He lists "nosql" as a technology that it's easier to use outside of the big-company matrix. There is no such thing as "nosql". There are various databases. There is the relational database which solves its problem excellently and whose limitations are well-known and sometimes very painful, especially when dealing with huge amounts (multi-node) of data. There are other data models with different trade-offs. There is no such thing as "nosql". It is not a technology or skill or anything else. There's Cassandra and MongoDB and Redis and various others, but there isn't a "NoSQL". I can't type "nosql start" at the command line and get anything useful to happen.
Sorry, I had to do that.
Also, Zach works at Github and I've heard that it's an amazing place. Great! I'm glad he works for the rare good company and hasn't lost his passion. I hope he never does. Still, I don't think he knows what VC-istan startups are like for most engineers. He works in a company that (from what I'm hearing) is successful enough that it can stay in Real Technology and keep the work interesting.
For most, VC-istan is not "a great industry, even without the millions". The millions are the goddamn fucking point. The millions determine who gets to be CEO and CTO and call the shots, and what shots are called. The millions determine which projects the company can afford and which are nice-to-haves and which are ignored. The millions are why people will sacrifice their 20s to implement the lame idea of some well-connected guy who went to boarding school with the VCs.
If you're Working For Money, which most people are, and you're not making some... you're doing things wrong. This is not a judgment; I think most of us will make a bad call at least once.
He's in Real Technology, and bless him, but that makes him biased. He works in a good company and so he gets interesting work, so he's happy even if he's not a millionaire. That's a different thing. If you work in social media startups and answer to non-technical managers and don't make "fuck-you money" within 10 years then, guess what, you lost.
If Only I Knew That Shit Before I Was Almost 30.