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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

#201

Post by bsanr »

austincheney wrote: post #119

Programming for the web is my primary career. I first got into it late 1997. I am astonished at how incompetent it is. The fact the OP made a career out of it and made some money is hardly amazing. For the level of talent required contrasted against the average compensation I am surprised not everybody is trying it. You too could be earning 6 figures in a low cost of living economy after completing a boot camp and 2…

The tech industry is a class-, gender-, and race-biased inter-generational wealth transfer scheme masquerading as an industry. Past a post of base-level competency, and excluding strategy-level technical roles, employment and compensation is based on identity and not proficiency.

It's the same as with industry labor in the last half of the 20th century. Every person who retired with a pension was not an unequivocal value-add to their employer; there was a need to support and enable the consumptive lifestyles of the public (but only the "right people"), lest the entire system implode.

No one wants to admit that they're mere cogs, compensated for not gumming up the money machine. They want to believe that they have value. And they do, but it's implicit in their identity, not necessarily their productivity. If you don't believe it, ask how much your colleagues in India make.

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

#203

Post by jerf »

yayana wrote: post #193
troughway wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

"and you will too" is a big part of why this is the accurate TLDR. I looked at the job market a few months ago and Carona aside, the market is in a terrible state. Companies are looking for unicorns that agree with them on style, chose all the right techs four years ago, are young or otherwise willing to accept abuse, and write like someone with 10 years experience teaching TDD style programming. On top of that they…

One advantage of an economy like this is that in another year or two, companies will have been humbled a bit and will not be looking so far up the corporate equivalent of Maslow's hierarchy, and will either be more focused on things that actually matter, or will be dead.

Unfortunately, we have to get through this bit first....

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

#204

Post by meowzero »

I too graduated with a CS degree from a highly ranked technical University.

It was probably the worst time for recent graduate with a CS degree. You hear news of all jobs going to India. Nobody in the US was hiring developers. In fact, they were getting all laid off.

I had to scrape by taking odd jobs here and there. I worked as a short-order cook, made jewelry in a factory, worked at a UPS warehouse, etc. It felt hopeless and felt like I wasted money and time getting a CS degree.

Eventually I joined a tiny web-shop for super low pay. I was underpaid for many years afterwards. In 2006, I joined a "real company" but still was underpaid. I quickly left that company and started making more money elsewhere. I got nervous in 2008 since that recession came right when my career started to get good and stable. But I was safe, and it was smooth sailing.

My story has survivor bias. But it took a lot of hustling, grit, depression, etc. from 2001 to 2007. It can take a long time to get back on your feet, at least in my case.

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

#205

Post by mattkrause »

zophosie wrote: post #134
hanoz wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software is still the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years. In a lot of the world it's nowhere near as well paid as most of the professions which have comparable requirements in terms of the amount academic study, vocational apprenticeship and natural aptitude needed.

> In a lot of the world it's nowhere near as well paid as most of the professions which have comparable requirements in terms of the amount academic study, vocational apprenticeship and natural aptitude needed. Teaching/Academia isn't a real job and can be replaced with the internet

It baffles me that you can even write "academia isn't a real job" while the entire planet is desperately hoping for biomedical breakthroughs. Almost all of the people working on COVID have advanced degrees; many of them work in academic labs.

As for teaching, if you want to be intubated by someone who once a post about it on Medium, well...best of luck.

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

#206

Post by dragonwriter »

imgabe wrote: post #190
BigJono wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

Nope.

For instance, if you can differentiate survivorship bias (which this fails to even reach up to) from a valid statement supported by objective evidence, you have, in fact, literally distinguished mere reassuring rhetoric from a scientific claim.

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

#207

Post by seisvelas »

I started during the 2008 recession. I think the people who hurt the most back then were the people who'd just attended 6 week Ruby on Rails bootcamps and gotten 70k/year jobs (which was a cliche at the time). Suddenly, that was no longer realistic.

And even among them, the passionate people found a way. I got into tech with no education during the recession just on psychotic passion alone. I was working at but hacking all night. Eventually I convinced someone to hire me as a sysadmin and it was game on.

I intuit that if you are insanely dedicated enough the universe has a weird appreciation for that kind of thing, and eventually throws you a bone. I know it's wrong and irrational but everytime I've tried that it's worked, so there's some anecdotal personal truth.

Conversely, the (completely respectable and valid) 'I just need a solid way to provide' people get fucked the hardest every time. Cosmic irony.

Maybe there's some real psychology behind it though. Doing something for practical necessity is a weaker motivation than personal obsession. According to the Overjustification Effect, extrinsic rewards harm intrinsic motivation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect).

Meh, who knows. I know some people hiring Python devs in Mexico if anyone is hurting and lives here.

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

#208

Post by ianai »

brianmcc wrote: post #199
ianai wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But he's not saying "everything's currently super" he's saying "things are truly crappy right now but they will get better". I don't see what's tone deaf there. He's pitching a message of long-term-reassurance at a time when many people might find that comforting - specifically the younger folks who've never seen cycles of down/up/down-again/up-again.

The fundamental lesson of the Great Depression was that there are no cycles. Being down does not mean a later upswing with certainty. That we haven’t had a GD since 1929 is in large part due to an ability to constantly grow markets with cheap oil energy and new markets. But more importantly the US had a lot of power and regulatory oversight to keep it from happening. All of that is no longer the case, and we’re in danger of having another GD that could be even bigger from some estimates. Normalization “arguments” are bad arguments that disallow the discussion of deeper and more worrisome arguments. That’s why this article shouldn’t be welcomed too warmly.

Stanford economist explanation: https://www.fastcompany.com/90486801/top-economist-the-1930s...

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

#209

Post by pc86 »

nscalf wrote: post #132
pc86 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think people are too quick to discount the importance of failure and feeling bad. If failing has no consequence, there will be far less motivation. However, in my opinion, this is a balance. Failure has to be sufficiently painful, but no more than that. From the research I’ve done, two major items have made failure too painful: stagnant wages and rapidly inflating rent prices. People can no longer hold onto savings…

How does unionization depress rising rent?

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

#210

Post by imgabe »

dragonwriter wrote: post #206
imgabe wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Is it really that hard to distinguish reassuring rhetoric from a scientific claim? Nope. For instance, if you can differentiate survivorship bias (which this fails to even reach up to) from a valid statement supported by objective evidence, you have, in fact, literally distinguished mere reassuring rhetoric from a scientific claim.

Still missing the point.

Some statements are intended to inspire you to influence the future for the better, not to provide "valid statements supported by objective evidence" to describe the present. Further, there are no valid statements that can be guaranteed to accurately describe the future because it hasn't happened yet. The choices you make and the attitude you embrace will in some part determine what that is.

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