this kind of thing happens over and over in SV. the east coast equivalent is hedge fund managers who continue to blow up or just not produce, yet, always manage to raise new funds.
427 karma · joined June 6, 2012
Whereas now that I live in the bay area, I see companies get funded all the time and think to myself they would never get funded if they were HQ'd elsewhere.
but if you assume it's accurate, you've really got to wonder who's driving the bus. A few months ago it's "let's make this guy rich if this succeeds" and letting him start businesses on the side, and then all of a sudden it's the opposite. It would almost make one think that, maybe, everyone isn't so great at assessing impact and contribution of an individual. And if that's the case, maybe everyone should slow the roll on the whole fetishization of engineers/visionaries that's such a favorite pastime in the valley?
Salaries seem to be at an all time high. Lots of jobs and not enough good engineers.
Nothing to be terrified about.
Once I stopped sparring in the morning, I switched to a Black Diamond Dart. Easy to run with, and ample room for all the stuff you mentioned.
I now use a super light pack, and only pack my lunch, pants/shirt/socks/underwear. I live in SF, and generally don't shower unless I get really sweaty. Some people find this gross in theory but I don't, people in NYC get sweaty as hell walking from the subway to work in the summer in their regular clothes, so I've never really seen the difference.
Two big things I do come to mind: I never take my laptop to/from work everyday. I also keep dress shoes at work under my desk.
moved to SF last year for work.
Both NYC and SF have a relatively high concentration of tech folks, which is probably a lot of the HN readership.
A small subset of these kinds of systems end up at big companies, because they're acquired, or because the company grows, etc etc. How do you draw a line in the sand where everyone stops the world and re-implements all the "quick and dirty" stuff?
I briefly worked in construction and I've seen plenty of "quick and dirty" there, also, particularly in suburban renovations. Time is money in these projects, and corners are often cut. I'm not saying all engineering works this way, clearly building bridges is a different matter, but I am pointing out that there is a spectrum.
Every time I took a cab to an important meeting in manhattan, I regretted the decision. Whereas I've taken the subway to hundreds of meetings/appointments and really only gotten delayed impactfully a handful of times.
No doubt that things have declined significantly in the past year, but I do think that saying NYC is a "driving city" is overstating.
Biking on the sidewalk is WAY more common in SF than in NYC, especially in manhattan. In SF, there seems to be a few main reasons:
1 - Biking on the street would clearly be unsafe. An example here is 3rd st between portrero and soma.
2 - Biking on the sidewalk on the block where you are stopping. These are people that usually bike on the street, but pull onto the sidewalk when they are leaving/entering a building. I understand this, but wish it wasn't so common.
3 - ignorance of, or just not caring about, biking rules and conventions.
It's easy to assume that #3 is always the case and get angry about it, but it's frequently #1 or #2 and I do think some empathy is called for.
Also, you might not want all your money tied up in your mortgage: Buying a second home, too much risk for your taste in real estate market, etc.
There have always been a large set of practical skills that aren't really taught as core CS curriculum, but most professional software engineers are going to need to be comfortable with: the version control software of the day, ways of managing runtime considerations of an application (which has obviously evolved a lot recently), certainly programming languages as well.
"You need to hire more/better people" is just the standard response to almost any problem.
A lot of times enterprise sales folks are not particularly technical, so they'll often request support from a sales engineering organization.
Waiting for a music exec or manager to somehow hear your work is a terrible strategy. On average, if you wait around to be discovered, you'll be waiting a long time.
In music, networking is hugely important to being successful. Going to people's gigs, meeting others, and similar was hugely important for me to establish myself as a working musician when I moved across the country last year. But, effective networking is most necessary and productive in "gig" type economies.
In tech, meetups and such aren't always great networking opportunities because the way most technical people collaborate is in the work environment, and most people change jobs rarely. Contrast this with most musical relationships, where it's much easier to exchange information and call a new person for a gig, which happens many times per week usually.
I'm sensitive to this because early in my music career, I severely undervalued the value of networking, and watched many of my colleagues (all of whom were excellent at networking) get good gigs and opportunities. As soon as I realized I was undervaluing networking, I made a correction, and subsequently have had a much more satisfying life as a musician.
Effectively managing an organization that is at least partially remote is more difficult, and my experience in the Bay Area is that management skill is often overlooked and underdeveloped, particularly in startups.
I've seen several companies with very very competent technical founders, very capable engineering team, and not one person in the company that can manage their way out of a brown paper bag. The only way for that kind of structure to work is having everyone in the same room.
There's obviously a significant sample bias in the above.
Have a look at Tuck Andress' take on this to get a flavor: https://www.tuckandpatti.com/pick-finger_tech.shtml
You can also go to jam sessions if you live in an area that has a good music scene; I live in SF and there are regular jam sessions for bluegrass/jazz/folk/country/blues nearby. But, the thing about jam sessions is that you have to be able to play at a certain level to really enjoy them.
I think honestly the best solution is one that almost no one takes: hire really good musicians to play with you. When I was in music school, I had a professor that would literally say: "For all the money y'all pay in tuition, you would play better if you took that money and hired $famous_drummer and $famous_bassist to come play trio with you at your house".
Obviously if you are a beginner you don't need to hire the best people in town, but most professional musicians in this day and age are going to be happy for a gig like this.
Definitely a lot of learning for me, particularly regarding the bow. I went through the George Vance books and they were helpful with the basics.
I was able to start playing professionally on it pretty quickly, though, played my first gig on upright after 6 months of playing. But things like higher thumb positions and soloing with the bow (I'm a jazz musician) are very much a work in progress. Luckily, in jazz you can get a long way just knowing a couple positions.
The biggest advantages to learning as an adult is on average you are going to have money to pay for lessons and a decent instrument, and are probably going to be more organized in terms of practicing and all that.
The disadvantages are that it's harder to network and find others at your level to play with. And, to be clear, the way to get good at, and enjoy music, is to play with other people. Even one-on-one lessons are a form of playing with others, and many adults use lessons as a proxy for playing with others.
Playing with other people was a very easy thing for me to do when I was coming up, and I'd imagine it would be significantly harder for an adult. But, I believe it's critical to enjoyment and success in music.
- It's quite common for investors to push hiring more people as a way to get more stuff done. The general refrain you will hear from many investors on how to (move faster|fix problem) is to hire for it.
- The default thing to do with capital to invest is to acquire/hire.
I guess to summarize, staying lean just isn't a priority for these companies or their investors. The expectation is enormous growth or failure. The reality is often quite more nuanced.