodgesrm » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

isoskeles wrote: post #197

slics wrote: post #88

If one thinks 35+ is to old to code, well I have news for you. At 35+ you learn how to manage time and prioritize better. Life throws another ranch in your bucket of problems, marriage and children. When you are young, you are hired as an engineer to work 40 hours, which we all know very well that working for startups that means 80 hours or you are not putting good effort. Well with a family that’s not possible, as y…

> soon we will be left with a society that only focuses on how to better themselves and not mentoring or preparing the next generation of smart people I fear we are well on our way to this type of society. "Learning" is a virtue. You'll hear many people say, "I like learning," or some other version of this cliche. It reminds me of this idea, and it makes me cringe, partly because of the robotic aspect and partly beca…

Not necessarily. One of the things you 'learn' with age is that you can get way more done by helping other people learn what to do than doing it yourself. It's a style of leadership that stresses building a nurturing environment for talent.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#235

Post by joejerryronnie » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

avip wrote: post #36

Ageism is real in many verticals. It is healthy to acknowledge that. It’s equally important to face facts related to age: I am noticeably less focusable, and my memory is not as good. I slowly become less fluent in adopting new tech, and it shows (or feels). Most importantly, I have many out of work responsibilities - parents (not getting younger) and kids (not getting older in sufficient pace). Consequently, odds of…

As I've grown older, I've noticed a very strange phenomenon - my memory has certainly gotten worse but my reflexes have grown much quicker, seriously cat-like reflexes now. Perhaps it's time for a career change from tech to . . . circus performer?

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#236

Post by komali2 » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #231

pvarangot wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 34, left my 7 years relation two years ago, am gay and never thought I could have kids and am not planning on having kids any time soon. This kind of thinking about that the traits that one develops with age and experience only come about with raising a family kind of worries me, I have a pretty good idea on what I'm missing on since absolutely all my good friends from university and most of my close friends from…

> I just don't think I'm in te proper situation to do it. In my experience there are two kinds of pre-kid people: those who aren't ready for it and those who lie about being ready for it.

I've heard this before, but there is something to be said about the difference between someone having kids at the start of their careers when they have little to no savings, and several years (hell, a decade) into their careers when they have high paying jobs with good stay-at-home policy, lots of money in the bank, perhaps a house.

I grew up in situation 1 (teen pregnancy) and it is fascinating to talk with my friends about the different environments we grew up in and the different issues (mentally or financially) we face based on that simple comparison.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#237

Post by throwaway713 » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #229

throwaway713 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll then go check salaries using a job hunting site for the same positions in SV and they pay the same or less after adjusting for cost of living That's the problem. Salaries on job hunting sites are wildly inaccurate. Glassdoor lists FANG compensation as 2-3x less than what they actually pay. Also, the important metric isn't COL adjusted income; it's the total amount of money that's left over to save/invest after…

Under specific assumptions: 1) You don’t aspire to own a home here, as that will eat easily 100% or more of your savings. 2) You plan to spend your savings in a cheaper place. USD is a convenient shorthand for purchasing power, but breaks down under huge regional COL differences. A $200k savings account in the Bay Area is like a $50k savings account elsewhere: about enough to think about setting up a middle-class gro…

Both good points that I forgot to mention. I implicitly assumed most people would eventually move away from SV, but if you plan to stay there your whole life, then you'll have a much more difficult time buying a home and/or retiring. And having children adds a whole new dimension of financial difficulties.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#238

Post by dnautics » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:51 PM UTC

galangalalgol wrote: post #184

marktangotango wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction between valley culture and everywhere else is never made in these pieces which is a pity. I work in fortune 500s and we’re all 40+ in these companies. I rarely see 20s.

I too work in a fortune 500 outside the valley. Occasionally I wonder why we lose so many young coders good and bad to SV. I'll then go check salaries using a job hunting site for the same positions in SV and they pay the same or less after adjusting for cost of living. Is there some magic pool of jobs there that let you retired after 10 years that I am not seeing? I'm coming up on 20 years of writing c++ and I'm not…

I think you don't understand the math here. If you are in your 20s, single, and making six figures, you can rent an apartment with three other people in the bay and pay like 1-1.5k in rent and it's quite nice because you have so much extra capital to spend on top of saving.

And there are things to spend it on here. Heck many in their thirties do this.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#239

Post by ramtatatam » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #104

ramtatatam wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you share how old are you? Sorry if you find that question out of place, but I'm 33 and have kids and I don't (yet?) make such observations as yours.

Not @avip, but I’m 47 and definitely feeling the time/family responsibilities crunch. Our parents have all just turned 70+/-2, we have two smart kids in elementary school who need to be fed almost every single day :), a house/yard instead of apartment, everyone’s healthy, but just managing school, activity, and holiday calendars is grueling. In my 20s and 30s, I could code like hell, have time to devote to learning n…

Thanks for sharing! Now I understand what you had in your mind is yet to come for me, my children are still toddlers. I'm with you on huge time investment the family is, I am still in the phase where I'm hoping I can keep up by cutting sleep time but at some point during the day body finds its way to take back what was taken away from it...

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#240

Post by mcguire » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

sureaboutthis wrote: post #50

tokyodude wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it really depends on lots of factors. My father joined a startup in the late 90s, after 5-6 yrs the company failed. At 60 he was unable to get a new job. I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time. I also know from running my own company with partners back in the mid 90s, we were all early 30s except one partner who was 52ish. When getting health insurance for th…

What's funny is that many young people in the industry now would never think of staying at one place for 3-5 years cause they don't want to invest the time. A neighbor of mine is in his 60s and lost his job the same way. He can run rings around anyone I know but he can't find a job or even get an interview. Bjarne Stroustrup, the C++ creator, wrote a blog post about going for a job interview and being told he "didn't…

Any links to the Bjarne story? I can't find it.