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Why Silicon Valley Works

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#111

Post by michaelochurch »

michaelvkpdx wrote: post #66

The premise here is that Silicon Valley "works". What do you mean by "works"? If you mean creating artificial wealth for a small group of already-rich folk, yes, it works. If you mean transforming one of the most naturally advantaged landscapes on earth into a traffic-choked sea of concrete where people do little more than work at creating new ways to buy and sell stuff, yes, it works. If you mean polluting what was…

This was one of the best posts on this topic that I've ever seen.

Have an Indignation. You earned it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtCiP8B2xpc#t=7s

And keep the faith. Technology is important and what we value and can do will outlive the Silly Cons of the Valley.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#112

Post by rvn1045 »

'This seems like the future to me – large groups of independent companies, loosely tied together.'

This could also work against YC (Or many startups in the valley) very easily. I mean all these companies are being created in a time of easy money, what happens when the money dries out? Will they all fail? Since they are so correlated with each other's success.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#113

Post by dashboardfront »

sosuke wrote: post #101
kiyoto wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I am an ex-trader in his late 20s, and most of my peers who stayed in finance have at least a million dollars in savings+assets.

Is there a 'too late' to get into finance? I might have to change my focus. All this JavaScript and Objective-C can stay a hobby.

I really think it's a bad idea to go into finance for the salaries. You're going to be miserable, and no, you are not guaranteed a million dollars by 25. Obviously, there are many different career paths in finance, but all of the ones that involve making a lot of money include one or all of the following: stress, long hours (80-100/week), and risk (think how many financial crashes tend to happen. guess who loses their jobs?)

Of course, if you're willing to persevere through all that, and have very good people and/or sales skills, then sure, you might be able to join the ultra elite who own their private jets and have an island in Thailand. You'll need some luck for that too, though.

I think the only people that will 'make it' in finance are those that are genuinely passionate enough to endure the horrible work conditions and lifestyle while possessing the people/sales skills to be successful. Remember, to make it to the top in finance firms, you need to bring in revenue. With the exclusion of trading, this generally involves sales skills. Same goes for management consulting and probably law as well.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#114

Post by dashboardfront »

michaelochurch wrote: post #110
driznar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? I'm genuinely interested in hearing from someone with experience in both industries to weigh in on this. Especially once the risks on both sides have been calculated in, since otherwise the comparison is largely meaningless.

Finance is actually more meritocratic than software, these days. That may change. Right now, the douche factor is much higher in software startups that that clouds the game. Of course, many of those douches came from ( cough failed out of) finance and management consulting. Traders who top out at $500,000 per year are considered failures. Quants and programmers often get to (and, sometimes, past) that level, but more…

What did you do in finance? I'm guessing trading? It seems like it's a rather hard field to break into, as you've mentioned. I remember reading that even for people coming out of Harvard Business School only a few make it into trading.

Regardless, that's a small subset of finance jobs, no? What I've read about the investment banker side is that the job is absolutely dreadful; if you get into private equity, it gets better, but you're still working like a dog generally. Also, sans trading, the jobs tend to require a very different type of person than your typical software engineer. As you move up, your sales/pitch skills become more and more important, as your ability to win clients/deals for the firm is what brings in revenue, not your ability to use excel.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#115

Post by x0x0 »

porter wrote: post #86
Balgair wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the living part: My folks live in Concord and their next door neighbor just moved into assisted living at 95. Her house sold within a week for 700k to a young couple. It's a 3 bed 1 bath single story in Concord with drainage problems, mind you. Lets do the math here shall we: What is the mortgage and taxes(thanks prop13) on a place like? Well, at 4.05%, good credit, and 15% down, it's 2857.80/month just on the loa…

If it's so bad, why aren't people moving out of the valley?

I've seen a steady trickle of senior engineer peers departing for the midwest and nyc because they're both cheaper.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#116

Post by [deleted] »

porter wrote: post #86
Balgair wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the living part: My folks live in Concord and their next door neighbor just moved into assisted living at 95. Her house sold within a week for 700k to a young couple. It's a 3 bed 1 bath single story in Concord with drainage problems, mind you. Lets do the math here shall we: What is the mortgage and taxes(thanks prop13) on a place like? Well, at 4.05%, good credit, and 15% down, it's 2857.80/month just on the loa…

If it's so bad, why aren't people moving out of the valley?

[deleted]

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#117

Post by crj »

sama wrote: post #25
lolwutf wrote: post #5

'I wrote this for the FT, but it's behind a paywall. Since I wrote it, I feel like it 's probably ok for me to post it here. ' If the FT paid you to write it, I feel like it's probably not ok to post it where you'd like.

they didn't pay me.

get paid

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#118

Post by joshAg »

porter wrote: post #86
Balgair wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the living part: My folks live in Concord and their next door neighbor just moved into assisted living at 95. Her house sold within a week for 700k to a young couple. It's a 3 bed 1 bath single story in Concord with drainage problems, mind you. Lets do the math here shall we: What is the mortgage and taxes(thanks prop13) on a place like? Well, at 4.05%, good credit, and 15% down, it's 2857.80/month just on the loa…

If it's so bad, why aren't people moving out of the valley?

Two things:

1) lots of other stuff rocks, so you don't want to leave and you can downgrade your living space to something smaller that is more "affordable" to get most of what you want

2) people are leaving, but at a slower rate than they are coming. Basically, come here, work hard, burn out, and go somewhere else. Or maybe you get a job on the periphery, like say san jose, and then you live way out in Morgan hill or gilroy or in the cheaper parts of san jose. Or you get a job in Dublin/Pleasanton and then live in like antioch/pittsburgh/tracy.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#119

Post by mmanfrin »

[deleted] wrote: post #116
porter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's so bad, why aren't people moving out of the valley?

[deleted]

  Why live in a terrible city and state (CA has atrocious taxes)
Right... the only thing SF/CA have going for them are the jobs, the rest just is terrible...

Re: Why Silicon Valley Works

#120

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

nilkn wrote: post #91
steven2012 wrote: post #17

No. The reason why Silicon Valley works is because of the intense greed that it provokes amongst everyone that comes here. Maybe "greed" is too strong of a word, because people aren't necessarily selfish, maybe "money-focused" is probably more accurate. And because anyone can come here and become a millionaire/billionaire, it draws in an immense number of hard-working people which just generally increase the level of…

All this is part of the reason why I've strongly been thinking of going back to school to become a doctor. What follows is mostly a rant, just to be upfront about it. It's a really radical transition, but I really, really dislike the city-centric focus of software engineering. I hate the idea of being a contractor (I just want stable, life-long work), and I can't tell you how tired I am of crippling traffic causing m…

Uh - remote? I've spent most of my professional life working from home.

With some extra effort, you can earn an SV salary but live in an area that has a very un-SV cost of living.

Traffic isn't an issue either.

You can network remotely. You can build companies remotely. You can even find investors remotely.

A few people are doing this already. More and more will in future.

(Are we really supposed to believe it's always better to build Internet companies in meatspace? Hmmm.)

I know there are downsides to remote working. Guess what? There are epic, catastrophic downsides to working in SV meatspace too.

I'm looking forward to the day a few decades from now when what's left of SV gets turned into a museum, while the rest of the planet gets on with doing cool fun stuff... elsewhere.

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