Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?

news.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 187 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?

#31
No.

But I live and breathe tech even in my spare time[1]. You gotta learn to roll with the sh-t and set boundaries. I hate to say it but turn off HN, this place a hype machine designed to make you feel bad. It's like "Roast and Toast" x 1000 on here, not reality. It's toxic in a very passive-aggressive way (rather than reddit toxic, which is just aggressive).

I've been at this since 1988. (Made a few personal bad choices so not retired, lol [2]) I've changed jobs every 5-7 years since the post-2000 implosion. Don't bother with the FAANGs, its all style over substance tossing-off investors: they don't care about you at all and their top level management just want to be centibillionaires (or trillionaires).

Find smaller companies, that's what I started doing 20 years ago. I started a new job as a senior director at a 5000 person company 3 years ago, most money I've ever made in my career, great people who enjoy their work, no pressure to move up the ladder unless you want to (not much ladder for me, but the younger devs are happy to stay put without the dumb pressure to give 150% every year). Our revenue is Find a company that makes boring products that sell. Mine is a stable boring company, making real-ware silicon products and associated cloud services for medical and automotive industry. Look for a company trying to grow profits at a normal rate, not a FAANG rate. Avoid the hype. Be boring. Slow and steady.

[1] also, if you're only in tech because you think that's where you're supposed to be, and don't have a deep passion for it, you're gonna have a bad time.

[2] Oh, and don't accidentally get someone you don't like pregnant. Because then you're completely f--ked.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?

#32

The tech industry was always a little slimy but it's out of hand now. I've lost too much respect for the role of innovation in this current version of our society. We've passed a point where it's used against people more than for people. Day after day here watching people with no substantive activity on their account spam their endless shovelware slop projects, I just can't feel like I want to be a part of this anymo…

"Used against people." Those are good words. I am also deeply tired of that. I'm absolutely guilty of being one of those idiots that still thinks we could have nice things and products that work for reasonable prices if we just cared a little.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?

#33
post #3

Hi! I've been doing this since 1994 (I started in the industry instead of going to college). I feel this way approximately once every 7-8 years. What I think I've learned is that I make stupid decisions reacting to those feelings.

Oh, the seven year itch. I didn't think it would apply to work, but it makes sense that it would.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?

#34

I assume by industry you mean software development. And I’m not tired of that. Where else can you be integrally involved in different businesses? Communications, medical, education, e-commerce for anything/everything. We get to play in a lot of different playgrounds and potentially have a huge impact. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that. I am tired of the interview process. Here’s a take home assignment that yo…

To my eye you seem to be extolling the virtues of the work. Which I still love.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?

#35

No. But I live and breathe tech even in my spare time[1]. You gotta learn to roll with the sh-t and set boundaries. I hate to say it but turn off HN, this place a hype machine designed to make you feel bad. It's like "Roast and Toast" x 1000 on here, not reality. It's toxic in a very passive-aggressive way (rather than reddit toxic, which is just aggressive). I've been at this since 1988. (Made a few personal bad cho…

> Find smaller companies, that's what I started doing 20 years ago. I started a new job as a senior director at a 5000 person company 3 years ago

That's a smaller company?

The biggest company I've ever worked for was 400 people

The smallest was 4

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?

#40
Has little to do with “industry” and everything to do with America being led by post war, Cold War paranoids who drank lead water and huffed lead gas fumes, brains wired to march to a steady drum, right into building a shit hole country.

Sure is a whole lot of demand to show up just so from ossified gerontocrat pols who can’t provide for themselves and mock us to our faces about freedom.

A bunch of randos socialize we’re off the hook for each other, good luck! While also expecting we show up for jobs that secure their investments or they send out the riot cops. It’s a fucking brain dead social culture of learned helplessness copy pasted around office worker meat suits. An obvious, making it pointless, LARP.

Zero flexibility in human agency when too few know how to fix their stuff and need these brain dead jobs to trickle down to the poorer service workers.

Post reply on HN