Things you can't say in Silicon Valley (non-political version) | Hacker News Reader

Things you can't say in Silicon Valley (non-political version)

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82 pointsi_dont_know_20 comments

"Let's think things through before we dive into coding."

"'Enterprise' and 'legacy' shouldn't be insults. Those are the systems that actually run our economy."

"Microsoft is more innovative than Apple."

I find it so interesting how different "tech" companies and "industrial" companies are from each other (apparently engineers who work in the industry such as OEMs are not really "tech" from what I read in the media, shrug). I worked from startup (that was working on only hardware) to multi-billion "life-style" companies, and I never hangout with my coworkers after work, let alone beer-bashes. I have a coworker who won't even come to free Christmas lunches. It's just expected where we can talk and joke during work, but when it comes to personal time, its personal. Also as a MechE, people tend to listen to you more when you're more experienced (typically older), not the other way around. People I work with understand while dreams are important, it does not feed your family. I really want to get into the software side of things but the culture from what I read is almost repulsive...

Would you say, then, that the industrial world is more "formal" for lack of a better word? Or maybe just more realistic in your opinion?

I think the industrial world is definitely more formal (corporate?) with good reasons. It's extremely hard to sustain a certain profit or product without a proper organization. Engineering in the industrial world is definitely less exciting since there's a lot of red tape. Convincing the department I work for to spend around $10K for a couple 3D printers took forever. Where when I was at the startup it was more of a "why not" mentality as long we had funding. However, the benefit for working in the industry is that there is a lot less circle jerking on the engineering side of things. When you're working at a startup, there is so much circle jerking and smoky mirrors to get funding and please investors. I sat in during a board of directors meeting and I physically wanted to puke listening to all the BS going around in the room.

Almost? ;) I think my Silicon Valley employer has a great culture in a lot of ways, but the whole "not just your employer but your whole world" attitude still bugs me. I also threw myself into work every waking moment when I was younger. I was also happy for my coworkers to be my primary social partners as well. Those were great years, but that kind of thing stops working once you have a family. Treating people with families as exceptions to the overall company culture - even if they're pretty well tolerated exceptions - is ageist and not OK.

I think the biggest reason for this is because Silicon Valley has an abundance of younger workers (relatively speaking). When you're young, you spend literally every moment working to strive for your ambitions. When I got older, I started to learn that every hour you spend at work is one less hour for you to spend on something meaningful to your personal life. At the end of the day, working long hours is just not worth it. There's literally nothing to show for it at the end of the day. You make less per hour. Your family hates you. And you have no personal life. The only people that really benefit from this mentality is the owners and investors and this is so unfair and toxic to the workers.

Agreed. To be fair, though, this is neither new nor limited to Silicon Valley. The most severe case of this attitude that I've encountered during my career was in Ann Arbor thirty years ago. Exploitation of young workers, both high- and low-skill, goes back much further than that. At least I didn't live in a literal company town, or work in a literal sweat shop.

>apparently engineers who work in the industry such as OEMs are not really "tech" from what I read in the media, shrug

And if someone works at one of the right companies which happen to use software, they're considered to be working in "tech" even if they don't know how to use their own computer.

"Tech" is a business vertical when it's convenient to steal goodwill from the enabling nature of software. It's a job disciple when it's convenient to dump the baggage of that virtical's business decisions onto those damn nerds.

Interestingly I agree with these sentences (sans not being 30 yet and not having kids and leaving at precisely 5:30)

I want to start a product because I think it'll be useful and I have bills to pay, I concern myself with user privacy first and foremost when designing and I don't want to fall into the trap of doing an "apple design". I don't want to scale either, I want to have a healthy and slow growth, maybe not even grow beyond a point. From a pure business standpoint these things are irrational (except paying bills) but personally I find them important.

> maybe not even grow beyond a point

Meaning you'd refuse access to your product to customers?

I don't really see the problem with that. It is not a requirement for a business to constantly grow or seek the maximum amount of customers. If I make some profit without growing, I'm satisfied, especially if my existing customers are satisfied.

(And there are many ways to control growth beyond just "refusing access")

What would you get from controlling growth? Existing customers more happy? Anything else? Just curious.

Less work, possibly?

Less work, better customer relations, etc.

I personally believe that a small business is just better at making customers happy than a big business (atleast for a lot of things on the internet)

Less work is great.

I read it as not taking on more customers.

Same here. If I ran a profitable company of at most sixty people I would be the happiest person on earth.

"maybe having an entire c-suite with less than 10 employees is premature."

Sorry, but it sounds like bunk - out of top 10, I've said most myself and heard others to say it. Well, except the beer bash thing, I must admit - though I have had coworkers that did not drink alcohol (and nobody resented them for that), I didn't really hear anyone claiming beer bash can't be fun. So I guess 1 out of 10 is kinda plausible?

Ironically this is political as well just not civic political but office/work political instead (although really what’s the difference if you think about it? Not much IMO). You can’t have a “Things You Can’t Say” that isn’t political in one way or another. Man is a political animal.

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