moocow01

Id imagine that you are attempting to move cars down every street in "waves". It almost might be more helpful to think of it as a series of trains on each street. You likely can stagger the trains going north to south as well as the trains going east to west so that they miss each other. Its probably more complex than this but I'd imagine this is the basic concept.

Perhaps you should interpret it as feedback that its not a hirer's market. In a market where most people have many opportunities the incentive to respond with a high effort response is very low. The better thing to do would be to consider the casual emails you get as leads to a potential hire - you'll have to put the effort in. Additionally what you are seeing is likely not by mistake - its an indication that hiring right now for applicants is in many cases more of a numbers game than it is about crafting a great cover letter. That being said I honestly don't think you are doing yourself much good with this sort of message - I'd just do the best that you can with what you get back.

Sign yourself up for an MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) class. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_stress_reduct... If you live near a major city you should likely be able to find a certified instructor who conducts classes on a regular basis.

Its not a magic pill but it works and has been around for many many years. I can assure you it has helped many people in your situation. (I actually wasnt too far off from your situation when I went through it.) I would also guess that there may be others here on HN that may have gone through it and could chime in with their opinion.

Every company I have ever worked at has had these "perks" of a discount store that has a mixed bag of "deals" from a bunch of random consumer companies - I can assure you that no employee is being retained because they get 15% off of movie tickets. Its not meant to be directed at AnyPerk but I have to wonder why these sorts of "perks" are offered at all. Amongst myself and other coworkers they are pretty much irrelevant and usually forgotten. Perhaps Ill use a discount on a cell phone or cable service contract if I remember but saving 10 bucks at Safeway is equivalent to the coupons I get in the mail.

IMHO barring OOP from CS curriculum is just as ridiculous as basing your entire curriculum on OOP. I can understand certain people's hatred of OOP but it is certainly appropriate in certain circumstances. The most well educated will be those who know when to use a design pattern and when not to.

It seems pretty obvious that Twitter is trying to become a business and these alienating changes are part of the strategy but the unfortunate part is that they seemingly have picked the completely wrong strategy around what their business should be.

Twitter really from a tech prospective is a protocol and it seemed that Twitter as a business was in line with what they were providing. Twitter.com acted as the centralized hub and the developers were invited to build upon and enrich the Twitter protocol. The goal was the more tweets and users the better no matter where they were coming from.

Then they realized they need to start making money.

It seems that from the business folks the reaction has been to strong arm users back to using Twitter controlled products with the assumption that they can start to serve ads. I don't blame them necessarily in that this is the standard business model for a social network but I think it will fail specifically for Twitter. In my opinion advertising will cannabalize their business - they should be looking to sell analytics and insights - thats where their value is. Yes its harder, less proven but they are just destroying themselves with their current strategy. Im sure nobody wants to see ads on Twitter and I wouldn't be surprised if nobody really wants to serve ads in that Twitter is exceptionally noisy and the functionality is very streamlined. On the other hand the value of real-time trends or the licensing to do so is exceptionally valuable to just about every company. Perhaps its not as easy of a business model as ads but at least its seemingly more scalable with their ecosystem.

I'm a little sad that Marissa seemingly doesn't seem to get incentives. Your people are probably not coming in likely because the company is not providing a positive environment. To speculate after a number of set of layoffs, getting mediocre raises with no correlation to effort, cutbacks on everything, no upward mobility, etc etc you end up with a bunch of employees that got gouged too many times. (Ive never worked at Yahoo but worked at a couple of companies that are where they are now so this is my own guess). The problem for an employee in this sort of environment is that in a low morale workplace you will end up being basically abused and taken advantage of if you show up with a smile on your face ready to tackle the company's issues.

So what's the dumbest (and easiest) thing for a manager to do when morale sucks... try to force you to be happy and productive which is essentially what Marissa is going to do just like any other clueless CEO. IMHO she should have handled this very differently. If you want people to show up give them a reason to or just fire them - you cant make an already demoralized person happy again by taking away an incentive to stay with you.

I have had the opposite problem - I've had people on my team that I wish would work remotely because they are frustrating to be in the same room with.

You need to start a C corp and roll it into a corporate retirement account under your new corporation. Your average financial advisor should be able to do this pretty cleanly for you.

That being said I think its a really really bad idea but what do I know

To me its more clear that these companies have pretty clueless managers that have no idea if their people are working or not.

Just to break this down a bit for you at 400k/year, your take home after taxes and extras will be somewhere in the ballpark of 18k/mo.

Your nanny will be around 2500/mo - down to 15.5k

Your 600k house will be around 4300/mo - down to 11k

Malpractice insurance / practice fees is anyones guess but lets be reasonable and say 2k/mo - down to 9k

So were down to saving 9k per month but then there is all the other stuff, food, electricity, entertainment, kid expenses, clothes, etc etc. Id say this usually amounts to about 3-4.5k per month ($100-150 per day) for someone who expects to live decently well.

Anyhow nobody is going broke in this scenario but our rich dermatologist is "only" saving 4-6k per month amounting to about 50-70k per year. Not horrible but not the extravagant wealth that you might expect. Note that I was also pretty nice to our hypothetical doctor - in this scenario they dont even have any student loans or a fancy car.

Largely agree with everything here but in my opinion many times there can be a very strong current that forces you to do it the fast, stupid way. In my opinion if you dont have any of these problems, you work in a unique place...

- Agile - Agile IMHO largely screws you in making sound technical decisions. Its not necessarily because agile is flawed - its usually because business/management uses agile as an excuse to randomly take a hard left turn every other week making it much harder to make long term architectural choices that are beneficial.

- No agreed upon standards or unification amongst software professionals - The accountant in this situation has a set of standards and expectations that allow/force him or her to do things in a moderately set way. This allows for the accountant to usually fend off management from pressuring things to be done in a shoddy or just get it done way. On the other hand its much more difficult for software professionals to say "we as a group do not condone writing shitty software" (because ironically a large number of us do ... "move fast, break things" has done more good than bad from my perspective)

- Ageism - Also known as experience doesn't really matter. Some will say thats because technology changes so much - but it actually doesn't. Just because you've been grappling with software problems and design patterns in Java doesn't mean that when you switch over to Python that really anything changes. Same shit, same problems, different words - but in all honesty we seem to be pretty bad at building on the experience of our elders because they are over the hill at 35... what could they possibly teach us.

For me it at times has been frustrating because coming out of school I really enjoyed the fun of designing systems and code that are sustainable, performant, etc etc but there seemingly is typically more reward for just throwing quality out the window in startups. Just my personal experience.

The cost of living is the real kicker in SF that makes you have to closely evaluate an offer if coming from another place.

For single people its a lot easier to live in SF on around 70-100k. Having kids and family makes it harder in SF and there is a definite portion of people that leave due to the extra financial pressure it inevitably puts on you.

Probably for you there are 2 things to potentially take into consideration... in SF 1) child care is expensive if you ever needed it and 2) the schools in SF have a reputation of not being very good. There are private schools but those are costly as well.

The last thing is that rent for a place is very expensive for a place that would fit your family. Make sure to get a feel as to what you'd be paying here. My guess for a just large enough space would be $2800 to $4500 per month.

Based upon your wife not working and having kids Id honestly not recommend moving. Not trying to be discouraging but just trying to be honest with you that it could be tough going financially if you are the sole income earner for the 4 of you.

"That's 5.000 people"

But its not 5000 people because they aren't graduating - they are just passing one class. If 5000 people pass that one class and then they have to stay motivated to pass 20 more... its not going to be 5000 people that graduate in the end. Even with the massive number of enrollments in MOOCs the graduation rate could be so low that his CS school is producing way more grads.

"According to the article, an average MOOC enrollment is 50.000. Let's assume 10% completion rate. That's 5.000 people. It would take my university 33 years to graduate that many people (assuming 100% completion rate)."

You are comparing a completion rate for 1 class to the completion rate for graduation at a university (consisting of a LOT of classes). If the completion rate for 1 class is 10% I cant imagine how low the completion rate would be for a whole degree assuming it would consist of somewhere around 20-40 classes.

I can only speak from my own experience but I found myself largely nodding my head (I've recently joined the early thirties crowd).

I worked in SV right out of college - Facebook was basically a blip on the radar and the coolest mobile phones still had physical buttons. I worked my ass off the first few years mostly because I had landed a great paying job (meaning I no longer was making 12/hr) and had no idea what kind of performance was not good enough. It was really fun and exciting for a while. I was fortunate to meet and marry someone that was right for me during my "later years" in SV. Being a proud geek I have been in a few relationships before but was not and am still not a relationship guru. The only thing I do know is that a (real, long-term) relationship will most likely push both of you to the max on everything... fun, happiness, stress, frustration, disappointment, etc, etc. While it has always had its ups and downs I feel very fortunate - the tech stuff is fun, I still enjoy it but the relationship, family, kids etc makes life really dynamic (sometimes in ways you may not like but its part of the deal).

I know I may sound like an old man but I think Id tell any aspiring techie coming out of school to try to make it a priority to figure out if they want to be married (and if so obviously to whom) and if they want to have kids. (As a note there is nothing wrong with not wanting these things) From my own experience I've felt that in your 20s (within the tech world) there are mostly only socioeconomic influences that deter you from going that route whether its the cost of living in the city or a professional dream that seemingly needs your full-time dedication. While it is not a ticking time bomb there definitely are certainly some fuzzy limits on the time you have to do these things that seem to come faster than you might think. (I dont want to get into a discussion about menopause or marriage later in life but I think its healthy to recognize the marriage/kids stuff does slowly get progressively harder later in life for most people).

Anyhow for me around 30 life started to look a little bit different to me. I like my work but its just a piece of my life. I used to spend 90% of my time working in tech or going home and playing with tech. I still do so to some degree but I have to admit that Im glad its no longer my only primary thing Im involved with.

You never would have thought by their office space that anything was wrong... http://www.businessinsider.com/living-social-office-tour-201...

Eh Id say its somewhat of a minor point - I think the only business that will recognize an MS in any real way (salary/title/etc) is perhaps a big company like Google. I believe some positions within Google require an advanced degree (if coming from the outside). I have to say though that I personally have never seen anyone get a thumbs up based solely on having an MS. From a financial perspective Id imagine an MS will rarely pay off if you already have a BS in CS.

Dont do it unless you want to make inroads into academia or better your chances for working at Google/Microsoft/BigCorp. I have a BS with about 5-6 years of experience and I lead/manage a couple people with MS degrees. In other words Ive found that having an MS makes little difference as a signal to an employer in most cases if you already have a BS in CS. Your ability and connections seem to be the most important thing so if you think an MS will enhance either of those it might be worth it but it also could very well end up being money down the drain.

I have to respectfully disagree although I hear your what you are saying. If you are a lone coder you have the potential to create something pretty valuable but small with not too many constraints. The game changes when you start to have to utilize "resources" whether that is hiring other people or raising money. Right now for example in the so-called series A crunch many startups are definitely dying because another startup fighting for the same funding is doing better. Same with hiring, if you need other engineers to increase the value of your business and you cant hire the right ones because they are taking other offers it can severely limit your potential.

"But optimizing for external validation is a dangerous trap"

You dont think this is strongly present in the startup world as well? In a number of ways I think many in the current form of the startup world are even more hungry for external validation but perhaps in a different way and from a different crowd.

"You’re fighting over a fixed pie against well-credentialed peers."

This also present in startups but instead of fighting for the next rung on the latter you are battling others for a piece of a limited number of funds, eyeballs, reporter coverage, demand, etc. The point being is that there is always a bottleneck or constraint in any field entrepreneurial or not. I'd agree that for an engineer, while quite rare, startup success has the potential to enhance your career probably more than being a smashing success in corp but both are funnels in different forms.

There seems to be a gaggle of people who have popped up somewhere within the intersection of entrepreneurship, online startups and lately education that seem to effectively be self-help "experts" in disguise. In some ways it feels like the social networking experts have found a new outfit.

The thing that feels a bit smarmy about it is how a lot of these folks pitch tech entrepreneurship to inexperienced people as some form of paradise where you just listen Seth Godin, finish codecademy, setup an iphone app and a life of abundance falls from the sky. Perhaps I have this guy wrong but I think its a trend that is pretty disingenuous. Colleges need to figure out how to compete and realign their pricing thats for sure but the learn to code, slap together an app, learn some web buzzwords and go pitch people is not exactly much of a real alternative education. Perhaps its Silicon Valley's vision but it seems to be more self serving than the traditional education industry of today.

I have to point out that this is incorrect. The simplified version is that if the workers are paid more a smaller piece of the megacorp's pie goes to the big whigs whether they are the shareholders or executives. In essence you have more distributed income amongst more people rather than it going to one or a few people. A situation where 1 person makes $20 and 9 make $1 has more income disparity than a situation where 1 person makes $15, 2 make $4 and 6 make $1.

None because I am smart enough to know that I personally am too dumb to fully understand them in any truly strategic manner.

I do invest in index funds but generally just spread it around.

Precisely and your children will also likely turn out to be the types that make predictions and fail like generations of the past

The market is worth trillions... not Google's solution. One thing tech reporters seem to have failed at recognizing is that this research has been taking place at every major car company out there - many many others are legitimately in the race. Ultimately its the manufacturers that get to pull the trigger on how driverless cars will become driverless.

This is a very difficult question to answer for the "generic person" - you cant assume they have any one skill or advantage and you also cant assume they have any certain risk profile or goal besides hopefully increasing their money by X dollars over Y years.

Its also difficult because firstly you have to look at all the possible investment opportunities and understand if your larger pools of 5k and potentially 2k buy you into any better opportunities. In other words you have to justify why you used the 5k for an investment instead of the 2k - without knowing specifics about the person its quite difficult.

With such a small amount of money comparatively to other investors in most environments Id say the person would be best off "investing in themselves" - apply all 3 buckets to learning 3 different potentially marketable skills that they hopefully can eventually leverage to create larger investment buckets. If the amounts were larger I might answer differently but with those amounts your best market is yourself.

There is quite a lot of black and white thinking here which is the primary problem.

Look, consumer technology is always a mess - apps vs web vs native vs desktop vs mobile vs ... etc etc. The truth of it is that we have so many choices because technology is meant to solve individual problems as best as possible.

There will never be one winner.

I think the author assumes just because tablets and apps are growing (I assume this is still happening) that this is the end game. Its not - tablets and apps certainly will be prominent for what they are good at. The app environment sucks for some things. Free flow of information and low friction information searching certainly is one use case where the web is so so much better than apps can ever be in their current form.

Lastly "apps" have always existed. Nintendo games were for all intensive purposes apps in that they were self confined experiences you played on what essentially was a technological black box. In truth if you look historically at how we have been using computing - things are more the same than different - you just have to remove the silly titles we give everything.

Take an MBSR class (mindfulness based stress reduction). There usually is at least one certified active practitioner in most major cities. The class lasts about 6-8 weeks and is in my opinion much more effective than anything you can do by reading books or listening to tapes. I found the 10% of the class was learning the techniques and 90% was sharing the struggles and challenges of applying the techniques with others.

Your point is correct in many scenarios.

If an engineering major who genuinely wants to be an engineer said should I take time off school to pay for the next year - Id likely point him/her to exactly what you just said. Very much agree

The big problem is that many people do the following... they say say Ill take on debt for undergrad and get paid pretty well so I can pay it off. Then they graduate, work for a couple years, pay a bit off and then say "you know what if I get that professional degree Ill be making even more". So they go back to school and add more debt and then they come out and are making more money. And then they do something similar like say "if I pull out a big mortgage and leverage myself in the housing market I can live well and increase my net worth faster". I know this is hyperbole but its a common path for many many people - essentially trying to use debt as a tool...

And then when they have a lot of debt and are making a lot of money... something "unforeseen" happens. The market falls apart, lose their job, they decide they hate their profession, they get divorced, housing market falls apart, get sick, etc - thats when all the accumulated debt can really run you over.

I agree that debt can be utilized to do good but it can turn on someone real quick if they keep the cycle going.