121–130 of 292 posts
The company TransMeta was mostly PhDs. They fooled around so long, arguing and redesigning, not releasing, that Intel ate their lunch steadily improving scalar performance. My colleague who was worth $100M in TransMeta options at one point, is back to work with nothing. So yeah, too many brains are a dangerous thing.
Too many cooks, not enough waiters.
I'm not sure how brainy I am. Perhaps the main reason I came across that way in school is because my mom taught me to read early. In any case, no one in the lower-end workplace has been particularly interested in what brains I do have, or (apparently) anyone else's around me. It's all about how you can fit into the local pattern, which is often suboptimal yet resistant to change. Meanwhile, everything interesting/cha…
> Meanwhile, everything interesting/challenging I might have liked to work on is already being worked on by someone else, who is probably doing a better job than I would have You may be surprised to learn how false and limiting this belief is. Turns out most of those people are also just winging it, so if you wing it too, hey, you may actually reach a better outcome.
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I studies CS back in the 80s and back then every student I knew was genuinely interested in the subject and motivated to learn. In my last job at a bank I regularly interviewed recent CS graduates and candidates able to demonstrate a genuine passion for the subject were few and far between. I know, I know, get off my lawn.
>> I studies CS back in the 80s and back then every student I knew was genuinely interested in the subject and motivated to learn. In my last job at a bank I regularly interviewed recent CS graduates and candidates able to demonstrate a genuine passion for the subject were few and far between. You are comparing college students from the 1980s to those from 20xx. I'll tell you what is on the mind of the new students:…
I've met people with grad degrees in less remunerative fields who absolutely have exactly the worries you imagine. But a fresh grad with a CS degree and a promising career? A 250k salary isn't even a stretch for them to imagine. Add a partner with a similar income and both the student loans and that $2M starter home seem plenty achievable.
Especially if they look at home prices in Oakland or Hayward where home prices are still under $1M, rather than the more exclusive parts of San Francisco (read: all of it).
I'm not sure how brainy I am. Perhaps the main reason I came across that way in school is because my mom taught me to read early. In any case, no one in the lower-end workplace has been particularly interested in what brains I do have, or (apparently) anyone else's around me. It's all about how you can fit into the local pattern, which is often suboptimal yet resistant to change. Meanwhile, everything interesting/cha…
[1]: https://cran.r-project.org/web/classifications/MSC-2010.html
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Thomas Sowell writes about this in depth in several of his works. In Intellectuals and Society , he notes that many "intellectual elite" have been cheerleaders for some of the worst (economic) disasters and human rights abuses of the 20th century. In 2020, we can see this vividly with the coronahysterics causing untold and immeasurable damage to societies with arbitrary and poorly calculated lockdown rules. Sowell ar…
You dont seem to know who made the lockdown rules and what lockdown rules even existed.
The majority of IYIs are for whatever policy makers put forward because the idea of a benevolent and well-meaning State aligns with their world vision.
And of course, "we're just dismantling the evil capitalist patriarchy" is part of that cartoon world vision.
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There seems to be weird dynamic where there are a ton of lawyers, there is not enough work, and many aren't being paid much. But it's still hard to find a lawyer that charges less than 250/hr. My hypothesis is that law school is not preparing lawyers well enough to be useful right after school. So many can't find a job to get the experience to compete with senior attorneys who charge 250/hr.
They just don't go into lawyering period. If you don't get into a biglaw firm after you get your JD you're usually permanently fucked. It's better to get a salaried position in an unrelated field than 'hang out your shingle' in pretty much all cases. Law schools are making lots of lawyers, but the 'failed' ones just drop out. That is why there is no downward pressure on the fees from increased supply.
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I studies CS back in the 80s and back then every student I knew was genuinely interested in the subject and motivated to learn. In my last job at a bank I regularly interviewed recent CS graduates and candidates able to demonstrate a genuine passion for the subject were few and far between. I know, I know, get off my lawn.
I've seen this as a teaching assistant. CS class size went from a few 10s to over a 100 in 1999-2001, then dropped again when the gold chasers went somewhere else. I did not find the boom period as bad as I expected. Many of the students in it for the money were still very smart and motivated and interesting to talk to. But I preferred the non-boom periods nonetheless :)
It is because people are not one dimensional. Most people have talent for range of professions, they are not predisposed to like exactly one of them. Also, most good students will end up liking whatever they picked provided it is within range of things they are not completely failing at.
Learning something often makes one like it more, even if one was initially ambivalent. Plus, once you know a bit more about field, you can find sub-field you are actually good at and find fun. As in, various tech jobs require slightly different aptitudes - some require more patience, some more abstract thinking, others memory. But, you dont know until you try.
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> Some areas in the Southern Alps (Alpes-Maritimes) were never to be inhabited again after that. But that might also be due to the end of the warm period and the start of the little ice age. For reference: Its about now that the norse have to abandon their Greenland settlement.
Note that most historians do not believe that the end of the Medieval warm period was the trigger of the collapse of the Greenland settlement, but rather that was the abandonment of trade routes to Greenland that caused its collapse.
As you say though a bigger factor was Portuguese traders gaining access to African elephant ivory which was easier and cheaper to procure than walrus ivory which was the cash crop of the Greenland settlement.
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>> I studies CS back in the 80s and back then every student I knew was genuinely interested in the subject and motivated to learn. In my last job at a bank I regularly interviewed recent CS graduates and candidates able to demonstrate a genuine passion for the subject were few and far between. You are comparing college students from the 1980s to those from 20xx. I'll tell you what is on the mind of the new students:…
How many software engineers do you know who are legitimately terrified of their student loan debts for a Bachelor's in CS? I've met people with grad degrees in less remunerative fields who absolutely have exactly the worries you imagine. But a fresh grad with a CS degree and a promising career? A 250k salary isn't even a stretch for them to imagine. Add a partner with a similar income and both the student loans and t…
A large number of $250k+ salaries, on Wall St, for example permanently disappeared with the move to open source, shared servicing, etc. Former bosses are "retired" or "consultants" or insurance brokers.
Finally, sure, having a spouse who also earns $250k is great, but does everyone have that? Should CS grads only marry other CS grads? What if you wall in love with someone who does HR (which is my case)?
Also note, that stretching for a $2M home with two $250k tech salaries is pretty risky
0. What happens when you turn 35 or 40 and now face age discrimination?
1. Both your salaries are highly industry correlated
2. Both your salaries are regionally correlated
3. If either of you lose a job, you're screwed with a mega-loan.
4. What happens when kids come and you cant work (as easily, or at all?)