> I regret being born too late to work somewhere like Bell Labs, SGI, or Sun.
For each of those firms there was a 'golden era' and then a time when the company coasted on their laurels, and then the slide to irrelevancy.
For each of those firms there was a 'golden era' and then a time when the company coasted on their laurels, and then the slide to irrelevancy.
Point being entshittification comes at a cost, and companies partaking in shitty activities can only keep this up for so long.
I do think the dynamic there is still a bit different from where the term usually applies, since advertising involves three parties in addition to the middleman, not just two -- the above comment was looking at things from the perspective of end users, in terms of where they prefer to watch videos, and that actually may represent a constraint on how much "enshittification" can happen that's particular to this industry.
They're literally the middleman between layfolk an the Internet itself?
I think their strategy is to poison the internet so thoroughly that no better search becomes possible. The costs alone to spin up a new search company are an enormous barrier to entry, they'd only need to erect a few more to make it impossible.
Intel never managed to leverage its dominance in x86 CPUs into dominance in other markets though, and that is the key difference to the ultra-large companies I mentioned... yes, they did have ARM offerings (XScale, I 'member tinkering with an NSLU2 decades ago), they did have a cellular modem line (that failed and got sold to Apple eventually), they still do have the Intel Wireless lineup (which is pretty widespread but has a healthy competition), and they got a decent dGPU lineup that nevertheless is at, what, 1% of market share?
And that is what is screwing over Intel at the moment. The server CPU market is going down the drain, gaming consoles went to AMD, Apple is completely lost as a customer (thanks to Intel's various fuckups) and consumer device demand is shifting to phones where Intel has absolutely zero presence. And on top of that their fabs have fallen way behind plan - to think of that Intel has to go to TSMC? How far the mighty has fallen.
For example Thorn used to be massive in the 80s and by the end of the 90s it had ceased to exist. Arqiva is another that’s presently in freefall despite previously being too big to fail.
Also, I dont really think you can accuse IBM of a lack of diversification.
Check the list of companies they've acquired, divisions they've divested, random research they're doing. While mainframe is a big portion of their revenues (depending on year), they're super diversified.
He had the means so he paid off his mortgage, invested in another property, took care of college fund.
Decided he didn't want to spend rest of his days wringing his mind and drenching off energy into deciding and debating whether it is ok to call a lambda from another lambda (yes I have seen this in production and the more experienced engineer decided to do it because he had been there longer and decided that's what he wanted to do... don't ask me which company was this but it was a FAANG) or setup a step function to orchestrate the two lambda calls... or some such equivalent problem he might have come across in his SGI days.. and instead picked a job that required little amount of cognitive effort compared to what he would have done if he was still in the same line of work but still managed to support the rest of his life/needs/responsibilities.
Might as well have been an artist, construction worker or he might as well have done nothing, absolutely nothing, and it could have been everything that one would have thought it could have been.
I won't judge knowing what I know at my age. People do what they do.
Feel free to imagine what you would imagine this ex-SGI engineer's life to have been and make it negative if you want it to be. No one knows until OP throws in more details if they have any.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/05/harvard-taxi-drivers...
Macguire's original study on taxi drivers:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10716738/
BTW it's Fall! So here's to memories - "Four Strong Winds" written by Ian Tyson, sung by Neil Young:
https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/larry-ellison-invests-oxford-i...
https://www.oracle.com/uk/news/announcement/oracle-invest-fi...
They're also privately held, which makes a difference.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/01/inside-epic-systems-mythical...
This is from 2022; they've built a number of new themed buildings since then, including Star Trek.
You have said that the driver worked because he had (enough money?) and he might have wanted to relax with the driving job but still, its an amazing story.
The question that arises is: How can you potentially spot which companies are about/likely to enter a 'golden era' when you interview there? What questions could surface some sort of likelihood? Is it possibly to identify them before they enter the 'golden era'?
I worked there for almost 27 years.
The pay was mediocre. The structure and process would drive a lot of folks here, into fits.
But they consistently and routinely produced stuff that cost tens of thousands of dollars, and that people would stake their entire careers on. Stuff that some folks would assume was impossible to make. They have thousands and thousands of hard-core patents.
I felt pride for working there. My business card opened a lot of pretty amazing doors.
It's disappointing to see the stuff that folks here post, when I mention it. It almost seems as if people think I'm exaggerating or outright lying or boasting.
I'm not. There are places that foster greatness; simply by being a place that has a long culture of accomplishment. I was just someone that stood on the shoulders of giants, and I was lucky to have the experience.
That said, I think some of their managers made some big mistakes, and they took a drubbing, but I will bet that they are already getting back on their feet. They are really tough. They weathered being bombed in World War II, and multiple depressions and recessions.
With that said, if you were to try to figure out how someone from the outside could see that it was a great place to work, during an interview, what questions/topics do you think could have surfaced that as clearly as possible?
In my case, I was contacted by a recruiter (the old-fashioned kind, which no longer exists). It was quite low-key. When they first contacted me, I thought it was a joke.
I was flown out to a trade show in San Jose, for my initial interview, and to Long Island, for my follow-up. There were no coding tests. I started as an engineer, on a brand-new team of two. I became the manager of that team, after a few years.
I think observing the people there; seeing how they interact with each other, is important.
Of course, looking at their products is also key. Asking yourself "Do I want to help make this stuff?" is important.
In my case, I was intrigued by the culture of the Japanese. I was born overseas, and spent most of my formative years in a pretty heterogenous environment. I like to mix it up with strange (to me) people.
It is interesting that it was interpreted as some kind of threat, requiring an insult, in response.
Have a great day!
The process should not be adversarial, in my opinion. It's a contract. I do something; you do something. There may be adversity, but that's not required, and it's actually likely to cause problems, down the road. Like any contractural relationship, each party needs to respect and trust the other party to come through with their end.
If the way that you introduce your company to me, is by bullying me (and tests are not "bullying," but many of the other interview games are), then we won't be working together. I don't like bullies. I won't be one, and I won't work with them.
These folks kept me on for a long time. There was a reason for that. I can't speak for all Japanese companies, but this one did not suffer skaters. You delivered, and you were constantly held to account. I did well in that environment. I suspect that many, here, would not.
I don't argue that companies should not give tests. I had tests in other interviews, and did fine. This company chose not to. One reason, is that the folks interviewing me, fought fang, tooth, and claw, for the headcount. When I became a manager, I had to do the same. It was a crazy frugal company.
This meant that they dedicated all their attention to the interview process. This wasn't where they were handed my CV, five minutes before they spoke to me. I was around them all day. They watched me work with others, and they gauged me on my character, more than my tech abilities. The Japanese are really big on character. At least, this company was.
I mentioned that I had an "old-fashioned" recruiter. They don't seem to have those, any more, but part of his job, was to vet me, before putting me forward. They trusted him, and paid him well. I was working for GE, before I interviewed, and had a fairly substantial amount of background, in hardware. That was important to them (it was a hardware company).
I guess that I said the right things, and they gave me a chance. I appreciated it, and worked hard to reward their faith.
I know that my attitude is considered "quaint," in today's cutthroat tech world, but I always legitimately believed in personal Integrity, Honesty, and Loyalty. These qualities actually meant something to this company. I am quite aware that they elicit scorn, from today's tech bros, but they worked for me.
> “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.”
― Hunter S. Thompson
I suspect that when tech became a place to earn big salaries, is when the dodgy folks started showing up.
It's always been common for folks with little background in tech, or unrelated experience, to apply for jobs. In fact, as a manager, I often looked for that. I was fairly decent at finding "diamond in the rough" talent (I sort of had to, as my company didn't pay especially well).
But, apparently, these days, even fairly innocuous job postings are inundated with tons of totally unqualified (and a significant portion of the "qualified" ones are outright fabrications) CVs.
Also, you get people that are crooks, applying.
The other side (in my opinion), is that modern tech CEOs are behaving quite badly. They consider their workforce to be some kind of hostile, subhuman slurry, and they treat their workers as such.
In order to fix this, the C-Suite needs to "blink first." They need to do better at treating their workers and prospective workers, well. HR culture also needs to change. It's become outright hostile to employees. I saw that happen in my own company, which started off, quite friendly towards employees. By the time I left, it was pretty much openly hostile.
That's unlikely to materialize, in today's tech industry. Any company that does this, will be eaten alive by their competition.
If people are serious about improving things, then legislation needs to be introduced, to prevent companies that improve their employee relations, from being killed by their competitors, and to help companies to survive manifesting risks, when they take chances on employees.
I am not optimistic that this will happen. If it does happen, it’s unlikely that it will be done well. In fact, the chances are good, that it would make things worse.
Maxing out all 3 of those is incredibly rare, but I think once people reach some degree of financial stability, almost all of them go for a job that feels like it's meaningful.
By the time their golden age is known outside of the company they are very likely near the decline phase; even if they aren't you are going to be competing with the best now.
For actual upper level leadership: they have the ability to make the golden age happen but studying the circumstances that allowed it to happen at other companies and being very selective about employee number 2-49. After that it's out of your hands.
Yeah, but that's the thing, when you're interviewing, you usually have some sort of access to talk to future potential colleagues, your boss and so on, and they're more open because you're not just "outside the company" but investigating if you'd like to join them. You'll get different answers compared to someone 100% outside the company.
That's true, but you have to be kind of smart about it. If you just ask the question "Is working here fulfilling?", of course they'll say "Yes, super!". But you cannot take that at face value, your questions need to shaped in a way so you can infer if working there is fulfilling, by asking other questions that can give you clues into that answer.
Indeed. There's an old saying that A-level people hire A-level people, but B-level people hire C-level people.
Obviously this is too simplistic: How do any B-level people get there in the first place? But there's still some truth to the idea that the overall talent level of a company tends to degrade as it gets larger unless very unusual structures are in place to work against that tendency.
Maybe this is the crux of the issue.
“The A students work for the B students and the C students become federal judges.”
When you're at a company at that stage that's doing well and has a lot of commercial runway ahead of it, the reality can often end up being that the golden age will last long enough for a very pleasant 4-6 year tenure if you so decide to stay at the company through its growth phase (which often takes it from a 50m-100m valuation to $1B+). Some of these companies will also make the leap from $1B+ to $10B+ or beyond (which makes the golden era at least as long as 6-10 years) and although nothing lasts forever, it can last long enough for you to find what you're looking for at least for a decently long period of time. This pertains to what other commenters have mentioned with regards to "making it golden" -- the golden era is what it is because everyone needs to make it golden and the company is too small for anyone who would dilute that for their own gain to do so without anyone noticing.
The challenge to this approach is that it requires being able to assess a company's commercial prospects as well as the quality of the company's founders, leadership and early team well enough to assess whether the company merely looks like a golden era company or whether it is actually the real deal -- something which even professional investors who target these kinds of companies struggle with. It is possible, but in my experience, it definitely took a couple of rounds of trial and error and getting burned a few times before my radar worked.
Better advice: when interviewing ask questions when they ask if you have any! Find out what the job is really like.
Ask what hours they normally work - if they give exact times that means they are strict about the times. If they give a lot of hours that means you are expected to work a lot of hours. If they give a range that means they really have flexible times. If they talk about leaving early for their kids third grade events that means they support families.
Ask what they really wear - this is clue to what the dress code is like.
Ask about the perks you care about. I don't play ping-pong so won't mention that perk if I'm interviewing you, but if you ask I can tell you that there are regular tournaments and people do play games here and there, but the tables are empty in the middle of the afternoon: if you care about this perk ask, otherwise focus questions elsewhere.
There are a lot of great jobs. There are a lot of bad jobs. There are jobs that you would hate for reasons that the people who work there don't even care about. There are jobs you will think are great that others will hate.
Was thinking more "Imagine you have 30 years of experience and casually looking for the next Bell Labs, what to look out for when there are the company?"
If you're looking for the next Bell Labs, why not try to found it?