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I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

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Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#181

Post by rchaud »

varjag wrote: post #148
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fields that will be hit: anything that relies on ad revenue, international or trans-national tourism and travel (badly), b&m retail (badly), online retail [1], entertainment [also 1], web support services, corporate web dev, real estate, fintech. Fields that may grow: medical services and support, small-scale short-distance tourism (after 6-12 months), small scale web dev, military spending, government support and co…

Tourism and travel will resurge in 2021, when people who missed this year's vacation (i.e. everyone) will book for the next summer.

> "missed this year's vacation (i.e. everyone)"

How many people in the US do you think take vacations every year?

10 million filed for unemployment benefits in the last 2 weeks. They wont' be champing at the bit to spend money on luxuries anytime soon.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#182

Post by troughway »

rpiguy wrote: post #135

If you can’t read a hopeful, personal story without screaming “Survivorship Bias” and plunging headfirst into self-victimhood, good luck with the rest of your life!

Saying nonsense such as "textbook survivorship bias" whenever anyone succeeds at anything is a tragic coping mechanism for some small subset of HN commenters.

(Although I'm surprised you weren't downvoted into oblivion.)

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#183

Post by rchaud »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #81
chvid wrote: post #79

Why do you guys assume that this crisis will hit software development? As far as I can see software development will be one of the fields least hit, possibly even benifiting, by the fallout of the Corona-virus.

Everyone loses in a recession.

Except for those that have capital, or access to capital at cheap rates, and can buy up assets when their prices are depressed.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#184

Post by zeveb »

brosinante wrote: post #100

You graduated in one of the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years and made it. Excellent.

I think you missed the article's point: yes, over the last 20 years or so tech has been an awesomely-expanding career. But it sure didn't seem that way after the dot com bust or the Eleventh of September. I was around then, and it was terrible. That tech was awesome is the article's point.

I do not see any fundamental reason why tech will not continue to be an awesome career field. Software is still eating the world. Yeah, the economy is suffering right now. It will recover.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#185

Post by charlesu »

pc86 wrote: post #127
533474 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survivorship bias. Our system is broken, humanity needs a way to encourage success without punishing failure. Failure shouln't be hunger and homelessness...This will be another generation of hopeless dreamers lost in the looming financial depression. Why is our antidote hope against the adversity of going against all the odds?. Congrats to those who made it but more recognition to those who failed and managed to over…

> Our system is broken Citation needed. > humanity needs a way to encourage success without punishing failure Serious question - why? You state this as an objective fact with no argument for it. > Failure [shouldn't] be hunger and homelessness If you're smart about it, it isn't. What's wrong with saying "yes you should probably have savings to fall back on in case this doesn't work out?" What's wrong with saying "if…

> If you're smart about it, it isn't.

Citation needed.

Whether you have something to fall back on in the event of failure has a lot to do with where and whom you're born to. It's pretty difficult to have a fall back option as a kid from a poor coal mining town with 20% unemployment. If you move out west with no network and lose your job soon after, yes, you can find yourself hungry and homeless in short order.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, many of us are just one bout of extended unemployment or illness away from homelessness.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#186

Post by BigJono »

rpiguy wrote: post #135

If you can’t read a hopeful, personal story without screaming “Survivorship Bias” and plunging headfirst into self-victimhood, good luck with the rest of your life!

That's fine, but the title of the post literally contains "you will too". The author isn't only presenting an anecdote, they're making a claim that it applies to other's situations too. So I think it's fair game to call it out for being a single data point and not really relevant to anything that's happening right now.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#187

Post by BoorishBears »

heyflyguy wrote: post #147
rpiguy wrote: post #135

If you can’t read a hopeful, personal story without screaming “Survivorship Bias” and plunging headfirst into self-victimhood, good luck with the rest of your life!

I completely agree. There are alot of new graduates looking at the world saying "I'm screwed". No you're not! I've survived the dot com bust as a DBA, and both recent oil busts while working in energy. You too, will be great if you're reading this. We need more hope, more love, more encouragement right now. Be a part of the solution instead of more doom and gloom (and criticism).

I read the article expecting there to be some inspirational story and the sour grapes were wrong, or some self-congratulatory mess not widely applicable to anyone and the sour grapes have a point...

I don’t really know what that was.

Right where you think the story described by the title would start, it just ends.

The title is pretty inspirational in a “everything will be ok.” sort of way, but then instead of “here’s why” or “here’s my hopeful story” it’s: “I got a job and 9/11 happened.”

And if it wasn’t for the dot com boom I don’t see why any part of that would be different.

I've coworkers who were fresh grads, have been great to work with, and graduated into an excellent job market, but still mirrored the short exposition at the start about struggling to get a job 3 months before graduation

Not everyone goes to an excellent school, and ends up being courted by Google...

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#188

Post by ianai »

brianmcc wrote: post #169

My take on this - the guy's not boasting about accomplishments here, just trying to reassure some young people who will be feeling pretty anxious about their future. Why the hostility?

For one, the US just announced 6.61 million new unemployment filings last week to being their total to over 16 million over the last three. Meanwhile the stock market is on a rally this morning. I can’t emphasize enough how tone deaf that looks to me. I imagine those unemployed would feel pretty invisible and left out today in comparison.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#189

Post by ianai »

rchaud wrote: post #162

Is that..it? Where's the story? The paragraph about September 2001 is followed by April 2020, with nothing about what happened during the nearly 20 years in between? I don't even know what kind of work the author does currently. Maybe he's well known in tech circles, I don't know. This is a blog post from a job board site; at least put in something resembling a narrative. Yesterday we had a similarly promotional post…

Meanwhile the US has seen over 16 million new unemployment filings over the last three weeks. The new filings are more than an order of magnitude greater than any previous filing. The difference is impossible to miss when graphed together with previous filings.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#190

Post by imgabe »

BigJono wrote: post #186
rpiguy wrote: post #135

If you can’t read a hopeful, personal story without screaming “Survivorship Bias” and plunging headfirst into self-victimhood, good luck with the rest of your life!

That's fine, but the title of the post literally contains "you will too". The author isn't only presenting an anecdote, they're making a claim that it applies to other's situations too. So I think it's fair game to call it out for being a single data point and not really relevant to anything that's happening right now.

Is it really that hard to distinguish reassuring rhetoric from a scientific claim?

Like, if you got laid off and your friend said "Hey man, it'll be ok" do you demand a peer reviewed study proving it?

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