It's a dismal situation. Low interest rates mean cheap money in theory, but the "people" best equipped to take advantage of it are corporations. It's not like average people are able to start businesses just because the interest rate is low. However, low interest rates mean the penalty (to companies) for hoarding and for general risk aversion is also low. This means that lousy executives don't get a lot of investor pushback (companies don't have to do much to beat the risk-free rate) and can stick around indefinitely. The only thing that changes is that their exorbitant salaries go up (as do housing prices, college tuitions, and healthcare costs).
Meanwhile, for the 99%, this debt/poverty cancer just keeps growing inside the country, making it weaker every day: it's not just government debt-- although that is a real problem-- but student debt and credit cards as the replacement for Fordist wage increases.
The macro picture is bad, but the micro picture is even more dismal. Corporate management is becoming more self-serving and corrupt, internal policies of corporations are becoming more mean-spirited (many companies now require employees to use vacation when sick, and open-plan <50 SF allotments of office space are becoming the norm). When you see the reality of work life for most Americans, you realize that the corrosion is organic, inevitable, and really quite deserved. Our country has become a patchwork system of slapped-together corporate garbage, whether you're talking about its healthcare coverage or the way most of us have to work. What used to be a country is now a phalanx of uninspiring, mean-spirited organizations not worth caring about.
I think that startups and venture capital will continue to do well.
Ouch. Sorry to disagree, but... what's pushing people into startups is not that this VC-funded game is so great (it ain't) but that corporate employment has become such a raw deal. Now that big companies have ceased doing the right thing when it comes to investing in their employees, avoiding layoffs unless absolutely necessary, etc., we've reached a point that shoestring long-shots called "startups" look like a good idea in comparison. The startups haven't improved. (In fact, they've become worse.) The alternatives, however, have gone to shit.
VC-funded startups are notoriously cheap, and stinginess leads to mediocrity. For example, they don't pay relocation, don't pay for education, and usually involve 80+ percent "employee contributions" on health insurance. Some even make people take fucking vacation days to attend conferences. If you look at it honestly, "we're a startup" is usually just used to justify being a terrible company.
Now, the proper strategy is either to bet big on someone, or not hire that person, and (in general) to be very selective. (If you're not willing to pay full relocation, you shouldn't be hiring that person at all.) The problem is that these VC-funded startups are so weak in terms of technical talent that "hire a few strong people and bet big on them" isn't a viable strategy, because they can't get the first part down. So they have to hire large (as in, a large number of people... like 30 before they even launch) and so they offer crappy salaries, dogshit equity, and nonexistent perks in the hope that one of the clueless 22-year-olds who takes their offer will be an undiscovered talent. Occasionally, it works out that way. Most of the time it doesn't. Hence, the high failure rate of VC-funded startups.
VC has been, and will continue to be, an underperforming asset class and there's a clear reason why. The main players aren't optimizing for the performance of their portfolios but their careers (and, to be fair, I can't blame them; I'd do the same in their shoes). Their career goals push them to over-collaborate (read: collude) and that creates that disgusting culture of co-funding. But as soon as you have important decisions made by committee, mediocrity is a result because you're now biased in favor of mediocre/never-offends-anyone people instead of high-variance people who actually do the fucking work.
Personally, I think that innovation and new technology is what will save us.
Eventually, yes. But I think we're going to see things get a lot worse before they start getting better. I don't think that the US or the world economy is in terminal decline, but I think we have another 10-15 years of ugliness before things start to improve.
Just to be clear, pretty much every point you made about startups directly conflicts with the sample of ~10 SF/SV companies I talked with during a recent job search
- base salaries at funded startups are good. Equity could vary greatly depending on how much salary you asked for
- insurance is 100% paid for employees and 50%+ paid for family
- I didn't discuss relocation but I was relocated to SF 2 yrs ago by a startup
- Very, very smart and capable co-workers
- Vacation days were untracked or 15+, and there was a separate allotment of sick days
- Most teams were < 10 developers well after launch
- Much easier to find jobs as an experienced senior developer than a junior developer
The one point you nailed is all open-plan offices, everywhere, all the time.
I don't know what you're basing your statements on, and maybe it's different in other parts of the country, but in SV/SF right now, if you're a demonstrably good developer, you're in extremely high demand and many, many excellent companies are competing fiercely to hire you.
Your analysis is good WRT "VC has been, and will continue to be, an underperforming asset class" as an isolated group. However, it is relevant to consider as a class, they're competing against large corporations, the home of Dilbert and TPS reports... Beating them as a class should be fairly easy.
Like the story about two guys running from the bear, you don't have to run faster than the bear, you just need to run faster than the other guy, and Dilbert doesn't exactly have an ultra-marathoners physique.
Meanwhile, for the 99%, this debt/poverty cancer just keeps growing inside the country, making it weaker every day: it's not just government debt-- although that is a real problem-- but student debt and credit cards as the replacement for Fordist wage increases.
The macro picture is bad, but the micro picture is even more dismal. Corporate management is becoming more self-serving and corrupt, internal policies of corporations are becoming more mean-spirited (many companies now require employees to use vacation when sick, and open-plan <50 SF allotments of office space are becoming the norm). When you see the reality of work life for most Americans, you realize that the corrosion is organic, inevitable, and really quite deserved. Our country has become a patchwork system of slapped-together corporate garbage, whether you're talking about its healthcare coverage or the way most of us have to work. What used to be a country is now a phalanx of uninspiring, mean-spirited organizations not worth caring about.
I think that startups and venture capital will continue to do well.
Ouch. Sorry to disagree, but... what's pushing people into startups is not that this VC-funded game is so great (it ain't) but that corporate employment has become such a raw deal. Now that big companies have ceased doing the right thing when it comes to investing in their employees, avoiding layoffs unless absolutely necessary, etc., we've reached a point that shoestring long-shots called "startups" look like a good idea in comparison. The startups haven't improved. (In fact, they've become worse.) The alternatives, however, have gone to shit.
VC-funded startups are notoriously cheap, and stinginess leads to mediocrity. For example, they don't pay relocation, don't pay for education, and usually involve 80+ percent "employee contributions" on health insurance. Some even make people take fucking vacation days to attend conferences. If you look at it honestly, "we're a startup" is usually just used to justify being a terrible company.
Now, the proper strategy is either to bet big on someone, or not hire that person, and (in general) to be very selective. (If you're not willing to pay full relocation, you shouldn't be hiring that person at all.) The problem is that these VC-funded startups are so weak in terms of technical talent that "hire a few strong people and bet big on them" isn't a viable strategy, because they can't get the first part down. So they have to hire large (as in, a large number of people... like 30 before they even launch) and so they offer crappy salaries, dogshit equity, and nonexistent perks in the hope that one of the clueless 22-year-olds who takes their offer will be an undiscovered talent. Occasionally, it works out that way. Most of the time it doesn't. Hence, the high failure rate of VC-funded startups.
VC has been, and will continue to be, an underperforming asset class and there's a clear reason why. The main players aren't optimizing for the performance of their portfolios but their careers (and, to be fair, I can't blame them; I'd do the same in their shoes). Their career goals push them to over-collaborate (read: collude) and that creates that disgusting culture of co-funding. But as soon as you have important decisions made by committee, mediocrity is a result because you're now biased in favor of mediocre/never-offends-anyone people instead of high-variance people who actually do the fucking work.
Personally, I think that innovation and new technology is what will save us.
Eventually, yes. But I think we're going to see things get a lot worse before they start getting better. I don't think that the US or the world economy is in terminal decline, but I think we have another 10-15 years of ugliness before things start to improve.