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Silicon Valley - The Geeks Are Back In Charge?
securitas writes "The New York Times' Steve Lohr reports on a fundamental shift taking place in Silicon Valley in the post-dotcom era: the geeks are back in charge. New start-ups and companies that survived the bubble 'are based on innovation and are run by people with deep technical skills.' These companies have real technology and a solid technical base that have historically been the bedrock of Silicon Valley - something that was temporarily forgotten during the dotcom bubble. Profiled companies include Tellme Networks (speech recognition), InterTrust (DRM - digital rights management), VMware (virtual machines) and Scalix (Linux e-mail servers)."
How does tellme.com fit in here as a company run by geeks? They got over 200 million in capital for a quintessentially dot-com biz model: a consumer-oriented the-advertising-will-pay-for-everything phone service. They've only made it through the dot-com crash because they're sitting on a ton of cash and they've got AT&T backing them. Besides, they're less technology producers than technology integrators: the speech recognition engine they use is from Nuance.
Anyway, nice premise for an article. It's good in concept, but the writer could've done a better job finding companies that really represent the ideal of companies run by geeks and driven by innovation.
Is there a reason why DRM shouldn't be labeled "real technology" besides the fact that you don't like it?
-- Dr. Eldarion --
1. There were an awfully large number of "Learn $TECHNOLOGY in 21 days" types who got hired. Actually, more seriously, there were an awfully large number of "Know the buzzwords associated with $TECHNOLOGY in 21 days so you can pass interviews" types. I know this, I had to work with so many of these people. Programmers who didn't understand such basics as modularity and FOR...NEXT loops, who couldn't read a two paragraph spec, etc.
These people were eventually fired or laid off, which in turn lead to an assumption of guilt on the part of anyone fired or laid off. But I also know skilled, talented, individuals laid off from my own company, which didn't feel the recession (or, if anything, benefits from it - we do consultancy that tries to make certain types of retail outlet more efficient and profitable in a business where it's vital stock keeps moving) who were discarded due to temporary shortages or office politics. If I started my own business, I'd hire several of the people we laid off in an instant, above many of those I work with today.
2. Programmers got greedy. Seriously greedy. I recall two or three years ago reading poster after poster on Slashdot protesting that employers with problems finding employees were just paying too little, and if only they understood that $150,000 was an entry-level salary these days they'd see...
What they forgot was that few businesses can justify $150,000 on a computer programmer. Those that were paying those kinds of salaries were generally the dot-coms, who also had no business plans and were little more than VC money-pits. But because they were paying so well, programmers held out for those kinds of salaries, with the disasterous consequences we're seeing now - something close to a tech recession, many competant programmers drawing welfare, and businesses outsourcing programming - a medium where traditionally communications are already awful and need improvement - to other countries where they can find cheaper labour. Businesses were forced to look elsewhere, and that's exactly what they did.
How you resolve this issue is open to question. Despite general pessimism, the fact is businesses that need programmers will always find it easier to locally hire than set up labour pools in other countries, but it's time for some realism and some recognition that a safe, well paid, job is usually better than a temporary obscenely-paid one.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Gold is rare. Gold is also a commodity. It is bought, sold and traded as well as used as a basis for buying, selling and trading other commodities.
.
Technical skills may be both rare and needed, misunderstood and overlooked by managment and HR, but that does mean such skills are not a commodity. If they can fire you and hire someone else to do the same job, you are a commodity. Like it or not, right or wrong, businesses are structured in such a way that anyone can be fired and replaced by someone else.
Checkout clerk is actually a small technical skill. You can confirm this by going through nearly any Wal-Mart check out line. The low quality of of most checkout clerks is palpable. When you hit a good one these days it's almost a religous experience. I had someone actually count back my change to me the other day. It made me want to marry her.
This doesn't mean that checkout clerks are not a commodity.
You know the joke?
"What did the employed physicist say to the unemployed physicist?"
"Would you like fries with that?"
10% of the population? Hell, that isn't even rare. Colleges sell Master degrees, and even doctorates, as commodities. Get the right degree, get the right job. I'm sorry, but that's a pure commodity market. The very fact that you're talking about it in terms of job interviews proves it's a commodity market.
Get the right degree, go live in the jungle with gorillas. Get the right degree, live in a garret/basement writing poetry/free software.
That is not a commodity technical market.
The second you walk into an HR department you pick up a big sign that says, "I am a commodity, please buy me."
If they do not, but buy someone else instead, that proves you are a commodity.
The fact that they can't differentiante between a good apple and a bad apple when they are in the market for apples does not mean apples are not a commodity.
There is a way not to be a commodity. Don't walk into the HR department. It really is that simple.
But that's hard. You'll need some serious skills to pull that off. Skills the other 25 million engineers don't have. Some of those skills have nothing to do with the tech. They are life skills.
Aquire them. Make yourself unique in your niche and able to maintain life and limb without an HR department (although this may mean going to live in the jungle with gorillas. If what you want is a condo and BMW you just might have to enter the commodity market. In this case you'd be better off producing the commodity rather than being the commodity).
Otherwise you can just keep adding your resume to the stack that grows higher, and higher, and higher. .
Other than that, I'm with you.
KFG
There is the feeling many techies have, that real DRM on audio at least will always be ineffective. If you can play it over your stereo, you can record it and thus copy it. With other types of data it's not so obvious, but still, my impression is that DRM will never stop any serious pirate and will just be a hassle for consumers. In short, it won't work.
So calling a company a good solid tech company because it does DRM does sound a bit shaky to me.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
I agree exactly with what you said.
Why is it that reporters eat every dish of crap served up by VC's, and constantly refuse to investigate the real news? Too tight deadlines I suppose.
This isn't limited to the NY Times. The San Jose Mercury News does almost nothing but repeat what VC's say to them. Dan Gilmore is a notable exception; and the only one to come to mind.
absolutely, to get a job nowadays (and there was trend to this before the dot-com era) is to be a top-notch geek, but *also* to be able to communicate with other people, and *additionaly* understand that everything you do is done in the context of a business making money, selling stuff, etc.
/. posters too :)
Too many geeks think that their project is the single most important thing, that they must spend another few months getting it perfected... without realising that getting something out to be sold on budget is the primary thing.
I disagree that managers should learn a bit of technology, my old boss tried that, and god it was awful. He didn't *learn* it, just the buzzwords, he read a few articles on the web, thought he knew it all (I've known a few programmers like that, and some
No, managers need to be accountants or personnel people - deal with money or people, that's what they need their skills in.
I know many people who are still employed simply because they do not have strong skills.
Management went through and axed folks who cost money. Skilled workers cost money.
They kept the low men on the totem pole. People that they could keep dumping crap work onto. People who will never find better jobs anywhere.
People who will continue to work applying hack after hack, and bandaid after bandaid rather than fixing any one problem because they do not know how to debug problems. People who accept gladly an artificially low salary.
They don't keep the skilled technicians that could maintain everything because they cost more money. instead they "hire the handicapped" and keep the cheap flunkies who do what they are told and will not complain when the finger of blame is pointed at them for the technology failing that they do not know how to support in the first place!
comment directly in my journal
There were an awfully large number of "Learn $TECHNOLOGY in 21 days" types who got hired
and they still are being hired. One of the hardest tasks in todays environment is hiring good programmers. There is so much noise out there.
Programmers got greedy. Seriously greedy.
bad programmers got greedy. good programmers are worth their weight in gold.
I think the geeks have always been in charge (though I think "nerd" is a more appropriate characterization). It's just that for awhile, during the dot-com-boom, a bunch of MBAs showed up and snowjobbed management with their magical doublespeak skills and ran the companies foolish enough to drink their kool-aid into the ground.
Meanwhile, the many solid companies with a solid foundation of technical talent who maintained control over their ventures just plugged on. With all the FOD out of the way, they look like they're new when they're not.
Not only that, if you are skilled, employers for unskilled jobs are reluctant to hire you for fear you'll leave them as soon as you find a better job (which is true). Unless of course they know you can't find a better one because the economy sucks so bad (which is also true).
Skilled tech workers are in a double bind. Their jobs are being replaced by H1-B's, or outsourced overseas. The problem is companies go too far in reducing labor costs. Everyone wants the best bang for the buck. I do to, but you still have to spend money. It should be about getting the most value for your dollar and not spending the least you can possibly get away with.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
bad programmers got greedy. good programmers are worth their weight in gold.
The same could be said of good teachers. Or good dentists. Or lots of other jobs that require equally as much talent, innate skill and hard work to earn the label of "good". Seriously, just because our field of interest happens to be technology doesn't mean there aren't other careers out there where dedicated, brilliant people don't stand apart from their peers and make a difference. And good _______ usually make more money than bad __________. But salaries for other fields still don't compare to what techies are paid. Programmers are still unrealistic about their expectations; management not so much... which is why you see the disasterously short-sighted trend to outsource overseas. They might be making the wrong decision, but they are reacting to a very real problem: IT salaries are still overinflated. (I say "over" inflated only because I think we are in the process of a correction in that valuation. If you want to get pedantic, I think that the market always pays PRECISELY what it values for careers. By definition. But because we are in the middle of a correction, those salaries will be sharply different in a few years.)
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
One of the single largest examples of poor management is when there is the lack of real coordination. In developer terms, I don't need a manager that knows how to program, but I need one to understand what a software development project is. However, having a manager that knows about the job and can communicate is an asset.
We know about managers who are essentially accountants - that is why we got Columbia and Challenger. I'm sorry, training in accounting is not a good background for management. They are the money techies and like engineers, they need to 'round-off' their education a little. For accountants in particular, ethics is a good place to start!!!!
I agree with you about the single-mindedness of geeks - but that is what the manager is for. Yes, there is atension between the geek and the "is it ready yet?" manager - but this can work out. It doesn't matter if the manager is a former geek him/herself as long as they know what their new role is.
I have programmed, managed and as of the momnent, I'm back programming (more programmer jobs than project managers) - so I have a good overview of both sides. Although they kicked me off into business analysis when they realised that I understood what we were trying to do.
You missed the point: Quattrone was the reason a company with "flat revenues and increasingly negative cash flows" was up almost 700% the day it launched.
The sad fact is that for any product you should spend 80% of the money in marketing and %20 in development/testing. I've worked off and on for over a decade for a voice mail company that has a good product, but can't market it worth a damn. If you can't sell it, then it's worthless.
BTW, I created the phrase "The Magic Is In The Marketing!" over a decade ago and it's still the absolute truth.