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Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

I enjoyed the piece.

Personally, I want no part of it, but I think it might work well for people who are not me.

I've always been "on my own." My life really is a series of watersheds, where I've been the only person to believe in me, before the event, and a whole bunch of folks seemed to believe in me, after the fact. Not a particularly good setup for selling "Chris-Tokens™."

Not a bad thing, in the long run. It hurt like hell, the first few times, but I realized that I don't have the personal skills to "sell" myself (like being able to spew jargon, sound like I'm TED-talking all the time, or beat LeetCode tests), so I can't blame folks for not wanting to "invest" in me. It is what it is. I come across as a socially-awkward dork, so people don't take me seriously. I'm actually fairly good at what I do, but If I mention that, it comes across as "arrogant," despite the enormous ocean of hubris that pretty much defines today's tech scene. I don't really have the skill to "humble-brag."

It taught me to live a conservative lifestyle, be Honest and Honorable, do top-shelf work, bust my ass, and not expect much from others.

I couldn't rely on anyone else to clean up my messes, or get me out of jackpots. It has taught me to learn what I have needed to learn, despite active roadblocks being tossed out by "gatekeepers," and it also prevented me from getting mixed up with some truly awful disasters; both personal, and business.

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It's not a character flaw or lack of skills in not being able to "sell yourself". It's a sense of dignity and pride as a working person.

You are not a commodity, you are a human being. You may look like a commodity to a business owner, but you refuse to allow yourself to become one.

Honesty and honor are worth more than money. There is money to be made in making yourself into a sort of corporate dog, but it will leave you feeling empty inside.

I am definitely not politically conservative, but I live in a conservative way as well. I don't think it's superior, but it's nice to have peace and stability.

I am not really sure of what it is you call honor though. To me it is a word whose meaning I don't really understand whose main purpose seems to justify leaders in sending people to their death at war and by men to justify murdering women/other men. It is at best anachronic, at worst dangerous. (Of course I am not accusing you of promoting murder but that's a word that has a sad history and I hope we get rid of it in the context of our daily lives )

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

Not sure if you are talking to me, or the parent.

I used the word "Honorable," as it seemed more effective than "Integral" (as in "having Integrity).

As far as I know, that word isn't on any blacklist. If it ends up there, I'll find an alternative.

In the meantime, I'd gently suggest that accusing decent folks of supporting the murder of female children might not be the most effective way to start good relationships.

Look at the indentation, I am clearly responding to the parent. Especially to : "Honesty and honor are worth more than money."

I don't think "honorable" has the same meaning and I did not even see it when I read you post.

I specifically edited my post to explain I was not accusing parent of supporting murder but maybe you were already writing yours and did not see that part.

No it is just on my blacklist and the only way I can enforce that blacklist is by trying remind anybody who uses it whence it came. Not trying to launch a censorship campaign by any means.

The root word of "honor" is not honor killings, just to be clear.

The word was used in a sense. You hijacked the thread with an antonymnic homophone. Seeing this a lot recently.

I reckon it was a hijack but just as when I see the world love, it is always interesting to point out how the word has been socially used. It is not unusual for an hn discussion to become fairly distant from the original topic, this is conveniently allowed by threads, I did not think of it as a problem.

I personally like this definition, from one of Lois Mcmaster Bujold’s books: “ Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.... The friction tends to arise when the two are not the same....There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.”

Like Charles Cooley said "I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am."

Say, what is honor? 'T is the finest sense

Of justice which the human mind can frame,

Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim,

And guard the way of life from all offense

Suffered or done.

Wordsworth.

Another fan of the Vorkosigan Saga I take it? Excellent quote, and one I’ve had cause to remember personally.

Honor just means doing the right thing, and it is also the respect you receive for doing so. The history of the word just means being a good person.

Honor in terms of death and politics is often a manipulated distortion of what is right.

Doing the right thing is often difficult, and this notion is used to manipulate people into killing each other.

There is honor in not selling your dignity for money, or in doing the right thing when it is unpopular or difficult.

There is no honor in killing people to enforce an oppressive power structure. It's about your personal choices, it's not inherently political.

> Honor just means doing the right thing

You’re not wrong, but anyone can do “the right thing” when the incentives are aligned already. I’d say that honor requires one to do the right thing even when doing the wrong thing could be immensely profitable, and even when nobody would know.

Right, that's exactly what I said. Honor as a concept is used to manipulate people, and making a lot of money often involves doing dishonorable things.

honor means recognizing the divide between your self as you experience it or wish it to be, and the 'you' enacted upon the world, and working to align the latter with the former. this can be manipulated in bad ways, obviously, but to be honorable is to manifest your virtue.

'honor killing' is a result of corporate identity -- cultural understandings of the self as inseparable from the family that created you. western culture generally does not carry this view, and treats people as individuals. individual honor is generally not burdened by the actions of your relatives unless one plays a direct role in them.

Well, this is a really weak argument. Honor is inward looking, about the individual and whether they can live with themselves.

>that's a word that has a sad history and I hope we get rid of it in the context of our daily lives

Please dont start that cancel culture nonsense because the word has previously been used in a way you don't like. You are a symptom of a society that lacks personal and community values to live by, believing mockery of pursuing the narrow, straight path. Im not talking out of my anus either, Im guilty as much as anyone here of perpetuating tech that has and will prostitute whole generations of people in ways never seen in human history. Think a little before you write.

Cancel that cancel culture?

> To me it is a word whose meaning I don't really understand whose main purpose seems to justify leaders in sending people to their death at war and by men to justify murdering women/other men

You're conflating honor and valor. Honor can be derivative of valor, certainly, but they are distinct. What you're insinuating is that the military teaches honor and valor, but that'd be impossible even if they wanted to. What they do teach is a team mentality, where the safety of your fellow team mates comes before your own. I'm reminded of the story of Jason Dunham [0], citation:

    For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as Rifle Squad Leader, 4th Platoon, Company K, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines (Reinforced), Regimental Combat Team 7, First Marine Division (Reinforced), on 14 April 2004. Corporal Dunham's squad was conducting a reconnaissance mission in the town of Karabilah, Iraq, when they heard rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire erupt approximately two kilometers to the west. Corporal Dunham led his Combined Anti-Armor Team towards the engagement to provide fire support to their Battalion Commander's convoy, which had been ambushed as it was traveling to Camp Husaybah. As Corporal Dunham and his Marines advanced, they quickly began to receive enemy fire. Corporal Dunham ordered his squad to dismount their vehicles and led one of his fire teams on foot several blocks south of the ambushed convoy. Discovering seven Iraqi vehicles in a column attempting to depart, Corporal Dunham and his team stopped the vehicles to search them for weapons. As they approached the vehicles, an insurgent leaped out and attacked Corporal Dunham. Corporal Dunham wrestled the insurgent to the ground and in the ensuing struggle saw the insurgent release a grenade. Corporal Dunham immediately alerted his fellow Marines to the threat. Aware of the imminent danger and without hesitation, Corporal Dunham covered the grenade with his helmet and body, bearing the brunt of the explosion and shielding his Marines from the blast. In an ultimate and selfless act of bravery in which he was mortally wounded, he saved the lives of at least two fellow Marines. By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty, Corporal Dunham gallantly gave his life for his country, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service

Nobody taught Jason Dunham that a kevlar, a plate carrier, and a body can stop the force of a Mills bomb. What he was taught was devotion to those he led. By living up to the standard of the USMC and USN in terms of devotion, in combination with the aforementioned properties of gallantry and intrepidity, he reflects honor on himself and by proxy the services.

Seeking honor in the service is generally a good thing - in so much as that you do the right thing even when people won't be looking; seeking valor is fairly frowned upon. Generally when I hear a story about people seeking valor you can tell the person in the story is highly annoyed, because it's considered excess risk and flies in the face of the values of the services.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Dunham

It's conservative only if you think of this ongoing extreme financialization of everything as progress.

Wow, this is a really mean attack on people who can sell themselves... I think I can do so reasonably well, and I wouldn't say it has anything to do with what you're describing here.

I don't have dignity or pride? That doesn't make any sense... I can sell myself because I really believe in the product. I've done lots of good work in my life and I have genuinely useful skills that can help people or companies.

And I don't have honesty and honor? Seriously? You seem to think that all selling is the type that unethical used car salespeople do. That is wrong. Good salespeople are experts who work with you to understand a problem and provide a solution to it. This is what I'm doing when I sell myself - you need a product manager, and I've worked on many similar projects to the type that you need help with, ergo I think I'd be a great fit. Again, to call that dishonest or dishonorable is simply wrong.

There's nothing wrong with disliking selling yourself, nor do I think it's a character flaw - different people have different communication styles, some of which are not very self-promotional. Nothing wrong with that. But to make such vicious attacks on the ethics of anyone who can sell themselves is just baseless and cruel.

Can you eat honor? Can you sell it? What is the worth of a man besides his ability to profit? Seeing endless people of honor scrape out meagre existences while those who exploit others endlessly become billionaires is more enlightening to the worth of honor than our useless platitudes.

I think the issue here is that you’ve tied a monetary value to honor, when honor is often tied to other things and occasionally explicitly the lack of a desire to maximize profit.

It's not monetarily valued. It's not societally valued, in any tangible sense. Power is not allocated to whomever has the most honor. So what good is it?

Some beliefs and values are personal, and thus, intangible. Try to recognize that not everything good in life has to be (or even can be) quantified.

This implies that power is the only good, which is a hell of a way to look at the world.

Do you only care about things that bring power to you personally? Or do you care about intangible values that are important to you as a human? One defines character and personality, the other is just a way to achieve personal gains.

Can you eat profit? What is the worth of a man besides his honor? What profiteth a man if he gaineth the whole world, but loseth his soul?

Apparently Bill Gates has the ability to buy his back given his current PR and general perception at around 130BN so seems like it might not be a bad play. ;)

It’s a fair question. I’d say that if/after you’ve made your millions you may soon find that your life is no less empty, and that internal substance - however intangible - is all there is. The exogenous manifestations of it are honour, duty, morality and so on. I think the Stoic literature best explains it if ever you’re interested.

Can you eat or sell happiness? What about contentment, satisfaction, meaning or purpose?

I mean, no skin off my back if you want to frame yourself as a cog in the economic machine, but surely there's more to life than materialism?

Am I perhaps misunderstanding your post and are you instead making a point about the disposable nature of men as a gender group?

> You are not a commodity, you are a human being

You know who else talked about the commodification of labour? M- is dragged off stage by angry HN audience

(Seriously, this is an interesting and important discussion to have - the dignity of labour and non-financial values - and it's interesting to watch a number of conflicting arguments made here which have been made loudly and vehemently by various historical figures)

> You know who else talked about the commodification of labour? M- is dragged off stage by angry HN audience

I mean HN is the news aggregator for ycombinator, an entrepreneurial startup incubator.

Doesn't mean there aren't good points there, but this is a tech news site for technology capitalists. This is the culture that gave us hackathons and death marches and veneration of guys like Steve Jobs.

It also gave us Free Software and Open Source. Not quite the same people as Y Combinator, but there's definitely an overlap. Certainly you also see an awful lot of calls for the elimination of walled gardens and for sharing important pieces of corporate-owned infrastructure (such as the dominant social media sites).

Cynically, it does look a bit as if people are M---ist when it comes to other people's stuff and capitalist when it comes to their own. But of course, often these are different individuals, who only seem to act as if there's a collective opinion.

M who?

Karl Marx.

Thanks. Obvious once pointed out :-)

> I don't have the personal skills to "sell" myself

Actually you do. You've demonstrated them in this very comment. Maybe you don't realize this, or maybe your self-deprecation is a deliberate part of your strategy. Either way, it worked on me. This comment led me to your profile, which led me to your company web sites, which impressed me. I don't need an iOS app developer at the moment, but if I did you'd be at the top of my list of people to contact.

I had the exact same sentiment. I'm a sucker for these types of reflective, self-deprecating descriptions for oneself. And good for him as well, because I don't doubt his honesty at all.

> I don't doubt his honesty at all.

Neither do I. That the mark of a truly great con artist ;-)

:) It would be nice. I'm a bit "on the spectrum," and we don't make very good con artists.

We are, however, often perceived as arrogant, rude and unsympathetic.

Yes, I know :-) I also know (from first-hand experience) that managing the behaviors that lead you to be perceived that way is a learnable skill. It's not easy, but in my experience, putting in the effort pays handsome dividends.

Yup. I feel as if I have done well, in that arena. I was a manager, for 25 years. I managed a couple of people "on the spectrum," and they were (and still are) amazing.

Last night, I watched The Accountant again. I really enjoy that movie. It does kinda go a bit crazy in advocating for autistic people (I get the feeling it was written by people that studied hard, but maybe don't have a lot of personal experience), but it's really fun.

I wish I had a teak-lined camper and a Renoir in my bedroom, but I'm fairly happy how things turned out.

"The secret to success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made."

To reiterate, it is very likely that those people who passed on you or didn't become interested due to the lack of self-marketing are not the people you would want to work with and doubly are not actually offering the job you thought you were applying for.

Grifters interview and hire grifters because their org/team/company relies on the grift more than the truth to make ends meet. If you can't grift, you frankly don't have the skills for that job. It's an unfortunate side-effect of the nature of grifting that they can't tell you this upfront.

My fear with this mindset of "They're people i wouldn't want to work with anyway" is that it's easy to say that when i'm not hungry.

If my mortgage is on the line my desire for a paycheck increases. Perhaps i don't live simply enough - but i'm always concerned about stability and until i'm retired i will always be concerned about the next paycheck. I too lack skills to feel confident about common interviews, but i look at this as a fault. If i felt more confident about interviews perhaps i'd feel more confident about my stability.

Having a few months to a year of expenses on the side fixes this. When you know that no matter what happens, you have enough savings to pay your recurring costs, you just aren't as vulnerable.

You are going to find a job in a year, or you could find a cheaper place to live in a year... Things just aren't as scary anymore once you have enough saved up.

If you live paycheck to paycheck it's going to be stressful no matter how big that paycheck is.

> Having a few months to a year of expenses on the side fixes this.

It doesn't, for me. I'm sitting at ~12mo with full expenses. I budget everything, so i do me full expenses, all the niceties, enterainment, etc. If i lost my job i could probably stretch it to ~24mo with the fat cut away.

Still, i worry. Keep in mind i do partially agree with you, paycheck to paycheck is a massive concern for people. It's why i obsessively envelope budget. But the concern i described in my prior post is a concern of skill, interview success, etc. Ie, feeling unsure in success of finding a job in my career path.

Yeah, building a bit of a nestegg helps, but I think I share your concerns on work security. And I think you're right to worry. If you walk out of every failed interview assuming they just weren't a fit for you, you run the risk of arrogance and never properly tuning yourself to the industry and its opportunities. 100%

BUT All of an individual's interviews are a terrible sample from which to draw any inferences about the industry and your place in it. Successful interviews give a signal. Failed/Not-followed-up-on interviews give none at all. My point being, tuning and training yourself must be a separate endeavor from interviewing or you will always be in for a bad time.

I know someone on the internet saying you shouldn't worry doesn't mean you won't worry, but ... you should try to worry less :)

If you have the wherewithal to put away a year of expenses, and the self-restraint to double that if you needed to, I'm pretty sure you could find some gainful employment during that time.

You could also probably stretch things a bit farther if you really had to by doing things you'd rather not do. Skipping rent or mortgage payments probably doesn't fit with your ethos, and will have negative consequences eventually, but it'll take time to go through eviction or foreclosure procedures, and that gives a bit more time to figure out something.

I agree, and i appreciate the post.

As a bonus though, my worry results in true appreciation for my current status. I feel undeserved, and compared to middle America i often struggle to imagine how they get by.

I make enough to budget nicely. I can start paying off my mortgage. I can start saving for retirement. Yea, it's far from perfect, but i truly feel like i "make enough" for a happy life. I have money to work towards my goals, be it retirement or whatever.

I can't imagine making half as much and still being expected to retire. To have safety. The state of the world confuses me. But i am grateful nonetheless.

This is also known as "Fuck-you money"

https://thedeepdish.org/fuck-you-money/

Unfortunately, this hits the nail on the head for a lot of folks, these days.

It's easy for me to say that I will only work with those I want. I'm set, and don't actually need the work (the money would be nice, but it's not a need).

I refrain from being an "OK Boomer," but I would gently suggest that folks starting out, devote significant portions of their income to savings, and conservative (not politically "Conservative," real "conservative") investments. I'd further suggest against looking to your peers for guidance in spending habits or lifestyle choices.

The ageism in tech is really quite puzzling. We're all gonna become old. White people won't become black, men won't become women (well, they can, but it requires some really significant dedication and resources. I have friends that have made that transition. It is not something for the faint of heart); but we will all become old. The alternative is not something we like to think about.

A lot of young people that treated their elders like crap, are now, suddenly, on the receiving end of the behavior. I don't find it satisfying, in any way at all. It's heartbreaking.

> but I would gently suggest that folks starting out, devote significant portions of their income to savings, and conservative (not politically "Conservative," real "conservative") investments. I'd further suggest against looking to your peers for guidance in spending habits or lifestyle choices.

I do, but this is unfortunately not what i'm describing in the post. Yea, i don't have enough to retire, but i've got ~12mo full expenses.

My concern is a concern for the long term, the career.

One of my favorite bosses got summarily fired for getting tired of the grift and telling a customer we were still in analysis on something that the founders wanted them to think was well underway. This wasn’t the first time and our code was on the way to intractable due to layers of expediencies.

When a bunch of us quit 18 months later, we had stuck around for 6 months for a bonus that worked out to about 7-8 weeks’ pay. As we sat around having a beer down the road, I asked if it was worth it to stay the extra six months. Almost 3/4 said no.

I ended up working in sales for an investment bank and found out exactly how true this is...

OP took the high road and the much harder path. All you have to do these days is put all your skill points into Charisma and bullshit your way through an entire career. No other skills needed. Look at Elizabeth Holmes and that WeWork guy. People were falling over themselves giving them money. Generational wealth achieved by having no ability bedsides running their mouth. Even normal jobs, so many people just blah, blah, blah their way through the interview and the job, and then by the time anyone checks, they're off to do it again at a different company.

It’s getting harder and harder to teach my kid that honor, integrity and hard work are still important, when you can easily find counter-examples, and they are more and more becoming the norm.

Especially so when these 'all talk no action' types are prominently displayed on television being lauded precisely for their talk.

Thanks.

I like your site (> I wear many hats, but graphic designer is not one of them).

This looks cool: http://graceofgodmovie.com

Looks like you're a great conversationalist.

> Looks like you're a great conversationalist.

Thanks. That, too, is a learnable (and teachable) skill. It did not (and still does not) come naturally to me. Took me about 20 years of concerted effort to really figure it out (and I sometimes lapse even now). But in retrospect well worth the effort.

> I don't have the personal skills to "sell" myself

Your comments do just that, though. Perhaps writing is a good medium for you to make the point to others -- I recommend you do more of it. It makes a great first impression, from which you can follow-up. Be genuine in person as you are in your writing.

I agree. I would buy some Chris Tokens.

You forgot the TM...

Thanks. I’ll let you know when I do the ICO...

NFT these days

Hello Chris, I wanted to say that I found your comment extremely good especially this

> I'm actually fairly good at what I do, but If I mention that, it comes across as "arrogant," despite the enormous ocean of hubris that pretty much defines today's tech scene.

Thanks!

I agree probably since my experiences were similar. Things are much better now, but I don't remember people telling me 'here is some money; remember me when you make it big'.

There are definitely people who would benefit from this. Some of my friends would have said 'some people just put everything in their char stat'. In fact, I have this HS friend. When we were growing up, he could barely turn his PC on. Now he is an IT manager for a major US brand. He either has gotten better or he was able to BS everyone with his cool guy persona ( and he is cool ). In short, I would buy his personal IPO.

It seems like you may be indexing on a reaction that either doesn't exist, or attributing a response from individuals as if it were coming from "everybody". In the latter case, it sounds like you've adopted the right mentality, which is to let the ball be on their court if they don't want to believe in you. Unless it's actually doing you from doing something you want to do, it doesn't really matter.

Oh, I'm not doing that whole "anecdotal evidence indicates totality" thing, but it has happened enough, that I've decided that I'm best off, being my own advocate.

I actually found a company that worked with me, for 27 years. I did not find them to be as gratifying a venue as I'd have wanted, but they did have a similar set of values, and we were able to find common ground. I found that having folks that appreciated my personal values was important. They paid well enough, and actually treated me with a lot of respect. I think they made some unfortunate choices, as the time went by, and I did my best to help them through the consequences of those choices, because doing stuff like that is how my value system works. I don't "cut and run." It was appreciated, but I don't think it was enough to make that much of a difference. Long story; tears, laughter, joy, despair, etc.

That stability was extremely valuable to me. It allowed me to set things up, so I am in the position I'm in, now. I can't even imagine what it would have been like, if I had spent my career in two-year stints, like everyone does now.

It also allowed me to work on some side projects that have been quite successful, in their own rights. None have been monetarily profitable; but they weren't meant to be. I like to help people help people.

It has been interesting (at first, infuriating, but now, amusing), watching people ignore my bona fides. I happen to have a pretty vast trove of open-source material (see "side projects," above). It's really not difficult to do. All you need to do is click on a link. It takes to to my SO Story, which has a chronologically-sorted history of my work since 1987.

> I'm actually fairly good at what I do, but If I mention that, it comes across as "arrogant," despite the enormous ocean of hubris that pretty much defines today's tech scene.

That's really insightful as I've definitely noticed many people judge by looks and impression more than the content of what's said. Unattractive/awkward people are frequently treated as insufferable when they are correct.

It's interesting to me that you think you don't have the personal skills to "sell" yourself yet most of your business is centered around consulting and app development as a service. How can these be successful without convincing people you know what you're doing? Do you work with someone who has those soft skills? Or maybe you mean something else.

I can relate to a lot of what you said. Specifically, I've overheard people say things like "grog454 does it so how hard could it be?" when deciding to try to get in to software dev (they failed). 10+ years ago a talented comp sci major was openly hostile toward me when I spoke or gave a presentation on multiple occasions.

I like to think I know what I'm doing. My personal software projects made me a millionaire before age 30 with no outside investment and minimal employees (0-1). Like you, I think I lack soft skills in the traditional sense of convincing other people that I know what I'm doing. I am routinely approached by recruiters for FAANG, and will occasionally begin the interview process just to see what it's like. In 4+ processes I've gotten to the final round of interviews but never received an offer.

What I do have is a different kind of "soft skill". Search algorithms love me. I attribute the success of my projects and (apparent recruiter magneticism) to clever SEO more than anything else, followed by luck, followed by a kind of relentlessness with which I approach my work, followed by meaningful software dev skill / business acumen. 100% of revenue is from end-users, 99.9999+% of which have no clue who I am.

I don't mean to come across as hostile, but its eye-opening to see what "I've always been on my own" and "not expect much from others" looks like to other people.

Actually, most of my business is not actually around that stuff. It's the shingle I hang, but I worked as a wage slave for most of my life. I'm now at the point where, if someone wants to work with me, I will do so, on my own terms, and try to make that clear, so I don't really get a whole lot of approaches (not surprising. I'm not complaining).

I am currently keeping my dance card [very] full, working for nothing, on stuff that interests me. I would have been happy as hell to work for others at a fraction of the cost of many, as I don't especially care about the money, as I do about the working environment and project goals.

I like working. I really do. I just get quite tired of having my work destroyed and hamstrung by others[0], so I'm actually living the dream, these days.

Recruiters..love me...until they find out that I'm not young. Then, the call gets interrupted, and I never hear from them again. I've taken to just making sure everyone knows my age up front, so we don't waste each others' time. That seems to have stopped a lot of those types of contacts.

And I have not "always been on my own," as I worked on huge teams, consisting of people all over the world, but I haven't found any team that was willing to cut me much slack. I've always worked in environments where I was expected to hold up my end of things without a need for much extra support. No safety net. The trapeze is all mine.

[0] https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02

I see I made the erroneous assumption that your living was based on your personal / business projects. I too was a wage slave at a relatively chill software engineering gig until my business became financially successful.

The "always been on my own" was a quote from your original post.

Poor choice of words.

Sorry about that.

to sell yourself at scale you need to appeal to the lowest common denominator, like politicians must. i don’t think this is right or wrong- idealized value = how much you help someone * how many people you help. (idealized)

You sound like an ideal colleague.

Thanks. I've always thought so, but I have to respect that many others think otherwise.

I'm extremely fortunate, in that I don't really need to "play the game." I'm quite grateful to be in that position.

I'm not trying to be rude and I enjoyed your comment, but you say you don't have the skills to humblebrag or sell yourself but you're doing it pretty well here

I write fairly well. I’ve been writing for most of my life. Written presentation isn’t actually as valuable as you might think. It seems that people read a lot less, these days, than they used to. I’m told that YouTube videos and podcasts are more likely to garner attention, and I have a voice made for silent films, and a face made for radio.

Also, even that writing skill has been greatly refined and improved over the last three years; since I left my last job.

Funny. Deciding not to pursue employment seems to have helped me to improve some of the skills employers might actually notice (I consider them fairly “superficial,” but they are what tend to attract attention). I feel that the really valuable stuff, like an expert grasp of Apple development, running a geographically-distributed team for decades, and a long history of releasing high-quality, finished product, is not so obvious (or valued).

I was talking, recently, with a former employee, who had gone through the interview process for a FAANG. He made it through the whole thing, and may get an offer, which he’ll likely decline (he took a job at a corporation that will probably treat him well, but won’t pay as much). What he described, sounded a lot more like a hazing, than a serious evaluation. I’m not about to put myself through that kind of crap for any amount of money. I have too much self-respect. I feel he made the right choice. He had basically made up his mind, fairly early in the process, and really went through the motions to learn and practice (he presents quite well). I feel that they missed out on a pretty damn good engineer, but maybe they weren’t really looking for what he offered.

Being treated with respect by our employer is important. I always treated my employees with respect, and was able to keep the team together, under rather stressful conditions, for decades. Most of my team consisted of highly experienced and skilled engineers, with families and extracurricular lives. In the last couple of years there, we worked with an SV startup, and I got to see, up close and personal, what working in SV is like. I had been in a “silo” for a quarter-century.

It was quite sobering.

I feel that the industry has become incredibly vicious and downright mercenary, over the years. It’s always been a business, and competitive, but the zeitgeist is much nastier, these days, than it was, when I was younger.

It’s kind of disappointing. Money has leached the fun from tech. I’m really sorry for the younger folks coming into the field. They won’t ever have that sense of wonder, adventure, and community that I enjoyed.

I like (and can relate to) your comment, and the attitude it embodies. But I tripped over

> "I couldn't rely on anyone else to ... get me out of jackpots."

Huh? TIA for clarifying.

Sorry. It’s a “cultural” thing from some of the folks I have hung out with.

“Jackpot” === “Clusterfuck”

I think the origin is from something like “You hit the jackpot in the shit sweepstakes.”

Usually refers to a self-inflicted disaster.

Such a marvelous comment.

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