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Silicon Valley's Youth Problem
An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times has an article about the strange cultural rift around tech innovation in Silicon Valley. The companies getting all the press are the ones developing shiny new apps and attempting to reinvent their industry. This attention — and all the money that follows it — is drawing in many young, talented engineers. The result is that getting people to develop needed and useful existing technologies is a harder sell. 'For better or worse, these are the kinds of companies that seem to be winning the recruiting race, and if the traditional lament at Ivy League schools has been that the best talent goes to Wall Street, a newer one is taking shape: Why do these smart, quantitatively trained engineers, who could help cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, want to work for a sexting app?' This is more evidence that the tech bubble is continuing to inflate: '[I]n the last 10 years in particular, there has been an exacerbation of the qualities for which it's been both feted and mocked: Valuations are absurdly high for companies with no revenue. The founders are younger; the pace is faster.'"
I would sooner do surgery on my leg with a spoon than work for the low-bidder, over-commit, under-deliver wreck of a shop that CGI represents.
One word: Money
It has nothing to do with the products, and everything to do with how existing companies see workers(especially tech workers) as "cost centers". We're kind of reaping the results of a system that views employees as "at will temporary work power" through massive layoffs at the earliest convenience.
It was "Just the cost of doing business" and we weren't supposed to hold it against them, as it concentrated wealth upwards and made peoples' lives more fragile and terrified. You didn't know if you could count on your next check, but you had to live in a housing market that did assume that. No one really wants to be a whim. Or if they are, they'd like to be a whim of their own, at least.
Why would they cure cancer when they can join a start-up and possibly get bought out by the titans? The draw of the Valley is that you can be a millionaire by the time you're 24. This isn't "rocket surgery."
So the younger coders are willing to risk a few of their early years in the hopes of a big stock win or buy-out.
Where's the problem?
If there are other systems that need programmers then hire programmers for those other systems. There are programmers who do not fit the "just out of school" demographic. Why not hire those programmers? Why focus on the "young" coders?
I don't live in the area anymore, but being a fresh college grad near that area around '05 it was hard finding work due to job requirements. I had no real-world experience, only a 4-year degree and a knack for computers and networking. No one was willing to train or even give an interview until I had 5+ years of server admin experience. The end result is that I moved out of the area and haven't thought about going back since. Maybe the older, established companies need to loosen job requirements and train good employees if they want people to work for them instead of the startups.
Yup, this sure is a NYT article. Hand wringing by an economically and technically illiterate journalist, asking a question which any 6 year old could answer.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
The fact that you compare working for and established company to "curing cancer" and going to work for a start-up as "developing a sexting app" shows little knowledge of what start-up and established companies are actually doing. The fact of the matter is, working for a larger established company usually consists of maintaining or making trivial enhancements to existing software with the occasional new product being developed. Working for a start-up, however, usually includes a rampant amount of innovation simply because start-ups don't have much money to advertise their new products. The result result of this is they have a need to develop more interesting and innovative products in order to be able to compete with established companies. Another thing worth mentioning is the diversity that start-ups usually have, need I remind you that Tesla motors was a start-up, and many of the technologies, including some which show promise of curing cancer, were also developed at start-ups.
Why do they not want to "fix healthcare.gov"? Because that's an uninteresting, almost clerical, job made worse by being part of a messy government procurement system. I can't think of any developers that want to do that sort of work -- been done already thousands of times (usually, of course, much better than HealthCare.gov). Most would only do it to pay the mortgage. Of course, the good developers can find something more interesting to do with less bureaucratic pain inflicted on them in the process.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Are you saying that the United States Government, in a pathetic and corrupt attempt to ensure the precious value of the dollar remains somewhat stable, simply prints billions more of it, every month? Surely you jest.
They print about 0.5 billions of it, every month. Of course, it also destroys a similar amount. Not that that's what you mean at all, of course... you're making some pathetic attempt to start an economic discussion in a forum filled with people who know very little about economics on that kind of scale.
When will this transfer of wealth from young to old stop?
When you get old.
I don't want to pay (subside) someone else healthcare.
I didn't want to pay for your K-12 education and subsidize your higher education. It would bother me a lot less though if you weren't so childish and self-centered.
I was in Asia for a few weeks, and was auto logged out from my work computer. Today, when I checked Slashdot at lunch while logged out, I was presented with this strange, foreign beta site. It looked much better than it did a few months ago, and then I logged in and turned it off. So it's still being foisted on the anonymous masses.
On topic: When is it different that the best and brightest are lured by the flashy companies making the "cool" products and offering low wages and the potential for exploding options, as opposed to working for the existing big companies with all their processes and proper-market-valuation that make them boring and predictable? It's been like this for at least 15 years. Sure, when the economy is down, the big guys are safer, but when the money and drugs and alcohol are flowing (and, this year at least from what I've seen at SXSW, the alcohol and drugs are flowing), young startups are the place to be for people with big ambitions and no responsibilities.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.