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Dot-commers Back to the Dorm
securitas writes: "This is an interesting story about how many dot-com workers and CEOs left school, went broke, and are now back to their dorm rooms, studies, and keggers, having been through the modern equivalent of the Holland's tulip mania." Free reg. req. Bleah.
Sorry, but so what?
They were doing something, did something else for a while, and now they're doing the first thing again.
There's nothing at all special about that.
Damn.
::Colz Grigor
I returned to school at the peak of the market since I could finally afford to pay for that fifth, six, and seventh year.
Looks like you actually managed to put in the "archive" part, so that people don't have to register to read it. Watch your back, doing a good thing is considered tabboo here ;>
The comment about having to share a dorm room and all that entails when you lived, for some, the life of the CEO must be humbling indeed.
...
Those in other countries perhaps can't understand of which we speak - a CEO in the US makes about 500 to 600 times the base pay of the lowest paid employee in the US, not the 30 to 40 times common in Europe or the 20 to 30 times common in Asia.
So one day they're living the life of Riley, jetting around; the next I'm watching a film with them at the Film Fest, and they have less than my friends who work part time.
Zam. Icarus, you flew so high
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
the editors FINALLY fixed the url so you don't have to give out all your personal information to see the article
Free reg required? Not when you supplied the archives link...
Heh...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
No it isn't. Try checking your own links once in a while, eh? :)
-Legion
They need to learn how to write closed-source software that's actually useful and that non-geeks can use.
I've got a .net company that hasn't gone out of business. And failure or not I will not go back to school. Freaking University of Missouri St. Louis SUCKS!!!!!!
I can't understand 90% of the professors because of their heavy accents.
I don't want to sound racist because I'm not but if I can't understand what the heck they're saying they shouldn't be teaching.
School isn't for everyone.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Well, you can be assured that Bill Gates won't be returning to the dorms ever again, with an income totaling to billions of dollars, I think he's pretty well off without his college education.
void women (int money, time_t time);
seeing hot girls again , instead of your greasy cubicle mates?
keggers instead of the watercooler?
sounds pretty good when you aren't making 6 figures and your stock options are worth less than your used college textbook.
A lot of my friends who went to dot-coms and e-business pipe dreams are now going back to school for more. I guess you just try to do the last thing that made you happy. For a lot of us who were beaten in the dot com bust that means school. At least we'll have plenty of doctors and lawyers who can code too.
maybe these real life students have something to teach. Absolutely no one had a rational grip with what was going on through this huge tech boom. Frankly I do not believe anyone has one now. Watching the news certainly doesn't help, everone has a conflicting opinion. These VETS have been to war and have come back with unique experience that the general public does not have. I give these guys props for holding their heads up and pressing forward. This is a tough world and you got to give credit where credit is due.
Just an everyday guy....nothing special
The herd instinct played a large part in the defection of so many students to cyberbusinesses. Before the bubble burst, everybody seemed to be getting in on the action, and no one wanted to be left behind.
....
Then, in August, Bluedog.com went under, and Mr. Douglas was suddenly just another unemployed dot-commer. "There was a great deal of grieving," he said. "It was really comforting to come back to school and throw myself into something more stable -- write papers, study for tests, earn my degree. No one can take those things from me." After graduation, he chose one of the oldest professions around: acting.
I think I will let this one speak for itself.
Goat sex free since 2001
To get to a page where you have to fill out an annoying registration form before you can read the story, just replace "archive" with "www". Here's an example.
(I guess i'll call this "karma anti-whoring")
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
First you get to go to a place where you get to drink beer on your parents tab and room with coeds.
Then you make more money in a day then your parents make there entire life.
Then you go back and drink have sex again.
Yah gosh, those dotcommers have it rough...
One of my colleagues was recently let go and looked for a job, without much results. So he decided to head on back to school.
He was involved in "dot coms" for the past couple years after dropping out of college. To be honest he was hired because we NEEDED people - the rapid growth thing led to some crazy hiring decisions. We hired our share of idiots.
Anyone see this before?
So it's good he's going back to school, and to be honest, he really needs the education. Maybe he'll go into political science or something. He just wasn't cut out for the technology business.
So all this isn't about dot-com CEOs going back to school. It's about the uneducated going back to get an education.
However, the techy types, the ones working in the dark computer rooms, alone with 80Hz monitor emissions, are the ones who find it difficult to be reemployed because their MCSE skills are so much in oversupply, and so easy to attain. Why employ one when you can just promote the office boy?
This may seem controversial, but the simple fact is that these people are back in unemployment because they just don't have the talents for sustained professional performance. If they did, they'ed be employed. If they had been good, the companies wouldn't have went bust.
QED
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
maybe then we can have some real inovation in the industry, instead of workers with a bunch of certifications that say they a TRAINED to do tasks, instead of think for themselves.
techienews network help us beta!!!
Website Hosting
I'll sell you a bunch of shares in various DotComs at their 1999 levels? OK???? In fact, I'll give you a deal, half off.
I was offered several high paying and risky jobs at startups but refused them all, preferring to stay in my current gig as a well-paid (not exhorbitantly) consultant in a very vertical market. I figured I didn't want to be one of the layoffs everybody should have seen coming and now I have many friends who got loans based on fictitious stock prices and now owe the banks more then they can probably make in 10 years without the pumped up silliness of their former jobs. So as it stands now I have a great job, many opportunities and in my business work only increases when there are layoffs (downtime!! :-) so I am a happy camper. I used to wish I had taken some of those jobs but got cold feet and now am glad I did. Stability and growth are what its about, not stocks that you HOPE in a year you can sell for what they are worth now.
Whenever booms like these arise, it's a great opportunity for students to cast down the shackles of academia and strike it out on their own. For years, it was entirely possible for young people to forgo college careers altogether and give of themselves fully in the high-tech industry.
But now that it's over and they're coming back to academia, the viscious cycle begins anew. These students, once they graduate, will have both classroom experience and real-world experience, and it'll simply raise the bar for everyone else. The choice for students arrived from outside the dotcom market will be between either taking time off and taking significant internships during their student years or simply go for more education (most will choose the latter). It'll be an upward spiral of higher education begetting better qualified workers begetting a need for higher education.
That's why it's critical, now more than ever, that we abolish universal education. Darwinian sociology tells us that the best will lead no matter what their headstart, so we should do away with unnecessary artificial government intervention in the education markets. Starting from a young age, children should be given strong incentives to go into factory work or indentured servitude, thereby setting a sufficient hurdle that only the truly motivated will enter primary and higher education.
The dotcom boom and bust was an important economic moment in history, but let's not let ourselves lose track of the bigger picture. Education is, one of the most important determining factors in people's quality of life, but we must not allow ourselves to overvalue its function or be irresponsible in its delivery.
There will always be a place for young people to go instead of university. The sooner we pull out of this economic slump, the better for these people.
Umm... is it just me, or was this story already posted a few days ago? I seem to remember reading it on /.
"To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
From the article: "You're sitting in class, and meanwhile, you're hearing about people your age making millions and millions of dollars,"
/. ;-).
Well, this is like seeing a news report on how *someone* wone $M's in the lottery and than everyone jumps on and goes crazy beliving they are *the-one* going to win next no matter what.
Lets face it, the number of the DOT-COM'ers that made a $M+ are propotional to the number of people win the lottery to those who don't. The irony is that news media loves to give you news on such unique situations (and we love to hear them) -- so it ends up sounding as if *every* DOT-COM company is a $M winner where the reality is it's only 1 out of a M just like in a lottery.
Lets regulate the news-media -- maybe
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
heck i've worked and now am back in school (not forced but on my free will)... i find working too restraining .. you gotta code what you are told to code .. i find research more interesting (you get paid to do what you want) .. so this isn't a bad deal for thee dot-commers .. well they had their fun (and $$) now time to get down and get some serious work done besides making web pages ( not that its not a serious one .. but not for some coding guru )
I'm in the same boat, but I never left school, and my dot-com actually worked. Well, maybe I'm not in the same boat...
With a $40,000 salary and a trove of stock options, he also took his girlfriend to fine restaurants, gave lavish wine parties and booked a two-week vacation to England.
....
They must be some very good stock options because, I don't know about were this guy lives, but $40,000 is not enough to do all the stuff he is doing were I live
man
No manual entry for
Next thing you know they'll be throwing millions at the kid down the street with the lemonade stand. I better go talk to the little pip sqeak to see if I can get in on some pre-IPO shares.
------
www.moneybythenumbers.com
But, I managed some really cool stuff in the last several months - I started Oomind.com which is a pretty cool educational concept. The idea is to "open" education: anyone can be a learner and an educator and an accreditor using a sophisticated (some might say complicated) moderation system.
So if any of you out there are thinking about education instead of work, please check out oomind.com. It is set up so that you might even make a little money for your contributions to the system. Check out the following links for more info:
The Philosophy of Oomind
Introduction to Oomind
Thanks for taking the time to read my little blatant self-promotion. If anyone has suggestions about the Oomind system, I would love to hear them.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
I may just have to go postal...
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
but I'm making less money than ever and I'm happier than ever.
A REPRINT! NOT MY WORK!
WHOEVER WROTE THIS IS MY NEW GOD
BTW, offtopic I know, but last time a discussion came up about degrees and career paths, boatloads of you hosers were spouting off on how you were l33t and knew you sh1t and made the bux, and how everybody was your bitches. I work in technical HR and I got flamed for posting the real reality of the situation. Well its a different day and just last Sunday there was an advert for a job fair in the DFW area for several dozen companies. Firstly the ad said "all positions require 3+ years and most require a degree". The fun part was actually at the fair. After it was over and a bunch of us HR folks went out for drinks (HR has lots of good loking chicks BTW) we had a good laugh about hot so many of your types are walking around with their tails between their legs trying to get jobs that pay 60% of what they were making when they got laid of 6-9 months before.
Also alot of laughs were had about what qualifies for instant filing in the old circular file. For example: no suit, TRASH CAN; visible tattos or piercing, TRASH IT; any sort of attitude, BYE BYE; no degree at all or incompleted degrees SEE-YA (yes even for IT positions); H1-B, sorry but upper management will not let us even look at the extra legal cost involved; wierd hair, THANK YOU HAVE A NICE DAY! You know how many folks out there have certification of one sort or another? Every single one who came by. Moved jobs around alot, more jobs then years of experience? NOPE not a chance in HELL!
Do you folks have any idea of the wonderful house cleaning that we did? Any lippy or attitude blasting employees, GONE. Not keeping regular hours (in at 9 don't care when you leave), BUHBYE. Making more then we think you should (mmmm, like more then 50k), HISTORY! Ya know they managed to trim over half a mil off the old payroll? Do you also know that as your salaries rose, so did ours? Especially those if us in technical recruiting? Did you also know that as yours has dropped by 10-30%, ours has remained steady? No more palm pilots, no more areon chairs for your fat asses, no more telecommuting (accounting tells me that I would be suprised how much that cut costs).
Do you know how I am making my rep as a kickass tech recruiter? I get well educated, well groomed, punctual, regular, hardworking, loyal, reasonable, candidates and weed from there. We have a long term plan too. If those candidates get hired and work out and prove themselves, they will be back up at their old rates in 2-4 years. If they dont work out, plenty more where they came from.
Yeah but, he is like Bill Gates the 3rd or something.. I mean the chances of you becoming another Bill by dropping out of university and you not comming from a rich family background are much more slim.
It's sad, but I've seen a lot of ex-dotcommers looking for jobs recently.
The good ones just sit down and show their skills. We talk about a real job versus returning to school, etc.
The bad ones explain that they were a CEO/CTO, whatever, and want an equivalent job at our "real" company. We try to keep to a straight face while we explain that, if they are hired, they will have the title of "ultra-junior hire," and will be reporting to a person that left school a year or two before them (but who actually put the effort into learning about a real business.)
The real entrepeneurs aren't returning to school... they're getting decent jobs with good advancement possibilites right now. It's the poseurs that took a flier on cheap VC capital who are slinking back to an education on their parents' money.
We have to turn people fresh from college away from our open posititions at work. They dont have any pratical experience in troubleshooting, teamwork, and physical experience with tcp/ip, unix, networking, networked applications, etc. We have hired alot of dot.com'rs, they have more experience than people with BA in computer science. Some people even started at ISP's as teenagers and worked thier way up to being an engineer. Only recently has colleges started giving courses that apply to the real world.
On the subject of no jobs for dot.com peeps, we have 7 openings in my group (growth), and almost 30 for our department. We cant even find the right people to fill the jobs, it seems hard to find any unix/dba/network specialist or someone with a little experience who would pick it up. We hired one person who started 2 ISP's from scratch and sold them off before the boom, a very rare find. The local head hunters run out of people with any marketable skills quickly.
This is in Seattle Washington, so people in BFE like Spokane Washington would still be out of work.
I did the dot com thing for a while and I still hold out some hope for the stock I own. I then saw that tech company was progressing from a developer to a service provider (online trading) and since I much prefer development work to tech support I made my escape and went to work for a ski hill for the winter.
I've since landed a job teaching a Webmaster program for a private post-secondary institution in BC. In a way I'm much happier doing this than I was coding. I get to apply my technology knowledge and also use my social skills and interact with real people every day.
The whole idea of more tech workers being needed is at least partialy because there are not enough really good thorough focused training programs out there. If you found out during the dot com rush that you have a talent in technology and you've always been a good explainer and information sharer. Then perhaps one possible career move would be to go into teaching in a technology program.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
personally I think it's a pretty good time to go to college. Me? I did it the wrong way. I went through college all throughout the boom, and just recently graduated. And a college graduate has a tough time, in a market where a lot of people with good experience are roaming in droves looking for work. I guess I got lucky and got a decent job, but I know more than a couple of my friends whom I graduated with aren't so lucky. Then again I'm not exactly doing what I went to college for either...
Make the money while it's good, then go back to college when you probably wouldn't be able to get a job anyway? Sounds like a plan. And what is the big deal with the money anyhow? I mean sure making a decent money is important, but this article basically stressed that THAT is what the tech industry is all about (okay, and yeah it is to some extent). Thinking of my college experience, I saw more than a couple people who were CS type students who didn't even like programming much: they just wanted a high salary. To me, if you're really into tech stuff, the quality of your work will show through. If you're just in it for the money, then chances are you'll probably get the job done and nothing else (if that much), and that's what I think was wrong with the "dot com's" in the first place.
Has anyone seen the book by one of the former CEOs/founders of theglobe.com? He and his buddy finished college (I think?), started the company, thought they had it made, then it all fell apart. A shell of the company still exists, but they haven't been apart of it for some time.
Hah, I am still working right on through the tech boom.
.com hours. The trick is I still have a job ;)
I love my job and got offered plenty of those, "80 dollars a hour" jobs. Lets see, offering 80 bucks an hour to someone who is 19 with a year of college and two years of full time work experience as a software developer, Hmmmmmn....
It was just too good. So, I took the lesser paying job because I knew the company I am working for would be around. Yeah I worked those crazy
Jeremy
You are naturally speaking from what you want as employee material in the post you are seeking to fill. If you want someone that can maintain a Unix/Win box, knows the main driver conflicts, and doesn't mind spending a lot of time under a desk then a BSc CompSci isn't going to be as useful. However if you want a programmer, or db guru, then it's pretty essential. The boom sucked many people into the industry that call themselves 'programmers' who don't know basic algorithms (yes, I've seen bubble-sort used in live code). I'm currently rewriting the backend for a retailer, cutting down their stock update time from over 12 hours to just over 5 minutes. All it took was some database knowledge and some simple routines (eg binary searches and trees). Most of it 1st year CompSci stuff. It is stuff however that needs to be *taught*. Of all the dot-commers that are going back to school, or unemployed, I bet virtually none of them are programmers with BSc in CompSci.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Hell yes. During this whole thing, there were times when I was tempted to leave the small-ish (but quite stable) company I'm with. I had friends who were making 2-3x my salary, often doing less or with more fringe benefits (telecommuting, etc). I put out resumes, got a couple offers, some quite nice, but it just didn't feel right. Now I'm glad I stayed put...my salary is sufficient such that I think I am paid enough for the job I do, and only 2 people were laid off. I have a number of friends that suddenly found themselves jobless in all this, and I almost have to laugh when they act like it really could have lasted indefinitely.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
I can just barely imagine the piles of crappy code these people have been churning out while working dotcom. Fast business and time-to-market was the keyword, so one can't really blame them I guess, but just thinking about these mountains of absolutely useless crap that powered the sites makes me ill.
Back to school, hopefully they'll learn something this time.
(yes, my company has worked with a couple of "new economy" startups, so I know what I'm talking about).
sig sig sputnik
Get used to it. You've had it too easy if you think you can get it all for nothing.
I dropped out of highschool to get into the dot-com craze. I did work at a dot-com that failed and then moved on about a year ago to a traditional company, luckily I got in because the market was strapped. I probably wouldn't be able to get a job without a high school diploma making as much as I do now.
Forget returning to school, if I can keep this job long enough, my plan is to purchase a franchise of some sort with the money i've been saving from this job so hopefully I dont have to worry about getting laid off anymore.
I agree with ya - I make $42k at my day job before any overtime or bonuses. I live almost dead center of the US where the cost of living is fairly cheap (except for gas at the moment.) My idea of vacation (the first REAL non-working vacation in years) was to go to Colorado, and I could barely afford it. And I've got a second income from my game company!
He lived it up and partied on the idea that the stock options were going to be worth a fortune, or that somehow he was going to end up with an even higher salary. Well, I'm sure he's learned his lesson well enough now :-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
If you're only making $40k in the silicon valley, you're getting royally screwed. A studio apartment costs $1300 a month, most places make you pay all the utilities, and gas is roughly $2.00 a gallon for regular.
There really are no jobs left out here unless you're willing to get cut throat, its a 10,000 to 1 job ratio. Maybe school isnt a bad idea, of course now I have no money left from paying rent and bills.
I know this is not the right place to ask, but where can I find information about these job openings? I'm a recent college graduate [comp-sci], with 5 years of working experience working for the comp dept at the college. I'm unemployed and looking for a job as a linux/net admin prefferably.
--- d'oh
Some of these companies had some good ideas (though most of them didn't), but managed their money so poorly that it shocked me. Everyone was in too much of a rush to get filthy rich that they didn't take it slowly and make sacrifices.
I think the next time around, people should become wise to the following:
-$700 is $700... you don't need that Aeron anyway.
-If you want your company to grow, you're going to have to make some initial sacrifices. That means CEOs of
-If you need to "bend over" for the VCs... you've already lost.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
you bastard
Seriously - these people aren't cut out for work (speaking from experience).
And - when they drop out of college more high tech jobs for those of us that did graduate!
The main problem I found with computer/technology students. Is that a lot of them have an Ego that they are the best there is. I dont need to learn this stuff, I can program anything I want. Then they leave college (sometimes due to poor grades) and write Bad code. I was a computer Wizz in high school and at college. But I look at my code that I did my freshman year (I was working part time in a software house then too) and I think to myself "My God this code is aufull!" My code after formal Computer Science Training has become much smaller and more elegant. And I realize now that I can probably still impove on it. But a lot of the Dot Com dropouts never put them selfs in a position where they were challanged and in a position where there is so many computer eliterates out there that they are praised like gods. While at school you are just the normal joe. Techs need to be humbled it pushes them to go further and the drop of the Dot Com is buisness evelution where the best Dot Coms will survive while all the little guys who never did anything will die out.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Let me further preface this comment by saying that I do realize the overinflated tech sector actually collapsed (duh), that I understand that jobs are pretty hard to come by at the moment, and that I'm fairly afraid of what would happen if I lost mine somehow.
But (here comes the comment) I had the same fear back before the collapse. I came in at the tail end of the boom, and I was employed at what everyone around me considered an absurdly low wage (and which, really, was pretty low). I took the job because I believed the work was worthwhile and something I could be proud to have participated in (it was, it is). But despite my relatively low wages, I managed to save nearly half of what I made, simply by living within my means. I simply wasn't comfortable with debt or with living on the edge of my bank account.
Sure enough, I lost that job, through no fault of my own. When it happened, I had enough money to live for just under half a year, but I was still scared sick, because there wasn't more coming.
Didn't take long, fortunately, for me to find a new job. I now make twice as much as I was making before... and I'm saving money at about two and a half times the rate, because I haven't increased my expenses much over what they had been (I lost two roommates, so the rent tripled). It will probably be years before I do, and you can be sure I'll have at least one significant raise under my belt beforehand.
I guess my point is that I don't understand how people can suddenly find themselves making twice what they should be making (often more) and respond by spending it all. Think about how much money some of those people could have in the bank, right now... And it's not for the sake of the money itself, it's the security and peace of mind that having something to fall back on -- or someday build a future on -- gives you. I'd rather have that than a Porsche any day.
I'm probably not supposed to talk about this (NDA's and such), but this story hits pretty close to home. Dunno if anybody remembers Aimster (which technically, I guess, is still around and trying to figure out a way to survive). Four of the original developers (me and three of my friends) were RPI students that were persuaded away from our Junior/Senior years to devote all of our time to the company. Since then, quite a few more developers have been brought on, almost all from RPI.
:)
Well, classes started two weeks ago, and Aimster's in an awful lot of trouble. On top of the financial woes stereotypical of most startups, its full-time development staff has been reduced from about 12-15 down to one or two. Why? My personal reason for leaving: after a year away, I realized just how much fun going to school really is, when compared to the "real world," and also how important it is to finish school now, while I'm still motivated enough -- the longer you're away, the harder it is to go back. Several developers are continuing in fairly limited part-time positions while taking classes, but classes are the priority.
The missight that I feel I made when I decided to leave school was this: I chose to believe that a company that hadn't even existed a month yet would be able to give me everything it said it would; also, I leapt at an opportunity for "quick-and-easy" gains without thinking about long-term effects.
This isn't to say that I think working at Aimster was a bad experience, or a waste of time -- I even got more than half of what they said they'd give me(!). But if another company approached me and promised me the world if I would just leave school, they'd have to deliver it up front -- and even then I might not take their offer
By the way: I bear no animosity toward anyone at Aimster, at least no more than you bear toward the rollercoaster after you get off at the end of the ride.
Classes are not the only way to learn in college. I managed to get hired last year to do tech support work for a decently sized university. I worked all year last year, and am working there again this year. What have I learned from this job? Teamwork, troubleshooting, lots of experience with TCP/IP problems, networking problems, and even some stuff about how to run wires (they normally don't let the Student Consultants do anything with wiring). All the skills that you say you're looking for, but not finding in people fresh from college. All this and I'm still only a sophomore. (even though I've still got more time to go, not too early to start looking for a job ... if you're interested in hiring me, drop me a line)
-
I cannot comprehend your vision of society. Education is the best tool against poverty and ignorance. More education is a GOOD thing. It is not a dangerous tool that should be given only to the worthy.
You seem to have some kind of ideals but it is not clear. A system you are suggesting provides education only to those who can afford it. Why should a poor family struggle to provide education to their children, when I rich family can do it without problems. How could this possible be of benefit to society. Education should be available to all people who are capable of being educated, be they rich or poor. This is what will lead to a better society.
Of course I am talking about true education, teaching people to think criticaly, to analyse, to solve problems, to think for themselves. and providing the resources to help them expand their knowledge. I am not talking about a piece of paper that guarentees them a better job than someone else. Perhaps this is what you are talking about.
"Me and my girl named bimbo . . . limbo . . . spam" - Captain Beefheart.
Tulip mania? What did I miss?
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Thank you, nonetheless, for your adulation.
huh? offtopic? quote from the story:
"... back to their dorm rooms, studies, and keggers, having been through the modern equivalent of the Holland's tulip mania."
So how is this tulip mania offtopic now? When was the tulip mania anyway, and who was involved, where did it happen?
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Sorry to seem ignorant, but what's a kegger?
Is it some esoteric American thing?
Anyone know what happened to this guy? The web site is still there, but is Geoff Cook still involved?
Ade_
/
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
A Ponzi scheme, named after Charles Ponzi who defrauded people in the 1920s using the method, involves getting people to invest in something for a guaranteed rate of return and using the money of later investors to pay off the earlier ones.
...
... http://skepdic.com/pyramid.html
Isn't this some sort of urban legend floating around?
When a 24 y.o. agency bimbo asks you what version of MS-VC you have worked with, be sure to mention the *latest* version and to say that you've used it for 2 years even. Don't worry about the truth, just make sure they hear the numbers they want to hear. If you fail to do so : "4.5 ? Oh that's too bad, my customer wants someone with 4.6". Above all, don't even try to point out that 4.6 is 3 weeks old, just lie.
This is just one example among many, the list is too long.
I've sometimes asked an agency who at the employer's firm had written the job spec. It is often the employers' HR dept (who have about as much of a clue as the agency fools) who do that. Great.
Along with the dumb numbers games you also get despicable tactics to get some kind of psychological reading from you. Yeah, sorry, I'm not a fucking super-cool dude, when I go into an interview I'm very slightly on edge. If you deliberately put me in an interview that's rigged to put me at a disadvantage you'll just end up pissing me off.
Check this out : interviewer sits on a design office chair at the usual height off the floor. I'm told to sit on some design sofa with my ass 6 inches off the ground, your knees touch your chin, your smart pants ride up and your hairy shins are on display for all to see.
I hate those recruiter shits with a passion. The only difference now is that I've learned all their stupid tactics. It still doesn't calm my hate for those parasites.
Phew, that was a good rant.
I was one of the multitudes, a programmer working for a dot com (one which still exists in spite of itself) who gave up on that and tried consulting. eventually, after that didn't work out, I decided that sitting in a cubicle with some pointy haired dumbass pestering me about every little thing really sucked. and I let go of the idea of being a programmer for money, and I'm now in a *completely* different job. I'm still a hacker, but I do what I do for the love.
been there, done that, had sense enough to move on. go back to college to finish the cs degree? no. I don't *think* so.
Karma only matters to me now and zen.
Come now, I'm all for experience, but this is "experience" hardly that.
Firstly, there is a world of difference between the "get-rich-quick" work ethic and that of someone fighting for a real startup--where they actually have to make things work.
Secondly, very few DotComemrs took real risk. Sure, many watched their stock options become worthless, but it was virtual money from the get go. It's not as if most of those kids could have gone to other jobs paying equivalent amounts of "real" money.
Thirdly, relatively few really were sufficiently high in management level positions to take any real responsibility for what happened. Many of those who were in "management" still do not; their attitude is that they had no responsibility for their investors money--it stinks.
Fourthly, besides the fact that they it was not their own money, by and large, they were living in such an artificial and over-inflated environment that few of them can claim to have any real business experience, other than perhaps to be a little more skeptical of the next fad.
Lastly, why shouldn't they hold their heads high? You think the DotCommers have it any worse than previous generations of college aged kids that were applying for jobs during full blow recessions? I have far more respect for the earlier generations there, they at least can claim to have seen real struggle.
What is Aimster?
"Aimster allows you to Find New Buddies and Share With Buddies."
Now there's a mission statement worth leaving a great school like RPI to pursue. Still, if you hadn't done it, you would have missed the experience. It would be like missing out on Woodstock. It may have been muddy and crowded and inconvenient, and there was bad purple acid and stuff, but those who went could brag about it for the rest of their lives. Have fun in school and pay attention in economics class.
Beware of enterprises that require new software - Didn't Benjamin Franklin say that?
it's been a while since I saw a KTB post...guess he's still alive and kicking
It's almost a cliche rather than a legend. The tale is a cautionary one well-known among investors. It does appear to be historical, though, being the first recorded investment bubble in history. Go and read about it.
This really does not seem to be all that different then tons of other people. People drop out of school all the time, and very few people finish school in 4 years. I go to Penn State and something like 45% of the student's here finish in 4 years. Although in all fairness, we need to attribute most of the longer then four years crew to poor scheduling of course by the university, too much drinking, and failing classes because of driking. But a certain amount of it is caused by not just doing school straight through.
Tons of people get summer jobs, internships, or co-ops in their area of interst. I did a one year co-op at GSK, and you better believe I thought about dropping out everyday. Who wouldn't? I made $35,000 a year as an intern and worked on cool stuff and had an automatic raise every six months. Sure beats going to class...
I have a firend who went to Motorola for a summer internship, and decided to go their full time and finish his degree through distance education courses at night while working there full time. Sure it took him a little longer to graduate, but he got paid something $50,000 a year while finishing his degree.
I have another firend who dropped out and went to work for Merck as a lab tech on the condidtion that he somehow finish a bachloer's degree within three years of his start date.
I've also know people that run out of money and need to make some more before going back to school. I know people that have done 6 months co-op, 6 months school (Penn Stat has a half length summer session if you are wondering how to only go to school for 6 months at a time).
People leave school all the time. Most of them come back. Some don't I have a friend who deceided he'd rather be an electricain than a physicist, and so he dropped out. This seems to be a pretty regular thing, and it happens all the time. This happens all the time, and it happens to people that are not computer people. Just because computers can be used to model the universe, doesn't mean that computer people are the center of the universe.
This is a perfect story about the rise and fall of the Dot-Com Revolution (isn't that a class here at CU now?). Look at the percentage of the students in that article who dropped out, and not only joined the Gold Rush, but started their own companies!
It was a fun time, one I was sad to miss as I was leaving high school and starting college. I should start another revolution. Lemme get back to you on that.
"All your base are belong to this file I send in order to have your advice."