So long, and thanks for all the bytes
chethaase.medium.com
So long, and thanks for all the bytes
1–10 of 160 posts
Re: So long, and thanks for all the bytes
#2Because of the downturn, I wonder how many people have given up on their careers at Tech? How many more will respond to the call of a different professional life that pays less, but that will be more fulfilling? Even as recent as yesterday I heard a past-colleague tell me "maybe Tech isn't for me, after all. I'll try my hand at this other thing."
Re: So long, and thanks for all the bytes
#3On one hand computer and information science degrees have experienced the highest growth among undergrad degrees [1], so lots of people are joining in, but on the other I'm curious to hear from the people who have left.
Is anyone who has exited the tech world still reading HN? What's it like on the outside?
[1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/charted-most-popular-u-s...
Re: So long, and thanks for all the bytes
#4Because of the downturn, I wonder how many people have given up on their careers at Tech? How many more will respond to the call of a different professional life that pays less, but that will be more fulfilling? Even as recent as yesterday I heard a past-colleague tell me "maybe Tech isn't for me, after all. I'll try my hand at this other thing."
Lots of people will be leaving tech, not by choice. Unlike longterm Googlers, not everyone can afford to not get paid for six months.
Also, this isn't a "downturn"...the companies are mostly doing better than ever. This is a permanent restructuring in resource allocation. Companies are going to shrink headcount even as their businesses flourish.
Re: So long, and thanks for all the bytes
#5Because of the downturn, I wonder how many people have given up on their careers at Tech? How many more will respond to the call of a different professional life that pays less, but that will be more fulfilling? Even as recent as yesterday I heard a past-colleague tell me "maybe Tech isn't for me, after all. I'll try my hand at this other thing."
I'm not sure it's the downturn, necessarily. I used to be enthralled with tech, full of energy to explore new tools, programming languages, etc. I think I slowly awoke to the fact that it's not the tech but the people that make it interesting and rewarding. For me (and I'm not trying to project on anybody else), interactions and activities with people who were doing things that are not tech seemed deeper and more genuine -- almost as if it was easier for me to get to know them and enjoy their company in a non-tech context. As a result, my hobbies and interests have pivoted to activities that don't involve computers much at all. My career remains in tech and I try to put my best efforts into the work that I do, but it's becoming more difficult as I continue to realize that life, for me, is better when most of it is spent away from screens.
Re: So long, and thanks for all the bytes
#6Chet's book on the early days of Android is super interesting. Lots of crazy OS building stories. He must have interviewed 50 people who worked on the first couple releases of Android. I had him share parts of that story on the podcast and result is one of my favorite episodes.
I always thought of Android as, of course it succeeded, it was a big google project. But the story is far more interesting. They were somewhat of a small group, part of an acquisition and didn't actually merge with the prevailing google culture. Kind of kept to themselves and worked insane hours and were really into coffee.
Also, most of them had previous worked on similar projects. They had done the T-Mobile Sidekick and some of them came from WebTV, I think and BeOS.
Re: So long, and thanks for all the bytes
#7The idea that another multi-millionaire tech worker would think that leaving their job is something people would be interested in is… strange. He’s letting the world know that in the second worst tech downturn in history, he’s going to retire and pursue comedy writing. Feels more appropriate for a Facebook post to this friends rather than a medium post.
Re: So long, and thanks for all the bytes
#8The idea that another multi-millionaire tech worker would think that leaving their job is something people would be interested in is… strange. He’s letting the world know that in the second worst tech downturn in history, he’s going to retire and pursue comedy writing. Feels more appropriate for a Facebook post to this friends rather than a medium post.
I’m more interested on why he is posting it on medium when he has a blog.
Re: So long, and thanks for all the bytes
#9The idea that another multi-millionaire tech worker would think that leaving their job is something people would be interested in is… strange. He’s letting the world know that in the second worst tech downturn in history, he’s going to retire and pursue comedy writing. Feels more appropriate for a Facebook post to this friends rather than a medium post.
Weirdly gatekeepy. Why shouldn't he be allowed to update his followers on his life?
Re: So long, and thanks for all the bytes
#10Because of the downturn, I wonder how many people have given up on their careers at Tech? How many more will respond to the call of a different professional life that pays less, but that will be more fulfilling? Even as recent as yesterday I heard a past-colleague tell me "maybe Tech isn't for me, after all. I'll try my hand at this other thing."
I suspect there will be quite a few people in this situation, but it won't be the majority of people simply for financial reasons. If your idea of a fulfilling career isn't tech, law, finance, medicine or business/management, it may simply be impossible to do it full time and have a decent quality of life in many places.
For instance, writing jobs pay terribly overall, with the quantity of them going down a lot due to the decline of traditional media and the advent of AI. Unless you've got a FAANG income nest egg or a trust fund to rely on, I wouldn't recommend anyone get into this kind of work as their main career, regardless of how fulfilling it might be.
Ultimately I suspect many people will be forced to try and stick out this recession/downturn just because tech is their best bet of a decent living.