Silicon Valley's Youth Problem 225
An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times has an article about the strange cultural rift around tech innovation in Silicon Valley. The companies getting all the press are the ones developing shiny new apps and attempting to reinvent their industry. This attention — and all the money that follows it — is drawing in many young, talented engineers. The result is that getting people to develop needed and useful existing technologies is a harder sell. 'For better or worse, these are the kinds of companies that seem to be winning the recruiting race, and if the traditional lament at Ivy League schools has been that the best talent goes to Wall Street, a newer one is taking shape: Why do these smart, quantitatively trained engineers, who could help cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, want to work for a sexting app?' This is more evidence that the tech bubble is continuing to inflate: '[I]n the last 10 years in particular, there has been an exacerbation of the qualities for which it's been both feted and mocked: Valuations are absurdly high for companies with no revenue. The founders are younger; the pace is faster.'"
Excuse me? (Score:5, Funny)
Are you saying that King Digital, maker of the wildly popular Candy Crush Crush Saga (tm)(r)(c) isn't worth 7.6 billion dollars? [nyti.ms] Surely you jest.
Re:Excuse me? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think Wall Street has learned to account for how fickle website userbases are(how about that slashdot beta?). They have no brand loyalty. And the lack of barrier to entry means that every facebook, zygna, myspace, and yahoo are going to get knocked from the perch and end up in a pile of former stars that have no usage.
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So, valued at 24 months projected revenue should be more like, 3 months trailing?
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Wall Street isn't buying these things. Big companies (Facebook, Google) are buying them. And they are "worth" whatever these companies are willing to pay for them, regardless of their current profit levels.
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how about that slashdot beta
Sorry to go off topic, but I logged out and stayed out during the proposed boycott period. When I came back everything was back to normal with nary a peep about the beta. I assume we won? Ever since then I have been quite curious as to what happened and if Slashdot gave an official statement.
Re:Excuse me? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was in Asia for a few weeks, and was auto logged out from my work computer. Today, when I checked Slashdot at lunch while logged out, I was presented with this strange, foreign beta site. It looked much better than it did a few months ago, and then I logged in and turned it off. So it's still being foisted on the anonymous masses.
On topic: When is it different that the best and brightest are lured by the flashy companies making the "cool" products and offering low wages and the potential for exploding options, as opposed to working for the existing big companies with all their processes and proper-market-valuation that make them boring and predictable? It's been like this for at least 15 years. Sure, when the economy is down, the big guys are safer, but when the money and drugs and alcohol are flowing (and, this year at least from what I've seen at SXSW, the alcohol and drugs are flowing), young startups are the place to be for people with big ambitions and no responsibilities.
I believe this is the argument... (Score:3)
I believe this is the argument Microsoft used at its antitrust trial.
The judge didn't buy it.
Once you have a lead position in something, it's very hard for a competitor to displace you without you being nothing more than an "also ran".
If nothing else, when someone becomes an actual threat, you have enough of a bankroll to litigate them out of business.
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Operating systems are a bit different than websites. All it takes to migrate a website is typing in a different URL.
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The Netscape case was because they were bundling their competing product with their OS. It was only because they had an OS monopoly that the IE vs Netscape thing mattered.
If Microsoft were still a monopoly, and made it difficult to use facebook over their own social network (by making every user create a MS Social account, auto logging out Facebook users via IE on every reboot, or whatever else I can make up) they would certainly have been sued. But their monopoly is pretty much broken, and at this point
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Did everyone in the entire world spend a buck on this game or something?
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Are you saying that the United States Government, in a pathetic and corrupt attempt to ensure the precious value of the dollar remains somewhat stable, simply prints billions more of it, every month? Surely you jest.
They print about 0.5 billions of it, every month [treas.gov]. Of course, it also destroys a similar amount. Not that that's what you mean at all, of course... you're making some pathetic attempt to start an economic discussion in a forum filled with people who know very little about economics on that kind of scale.
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There are bubbles and then there are bubbles, valuations like that are on the level of bitcoin ... not FTSE.
Inflation is not a sufficient explanation for the current tech bubble.
or fix healthcare.gov (Score:5, Insightful)
GIGO (Re:or fix healthcare.gov) (Score:2)
As best I can tell, CGI's competitors all suck also. Gov't contracting is a screwy industry that rewards screwy behavior and thus shapes screwy corporate behavior.
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I would sooner do surgery on my leg with a spoon
That's probably in the AHA somewhere..
Re:or fix healthcare.gov (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with the OP is he assumes all engineers are part of the 1% who get the stock options and $$$ payouts. In reality, the vast majority of IT folks are no more smarter then normal accountants, lawyers, etc. We just ended up in IT because we didn't want to be accountants, lawyers, etc.
Personally I majored in Psychology and worked in HR (managing a inhouse access/sql HR db, writing reports) a few years in the mid/late 90's before realizing I could get paid a shitload more doing a similar job but in IT.
Re:or fix healthcare.gov (Score:5, Informative)
I knocked around "10 person" class startups for a while, coming in as the "chief software officer" or whatever they wanted to call me, and the position usually rated 0.5% of the current stock pool, vesting over a 3-5 year horizon - this was what they offered as incentive to get/keep me, not what I asked for, though I did have one outfit offer me "shares" verbally, then put "options" on the paper offer - I protested that one, and, incidentally, that one is the only one that has turned into cash for me over time, not much cash, but if those were options instead of shares, it would have been zero.
Now, if you think that 0.5% stays 0.5% after round D investment brings another $20M to the table, you obviously haven't done this before.
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Hey, I wore flip flops to work (while wearing the VP hat) and made impromptu presentations to big shot investor types, while still in same flip flops, for years.
We landed a couple of big fish that way, including some that were probably enamored to the fact that the talent didn't waste money, time and effort on selecting ties in the morning.
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Each of us operates according to the standards of our chosen field. Here, for example, is how the codemonkeys at Adobe would treat cancer:
1. Select the Clone Stamp tool;
2. Click on an area of normal skin that has the same illumination as the cancerous area;
3. Use Clone Stamp to copy the selected normal area to the tumor site;
4. Use Spot Healing Brush to smooth any edge mismatches at the boundary of the cloned area;
5. Apply a very light Gaussian Blur to the whole region.
See! No more having to throw away a pe
Money (Score:4, Insightful)
And is there a real problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
So the younger coders are willing to risk a few of their early years in the hopes of a big stock win or buy-out.
Where's the problem?
If there are other systems that need programmers then hire programmers for those other systems. There are programmers who do not fit the "just out of school" demographic. Why not hire those programmers? Why focus on the "young" coders?
Re:And is there a real problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because age discrimination is alive and well (not to mention rather blatant in this field) thanks to the fact that it's almost impossible to prove.
Re:And is there a real problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo!
Just look at the title: Silicon Valley's Youth Problem
"Youth" being a code word for:
1. work more than 40 hours a week
2. work for less than the median wage
3. no health issues that will conflict with #1 & #2
4. no husband/wife/kids that will conflict with #1, #2 & #3.
5. okay with #1 - #4 as long as there is a possibility of a percentage of an IPO or buy-out some years in the future.
Fuck that. That's not a problem with a lack of "young" coders. That's a problem with their business plan. Items #1 - #4 are really about cash flow (salaries).
Re:And is there a real problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't child labor great?
Re:And is there a real problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
When people complain "supply is less than demand", they often forget to include "at a price I want to pay". It's funny that you often hear this complaint from people who pose as champions of free enterprise.
Yes there is a shortage of technically competent people prepared to work 60 hours a week for minimum wage.
If you pay the market clearing price, you will not find a shortage.
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Re:And is there a real problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
the problem is the original article is talking about the supposedly best and the brightest of IT ... seen as leaders of their profession. When many of the leaders are simply out to make as much $$$$ as fast as they can many others adopt the same mentality. There is little movement of working to help for the greater good of society. It's how much can I get and how quickly can I get it?
This isn't just IT, this is everywhere in American society these days. Our own political leaders are no different; they're obviously corrupt to the core, and only in it for the money and power, and don't do anything to actually improve the state of our society, which is why our roads are falling apart and our bridges collapsing, while our taxes are sky-high (in the areas where good paying jobs exist). Basically, our society is just falling apart, because no one really cares any more, and why should they? Our leaders don't, and our citizens are too dumb to elect decent leaders or hold them accountable.
The greater good of society? (Score:2)
There is little movement of working to help for the greater good of society. It's how much can I get and how quickly can I get it?
The greater good of society?
I will be happy to work towards that as soon as our elected officials choose to lead by example.
Re:And is there a real problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they believe the "young" coders will work for dirt-cheap wages and they want a piece of that action.
Sorry, guys. If you want me, you have to pay me*. You don't have to pay me as much as you would have to pay a 50-year-old consultant, but you have to give me a good wage and good working conditions, or I will walk away and take an offer from one of those startups you're complaining about.
* P.S.: You also have to not reject my application out of hand because I don't have enough experience. The fact is, as a young person, I don't have 10 years of experience in the industry. That's why I'm willing to accept less money than the 50-year-old consultant. If you don't think it's worth your while to train me a little, fine, but then don't come crying to me when you can't find young people to work for you.
Re:And is there a real problem? (Score:4, Informative)
I spent the last few months looking for a new job in Silicon Valley. What I found was startups are paying roughly as much as established companies, but the startups also give stock. For a programmer right now, it's not even a hard choice which to choose (of course, there are exceptions, like salesforce.com and Google.com that still pay well or give stock, even though they are established).
Seriously, why would you take a lousy job building internal C# software when you can work for a startup and get paid the same or more?
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In theory, the big company would expect you to work 45 or so hours a week on average,
I'm going to say you're doing this wrong, that's definitely too many hours.
The startup, on the other hand, is giving you stock options and expects you to work 60 hours a week and oh,
There are surely some startups who expect this, especially of the first 5 employees or so. Once the get 15 or 20, they start to mellow out and you should have no problem finding one that will be satisfied with 40 hours a week.
whose lawn, now? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:whose lawn, now? (Score:5, Funny)
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Shhh, the machines are listening. And they have seen the Matrix, they know how things work out.
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I dunno.
I see things largely the same, at least outside of silicon valley.
At ate 35-40+, you should really have grown your career and salary out of the code monkey state and been either moving into mgmt of some type, or moved on to areas that value experience and wisdom, like consulting/contracting.
It is kind of analogous to looking at someone at age 30 that wears a name take and thinking "you've made some SERIOUS vocational errors".
As you get close to your 40's in IT, you need to be m
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Back when my grandmother was alive, every time I spoke with her, she would ask if I got a promotion. In my company, being "promoted" would have meant working as a manager. However, being a manager would mean having to handle - well, managing people. I'd need to deal with company politics and firing people and lots of other things that I have no interest in. Coding (specifically, web development), though, is something I love doing. Why should I stop coding just because I'm 38? I should stop doing what
Because existing companies suck (Score:5, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with the products, and everything to do with how existing companies see workers(especially tech workers) as "cost centers". We're kind of reaping the results of a system that views employees as "at will temporary work power" through massive layoffs at the earliest convenience.
It was "Just the cost of doing business" and we weren't supposed to hold it against them, as it concentrated wealth upwards and made peoples' lives more fragile and terrified. You didn't know if you could count on your next check, but you had to live in a housing market that did assume that. No one really wants to be a whim. Or if they are, they'd like to be a whim of their own, at least.
Re: Because existing companies suck (Score:2)
This.
Traditional companies have made is so going with them is not the long term job security it once was. If there's not going to be security, best to go for the big pay off.
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Gosh, what's sauce for the goose... (Score:2)
Companies want to talk about making yourself competitive in the labor market, then bitch and moan when those that will pay get all the hot talent?
Oh noez! Whatever will we do!?
I'd say that if someone gets paid $big_bucks at $hot_startup, they're entitled to it. If you want them, pony up.
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No, I do think it's a problem there. But contrary to common assertion, people love the devil they don't know far more than the one they do.
Ditto. Old-fashioned 9-5 work at an established (Score:3)
company now:
- Pays less
- Is less secure
- Is a shitty environment
- Offers dwindling benefits
- And little respect
You're cannon fodder, that's all.
At startups and companies with that "hot startup" attitude (there are a few established companies that do this), you're the core of the business, the brains of the operation, worthy of any perks or cash they can throw at you.
Who wants to work where they're completely undervalued when they can work where they're (if anything) overvalued?
Make the salary at least reaso
Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously.. (Score:5, Informative)
Why do these smart, quantitatively trained engineers, who could help cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, want to work for a sexting app?
Because as an employee in America, your CEO makes on average over 273x your pay, whereas if you join a startup early enough you stand a chance of actually benefiting from your companies success.
Next stupid question?
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The font end, maybe. See, we allow the states to control our insurance. Healthcare.gov not only has to create it's own database, but has to integrate into 5 health insurance companies for every state. Each state has different regulations, and since it's such a hot topic, law makers change those regulations on at least an annual basis. It also has to be able to handle the initial blast of customers. It also needs to be highly secure, because you are dealing with health data, which is covered under HIPAA and
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no, they could not. It's that attitude that not only shows your ignorance of large system development, it also shows that hiring cheap people will bite you in the ass.
Barrier to entry (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't live in the area anymore, but being a fresh college grad near that area around '05 it was hard finding work due to job requirements. I had no real-world experience, only a 4-year degree and a knack for computers and networking. No one was willing to train or even give an interview until I had 5+ years of server admin experience. The end result is that I moved out of the area and haven't thought about going back since. Maybe the older, established companies need to loosen job requirements and train good employees if they want people to work for them instead of the startups.
Re:Barrier to entry (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this comment might be closer to the truth. We always see Slashdot stories and anecdotes about how big companies' HR procedures are dumb and you can't barely get hired there because of that (i.e. 10 years experience in a 5-year-old tech. Not willing to train because you have to "hit the ground running"). Meanwhile a startup founder will meet with you at Your Coffee Place Of Choice and hire you on the spot.
So...younger, no experience, not trained in resume writing? Probably can't even get an interview at Cisco.
As I see it, its the big companies' problem. They're the ones with screwed up HR procedures.
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Correct, but I always try to find a way to meet a manger and take them to lunch.
Funny how when a manager says hire this guy all the HR crap means nothing.
Except for government and academia, mostly.
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Interns, sure. But internships are often done through colleges that the company has a relationship with. Once you graduate, those opportunities are gone.
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Good for you. But perhaps that's why there are so many startups? If I have no experience and can't get a job, I might as well start a company and get the experience myself.
That is assuming you have rich parents or can get VC funding.
This is not new. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's an artifact of the capital markets. The same thing happened in the late '50s with the 'Tronics Boom'
Going back 80 years earlier it was the railroads.
It's a side effect of the 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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What was the 'Tronics Boom'?
Part of it is stagnation... (Score:3)
Part of this can be attributed to stagnation. So many companies assume they can make money on ad revenue and selling user data that they focus on that exclusively.
The problem is that how long until there is a saturation. Once companies start logging every single click and character typed that a subscriber (i.e. their product) sends their site and selling that info, there is nothing else they can do other than demanding subscribers run adware on their local machines for access. Once this point is reached, there will be a bust for the Web 2.0 (FB, Twitter, services that do not charge their users for revenue.)
What might happen is that governments step in and desire social networks for their citizens, so companies will focus on trying to sell to countries as the main customer instead of advertisers.
I'm hoping the pendulum will swing in the direction back to paid services so the subscriber is the customer and not the product. However, it is harder to get a ton of people to pay a subscription a month than it is to just hand their data over to various third parties for a guaranteed purchase order every financial period.
research pay sucks (Score:5, Informative)
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This.
Society treats actual researchers like s**t. Years scraping by on one tenuous post-doc after another, and that's after 12+ years qualifying for the job, accumulating debt and then living on tiny graduate scholarships.
You get what you pay for, America.
And the irony, the irony. A NYT journalist - from the home of the liberal arts graduate - lecturing tech people how they should spend their lives.
Can't find good talent... (Score:3, Interesting)
Around again (Score:3)
It's been about 14 years since the dotcom bubble burst, and memories are short.
Um, Because that's where the MONEY is? Mayhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup, this sure is a NYT article. Hand wringing by an economically and technically illiterate journalist, asking a question which any 6 year old could answer.
You reap what you sow (Score:2)
For how long has America been glorifying and aggrandizing the most useless among itself, pushing propaganda as product, you must be this sexy to participate...
You end up having people more interested in the latest fashionable trends and pointless endeavors than solving the real problems and challenges of substance that face society.
Personally, I couldn't give less of a shit about the latest trendy sexy whatever. But, I love tackling a challenging project that helps people get shit done.
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yes yes, people who don't do what you approve of don't count of doing shit. well done.
Frankly If I had to do it over, I would g into these quick turn around starts pushing fads.
It's the most likely way to get rich and retire early.
Then you have more time t do whatever the hell it is you want.
The banality problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Read the whole article. It's quite good.
It's not "youth" that's the problem. It's banality. "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." - Jeff Hammerbacher, Facebook. Most of the "app" companies are not "tech" companies. They're fad publishers. The technology for doing routine web apps and phone apps is pretty much standardized now.
The engineering that goes into phone hardware is just awe-inspiring. Electronic design today is brutal. You barely get to use any power, the budget for each function is tiny, the size has to be very small, you have to operate multiple radios without interference right next to each other, and there's a new product to get out every six months. Most of that engineering is not done in the US. That's a big concern. The US probably doesn't have the technology to build a cell phone any more.
It's not as bad as the first dot-com boom. This time, there's usually revenue. Income, even. Even Twitter claims to be profitable (although they're not, really. [twitterinc.com] Look at the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles results, not the ones excluding "one-time expenses".)
Life sciences unemployment (Score:5, Informative)
"who could help cure cancer"
PhDs in the life sciences are more likely to be unemployed than employed [theatlantic.com] at the time of graduation, and the trend is only getting worse
Why would a medical research lab hire some random coder to cure cancer, when PhDs in biology can't even find jobs?
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It's not that research labs would hire coders to look for cures for cancer (they wouldn't), the problem is that people go into IT or programming professions, rather than getting degrees in biochemistry (or whatever is best for doing cancer research). And the reason people do this is obvious as you pointed out: the unemployment rate is very high, and that's for PhDs, who are precisely the people you want doing important research like that. It simply doesn't pay to spend years of your life in school getting
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Because a coder can develop way to crunch numbers faster, slice data to find trends, and so on.
My point? it's a poor comparison, both groups can add value if applied right.
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Having seen how most big companies in this space operate, they don't hire coders to do this kind of work.
They take their best bench scientist. Then they buy a bunch of licenses for some bioinformatics software and turn them loose on it. The scientist never really gets far and the software gets blamed. Then lots of money gets spent trying to adapt the software so that somebody with no knowledge of CS can make it work.
I saw a lab try to automate some routine work. They took their best bench chemist and se
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"who could help cure cancer"
PhDs in the life sciences are more likely to be unemployed than employed [theatlantic.com] at the time of graduation, and the trend is only getting worse
Why would a medical research lab hire some random coder to cure cancer, when PhDs in biology can't even find jobs?
Why would they hire a PhD in biology to cure cancer, for that matter?
Where's the monetary value in curing something, when you can treat it as a chronic condition and make lots of money doing so? So yeah, they'd hire the PhD to *treat* cancer, but it the dumbass actually cured it, they'd be buried in an unmarked grave in a field of GMO wheat faster than you can say "Monsanto".
Innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
Student loans (Score:2)
The middle class in America is fucked. And 99% of those people who could "help cure cancer" would end up there if they chose to pursue more altruistic careers. Its a rat race and if you are smart and motivated and at prestigious school I think the path to
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If I graduate with a lot of student debt[...]
Then you obviously didn't go to school on an academic scholarship that paid for everything so you didn't have to take out loans in the first place.
So basically, you went to college and accrued the loans so that you could get your "union card" (diploma) in order to increase the probability that you'd get hired, compared to the high schooler who didn't take out loans in trade for that degree.
Or you had the scholarships, but took the loan anyway, and used the money for some pretty heavy partying, or doing some
This requires asking? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do they not want to "fix healthcare.gov"? Because that's an uninteresting, almost clerical, job made worse by being part of a messy government procurement system. I can't think of any developers that want to do that sort of work -- been done already thousands of times (usually, of course, much better than HealthCare.gov). Most would only do it to pay the mortgage. Of course, the good developers can find something more interesting to do with less bureaucratic pain inflicted on them in the process.
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Why do they not want to "fix healthcare.gov"?
Actually, a couple other reasons might be that (a) they want it to fail so that the government has no choice but to close it down and institute a single payer system instead of providing corporate welfare to insurance companies whose primary role in healthcare is to pocket the money they would have paid out each time they are able to say "no", or (b) they want to fix it, but they know they will never be in enough of a position of authority that they will be able to actually get the assholes in the way of fi
Money (Score:2)
Start ups means a chance and some good money. Established companies, not so much.
Now, if comnpaie would reward internal group that create new thing well, it would shift.
For example:
I was on a team of 20 developers and 10 Business experts and testers. IN a year we created an application that saved the company 100 million dollars a year.
Are reward? a football.
Ironically, we used baseball as the theme.
Now, if we would have gotten a million dollars each, we would have stayed around and created other internal ap
New Yorkers says it all (Score:2)
healthcare.gov (Score:2)
The root of the problem with healthcare.gov isn't really technical ... it's that it is healthcare.gov.
The priorities are political, not anything so silly as actually having to work and be effective.
I do freelance/consulting for startups. Why? (Score:2)
Because:
- The pay is 2-3x what I could get paid at established firms
- The relationship-starting practices actually make sense (an interview amongst humans, often with C-levels, rather than with an HR-drone, and forms of testing that involve work on-product, rather than abstract and unrelated HR games).
- They are thankful to have me and pleasant to work with (as opposed to confronting the HR bureaucracy and middle management)
- I get better titles and better status/authority within the firm
I do good work, I p
Captialism, thats why (Score:4, Interesting)
So basicly, programmers are basicly living by the same values as the rest of mainstream society. The same values exhibited by both politicians and celebrities, and just about all people looked up to as role models.
People don't spend $50k on college to be the next Richard Stallman, a man who's altruism is a relic of the past. They spend it to be the next Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, people who made billions exploiting the masses.
Name one cancer researcher off the top of your head. I can't. But we sure know who bill gates and steve jobs are. The rest of society holds them in far higher regard, and they have far more leyway in personal options. And if they ever get questioned on their contributions to society, they can tote how much money they poured into charity, and how much money they spend on curing diseases.
We all know Bill and Melinda Gates spent billions on fighting malaria in africa, by donating vaccines. No one ever lionizes the name of any of the people who did any of the research, manufacture, or phyiscal distribution of said vaccines.
Now, you went to a prestigious university, which aren't cheap by the way. Which person do you want to be in life? The scientist, or the millionare?
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Because the former is sustainable, while the latter is not.
See also: The entire human history of ethics. And even the evolution of social animals.
so you want jail / prison care to be the fallback? (Score:2)
As the job based systems leads to them looking for ways to get out having to pay for it and anything can be used as an pre existing conditions if you get really sick.
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You do realize that insurance only works because there is a pool of healthy people who take out less than they put in. When the day comes that you need insurance you will appreciate how it works.
The biggest problem with our "old" healthcare system is that employer provided benefits hides the true costs involved and allows healthcare providers and insurance companies to ratchet up fees without free market competition. This ends up making it unaffordable for those not lucky enough to get insurance through the
Re:Fixing healthcare.gov? (Score:5, Informative)
You realize that the correct word for what you describe here is ... 'pyramid scheme.'
You do realize you have no clue what a pyramid scheme [wikipedia.org] is, right?
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I fully support this, but somehow we need to identify people who do/don't make that decision by not buying insurance (or proving semi-liquid assets sufficient to cover the first hours of emergency care). This is so 911, ERs, and the government can know not to respond or care for such people.
Obviously, if a private hospital chooses to provide care they are free to do so but there should be no law requiring ER care for those making that choice. Presumabl
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This is so 911, ERs, and the government can know not to respond or care for such people.
I would love to see such people left bleeding on the street, but unfortunately that will never happen.
Re:Fixing healthcare.gov? (Score:4, Insightful)
When will this transfer of wealth from young to old stop?
When you get old.
Re:Fixing healthcare.gov? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to pay (subside) someone else healthcare.
I didn't want to pay for your K-12 education and subsidize your higher education. It would bother me a lot less though if you weren't so childish and self-centered.
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They tell me I'm too young to understand ... /sarcasm>
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
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Right around the time you become immune to cancer and hit-n-run car accidents, probably.
Obviously you think that insurance is something you only get if you already have a problem, not as "insurance" against going broke if something unforeseen happens. Perhaps when you're a grown-up you'll realize that not everything in your life is planned. Or maybe nothing will ever go wrong for you ever, because you're "young and healthy."
Alternately, since they can no longer deny coverage based on a preexisitng condition, why doesn't he just only buy the insurance the day before he goes into the doctor because he's feeling lousy, or the day after the preexisting cancer is diagnosed?
In reality, the only reasonable solution is actually a single payer system, potentially with a private insurance option on top of that, if you want to pay to jump the wait list when you have something that's not life threatening (or, like in the UK, they won't fi
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This. I'm tired of losing most of my income to older generations while knowing that I'll get *none* of the same benefits.
Pray tell, how do you "know" this (other than by regurgitating canards).
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I'm a big fan of "desk checks". I find bugs in my own code when I do them - some of them are stupid bugs which I would have certainly found in testing (desk checking just catches them earlier and more economically), others are obscure ones (often race conditions) that might, or might not, actually be seen in the wild and some I would have been unlikely to find in testing (and QA would have even less chance of catching).
However, even among some oldsters who are relatively skilled, I find most developers are
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Even the adherents of the basic principles themselves seem to stop short of explaining why they work. "Here, this is duplicate code. You should follow the DRY principle and get rid of it." "Why?" "Because it's a principle."
They should let the new kid do some sink-or-swim maintenance on code that doesn't follow the principles. You want to learn about DRY, try changing one branch of duplicated code without realizing there was a cut-and-paste copy elsewhere in the code base. Now you've gone from a solid b
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I had to explain "Desk Checks"
Dang, I didn't know there was a name for it. Does it count as a new skill if I learned a buzzword for an old one I had?
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These useless apps are worth nothing.
They're certainly not "worth nothing." They're worth whatever a vulture capitalist is willing to fund, or whatever an IPO will bring in. Those people still have the ability to turn punching purple monkeys into a pile of quick cash. The few technologists who time their insider stock-option trades correctly will get rich, but almost everyone else will get pink slips and a hard slap of reality.
Everybody out there imagines they'll be the one who lucks into a lucrative stock market trade, just as every gold m
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They're worth whatever a vulture capitalist is willing to fund, or whatever an IPO will bring in.
Agreed. A con is worth whatever you can get out of it.