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Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

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Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#221

Post by misja »

I was employee #4 in a startup in 2000, just before the burst. At that time the situation was crazy. For instance our founders had made an ambitious business plan to raise money in the next investment round. It was sent back by our investors because it was not ambitious enough: basically they asked to blindly multiply all the targets by 10. This was completely unrealistic but the founders did what they were asked and promptly new investment money came rushing in.

And then the bubble burst and the sentiment was 180 degrees opposite. By then our company had already acquired some customers and was making some money, and was ready to expand and grab a significant piece of the market. However it didn't matter what we did or what business plan we made, it was just impossible to raise any kind of money whatsoever. So our startup continued living its zombie life until it was taken over by a competitor a few years later. In the end I was lucky because this way I could survive the years after a crash while still having a job. But it left me with mixed feelings about the so called angel investors. It didn't appear to me that they had any idea what they were doing.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#222

Post by ricc »

reuven wrote: post #156

I had a summer internship at HP while I was in college. (I graduated in 1992.) When I graduated, the assumption/expectation was that they would offer me a job. They hesitated, and a manager who was unusually nice to me explained that HP hires people who will stick around for many years -- and thus, they weighed every hire carefully. He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recess…

This is similar to how many German companies adapt with recessions. They even subsidise in-house trainings to keep their employee's skills up to date during the non-working days.

I wish HP did the same reduce-work-hours scheme during the 2008 recession instead of the pay cuts w/o reducing the working hours. At least the pay cuts were voluntary but still...

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#223

Post by theworld572 »

watt wrote: post #184
phd514 wrote: post #37

I was ~1.5 years out of college and at a small dot-com with a niche SaaS at the time. I distinctly remember 9/11 and the chill that came over our office that day. That passed in time, but our economic prospects never recovered. I used to hit the gym in the mornings and then work ~10am-7pm and I distinctly remember the day ~9 months later when the VP of engineering called me on my cell while I was finishing up my work…

> it turned out for the best for me Survivorship bias. What could have happened is that you spend 12 months looking for another job, nothing, you lose your house, end up on street, take some minimum wage job, never comment on HN. We don't get to see stories like that. The stories we see is where it did turn out good. That's the commonality: you must step out of the comfort zone for something good to happen. However s…

"for me" is the key part of the sentence you quoted. If he had said "for everyone" then yes that would have been survivorship bias, but he did not.

Though if you are trying to point out the fact that we might get a skew towards success stories in this thread because those who actually made a success of the dot com crash are more likely to post about it then those who failed then I would probably agree with you.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#224

Post by Dowwie »

I experienced the fallout of the dot com bubble burst, graduating from University in 2003 and interning in college.

I was a front office developer analyst at leading buy-side finance company. One memory that really stuck was elsewhere in tech, if you were in an infrastructure related role, full time employees were receiving letters saying:

"The company is downsizing. Your position is one that is scheduled for strategic reassignment to an offshore consultancy (TCS). Following this transition, your position in the company will no longer be required. If you stay with the firm and help train your replacement, you will receive X months severance. Thank you for your cooperation."

The other tech teams had to work with offshore consultants while doing work that managers hadn't figured out how to outsource. IT management essentially had a mandate to outsource anything possible and lower costs. Creating value for business was secondary. Managerialism sucked all of the life out tech. Being a programmer wasn't enough. You had to solve business problems.

This turned out to be very useful advice. I saw all around me the consequences of not doing so. So, I learned programming during the day (mostly sql, relational db modeling, scripting and reporting) and unfamiliar finance and business concepts on my own during nights and weekends. This helped me advance myself into greater challenges and varied terrain.

I'm no longer in finance but got a lot out of the experience. I did the best I could with the resources available and without compromising my integrity just to survive at someone else's peril. I learned that managerialism can bring new product development and growth to a complete halt. Technology solutionism over promises and under delivers. Business cycles and availability of credit determine who gets their moment of power and influence. No role is guaranteed.

Keep hustling, people. Complacency and convenience may alleviate stress, but if you are not growing personally or professionally, you may struggle worse during hard times. Never stop developing yourself.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#225

Post by eru »

not_a_moth wrote: post #210
eru wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though quite a few of them have been Asians. ;) For most westerners considering a move to Asia, I'd recommend Singapore over Japan. It's essentially Asia-light, and salaries are higher.

Perhaps, but you're still lopping your SV salary in half, and if you want a central 1 BR that's not government housing, you're paying close to SF housing prices.

Well, those visas that allow you to work in SV don't grow on trees. (And you'd have to put up with California and the US.)

If you do have an American passport, you get a double-whammy in opportunity costs: you can already work in SV, and you still have to pay American taxes even when you are not working there.

---

The government housing in Singapore can be quite nice. But yes, you are going to live in a high rise tower, most likely. Not a country house.

Some people prefer urban living and short commutes.

One effect that I only appreciate after living in Singapore for a while and then visiting elsewhere: the peace of mind not having to look after all you stuff when you are out and about. In Berlin or London or New York, I need to constantly worry that someone would nick my laptop, if I leave it on the table in a cafe when going to the loo.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#226

Post by mathattack »

I worked for a large consultancy. The folks who survived were the ones who stayed at clients 100%. It was partially independent of technical skill. (More soft skills and luck). When things got ugly, the 10X developers landed at big tech companies, where most stayed. (Equity gains since have made up for comp drops) The average developers left the Bay Area. Big exodus.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#227

Post by brutus1213 »

kelp wrote: post #105
nostrademons wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you exercised at market price then there's no tax liability. The shares are yours now; your exercise price is your cost basis, and you pay capital gains taxes when you sell on the difference between sale price and exercise price. The situation that caught lots of employees in the dot-com bubble is that they exercised stock options where the market price at time of exercise was a lot more than the strike price (whi…

I had several friends and coworkers end up in this situation. Lucky for me, I started late enough that my options were underwater before my first year cliff and stayed that way...

I thought I understood this but the lockup that everyone in this discussion is alluding to has surprised me. Should the tax man not count the price of the security on the day the lockup ends as the strike price? Otherwise, any time you get discounted options with a lockup, it appears you should assume the options will go to zero and budget the tax accordingly. Or am I missing something?

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#228

Post by C1sc0cat »

Havoc wrote: post #181
reuven wrote: post #156

I had a summer internship at HP while I was in college. (I graduated in 1992.) When I graduated, the assumption/expectation was that they would offer me a job. They hesitated, and a manager who was unusually nice to me explained that HP hires people who will stick around for many years -- and thus, they weighed every hire carefully. He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recess…

>the boss/owner should be paid last Yup. My dad is big on that too. Always thought he overplayed it, but one day he explained that the people he employs are quite poor. So if they don't get paid they can't put food on the table - literally. While he has a bit more of a buffer.

I have done this when companies I worked at where having difficulties, I volunteered to wait for my pay and prioritise other colleagues who had less of a buffer (single parents for example)

Did mean in one case I had to take the hit when the company collapsed and claim via RB2 (this is in the UK) - of course it turned out that my employer had not been making my NI payments so no unemployment benefit for me.

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#229

Post by circlefavshape »

Was working for a web agency during the dotcom bust, I was one of the few devs not laid off cos I volunteered to work part time (2.5 days a week) so I could spend time on my band. Did that for a year and a half, then freelanced for a couple of years until I got taken on by a client ... and then 2008 hit. Employer laid a couple of people off, paid us late one month, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the dotcom bust and I found other work without any trouble

Re: Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?

#230

Post by goatinaboat »

I was laid off in 2001. In the second of 4 waves. Prior to the first wave one of the co-founders flew over on Concorde to tell us that each of us could save $5/day there would be no layoffs!

I got a reasonable package, 3 months salary, and 2 weeks later joined a new startup (which a few years later was acquired). I actually saw an increase in salary. Those two factors compensated somewhat for the layoff trauma.

People who had solid skills like C++ were fine, generally. It was those with only HTML who had made good money in the 90s and never upgraded to real programming that suffered the most.

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