Is it really that much of a mystery? Here's how to succeed in tech. Sorry for the cynicism, but it's pretty obvious if you open your eyes and look around the Valley:
1. Have rich, preferably white parents who can get you into Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.
2. Found a company that does whatever (it doesn't really matter as long as it involves whatever's hot in technology in some way), and use your family/school connections to get funding.
3. IPO or get acquired by SuperUltraMegaCorp.
OR
4. Luck into being employee 2-10 at such a company.
Notice, there's nothing about working hard, impressing your boss, company loyalty, etc. You can find exceptions, but I don't think you can argue against this being a common, almost default formula these days.
The cardinal sin: there's nothing there involving R&D, or furthering the state of the art. This is why software lost it's way: it's too timid. We all use the same set of tools ("best practices"), same languages ("traction"), and target the same saturated demographic.
The consequence: every software job requires 5 years experience in $TRENDY_FRAMEWORK rather than 10 years of generalist experience. But, hey, we'll quiz you on hash table implementation to pretend we're on the cutting edge!
Comments
Is it really that much of a mystery? Here's how to succeed in tech. Sorry for the cynicism, but it's pretty obvious if you open your eyes and look around the Valley:
1. Have rich, preferably white parents who can get you into Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.
2. Found a company that does whatever (it doesn't really matter as long as it involves whatever's hot in technology in some way), and use your family/school connections to get funding.
3. IPO or get acquired by SuperUltraMegaCorp.
OR
4. Luck into being employee 2-10 at such a company.
Notice, there's nothing about working hard, impressing your boss, company loyalty, etc. You can find exceptions, but I don't think you can argue against this being a common, almost default formula these days.
The cardinal sin: there's nothing there involving R&D, or furthering the state of the art. This is why software lost it's way: it's too timid. We all use the same set of tools ("best practices"), same languages ("traction"), and target the same saturated demographic.
The consequence: every software job requires 5 years experience in $TRENDY_FRAMEWORK rather than 10 years of generalist experience. But, hey, we'll quiz you on hash table implementation to pretend we're on the cutting edge!
We're making our day-to-day jobs worse. Stop it.