Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by pdog | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

pdog

I don't understand the bias against working on Wall Street.

In fact, Wall Street is much more fun than a generic office park in Silicon Valley.

View on HN

You also have a greater chance of making significantly more than your startup equity would ever be worth.

Disclosure: Left tech for Wall Street

You also have a greater chance of being significantly screwed over if your core skill is technology and not playing the politics.

Avoid.

If you have no soft skills or business savy, you’re getting screwed either way, regardless of tech sector vs Wall Street. There are politics in every org.

There has always been a perception amoung many techies and ents that "wall street" represented the old, entrenched, 'rent-seeking' capitolism, while SV style was 'changing the world', dispuptive, and somehow more egalitarian. It seems to mirror the political divide somewhat, with many younger more visionary types going for broke out west, and the more risk adverse finding a reliable income in finance. Its a matter of perspective as much as philosophy.

'Silicon Valley' and 'Wall Street' have become sort of extreme synecdoches that carry tons of baggage when used. While often useful, I find they are becoming increasingly disingenuous in regards to current state or at least in regards to the way things are changing for the better (in contrast to the negative meanings implied when one of these terms are used as a derogative).

It's hilarious in a way because every starter-upper would like to see their company listed at the stock exchange at some point. IPOs are so much more gratifying that acqui-hires.

The weather in East Coast turned me away. (background: I lived in East Coast for 4.5 years and went through several terrible winters)

If I was starting over I’d pursue Wall Street over Silicon Valley.

at least, you won't have to pretend it's all about making the world a better place :) (Or will you, anyway? Not sure)

Its fun being a cost center where having friends in the business side of things is what counts for career progress?

Only if you have an appetite for cocaine

Wall Street is all about money, pursuit of money as a form of power, manipulation of money as an intellectual game abstracted away from its effects on the real world - or so goes the image of "Wall Street" as it exists in terms of having a bias against working there, or in businesses which have a similar mindset.

Personally, it sounds unbearable, since money is just about the most boring topic I can imagine, done to death for centuries already; I'd rather watch paint dry.

Money is trust of society in you to allocate resources. It is the signal in the nervous system to make things move more or less.

That's one model, sure, but it is a simple model, it has been explored quite thoroughly over the centuries, and it seems to inevitably bring exploitation and tedium. Life is short and I have no desire to spend mine going over that well-trod terrain; I'd rather look for ways of using technology to disintermediate, to detransactionalize, to find better ways of making collective decisions and coordinating group effort which do not involve money or accounting and are therefore resistant to control and exploitation by gatekeeping institutions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com