I'm with you. I'm younger but still, the idea of sitting at WORK at 8pm eating dinner next to a billionaire and countless early employee millionaires while making them all even richer sort of turns my god damn stomach.
I think that's a good litmus test. If a job at hot company xyz sounds more like 'wage slavery' than 'great career opportunity', you know you should be an entrepreneur.
LOL Anyone who's ever worked with a Chinese PhD's, grad students or serious developers (such as in finance) knows this is complete horseshit...
But you're right, this thread is the perfect place for some casual racism to vent your frustrations in working with third-rate developers foisted upon you by your company's outsource policies.
My primary experience stems from working for a Canadian-based company with 200+ developers (located in Canada), 80% of which were Chinese programmers. The CTO of the company was Chinese and he had an obvious preference for hiring graduates from his own university and/or country. Top picks, but few with more than a couple of years of non-Chinese experience.
Just to emphasize - EIGHT PERCENT of my coworkers came from Chinese software development companies and they quite naturally brought their work ethics with them. My four years in this company is a basis for my original comment.
If it's not obvious, I am not talking about Chinese nationality, I am talking about developers with Chinese way of working in a software development environment. The way that revolves around never saying No to the boss, which in turn is deeply rooted in their cultural heritage. If the project manager says that the bug needs to be fixed today, it will be fixed today. Meaning that it will no longer be reproducible. How it will be fixed and what else is going to broken along the way is secondary. This will create another bug that can be taken care of later in the same manner.
And this was the company that developed sophisticated networking software including their own embedded OS down to the kernel level. Moreover most of these guys were perfectly capable of NOT cutting corners and doing a splendid coding job if forced. But god forbid if they would ever do it on their own accord. Everything was always done in a rush and sketchy-patchy way. I don't have any other explanation except for it to be a cultural thing.
You can certainly call it a horseshit and a casual racism if you'd like. However that's how things are in reality.
No, that's how things are in your reality, which is not necessarily anyone else's reality.
You've just perfectly described under-skilled, over-worked, under-paid H1b-style immigrants who get deported if they're fired. Not talented people working at the top of their game in finance, biotech, startups, etc.
When you're at the bottom of the pond everything looks like shit. You even said yourself they're fresh grads with very little experience. Dumbass.
If I were 20 again I'd be doing the exact same shit I was doing the first time around, finishing school, drinking with my friends and trying to get laid.
I learned how to code and build UNIX systems before I went to college. So did most of the people you're going to be competing with to make any real money, so you should probably be patient, you already missed the first bus.
Foxconn certainly pushes the limits of mass production, but Apple's engineers make their designers visions come to life and figure out how to do manufacturing no one else has done before. Johnny's CNC play ground - http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/uploaded_images/ive2-7...
That photo is from a documentary [1] in which Jony Ive said that a big part of his work was designing fixtures that hold the parts in the machines.
I always figured that Apple designed the process and others merely implement that, they don’t seem like the kind of company that works with many ready made parts.
> It isn't a legal record, but people treat it that way
No they don't.
It's evidence and is treated as such, including all the proper oversight regarding chain of custody and regulatory capture/compliance. All evidence can be faked or forged, like testimony, physical evidence, or even legal "records" (what is that supposed to even mean, anyway? Did you know contracts are also evidence? And that they can be forged?)
That's why we have judges, juries and all sorts of messy legal constructs like "truth" and "perjury" and "oath".
None of this stuff is deterministic in the real world and it's a lot more complicated than some guy with a beard producing e-mails from a server in the closet.
Political protip: Answer his question. "I went to X University". Because... you did, didn't you?
And if he asks you what you majored in: "I studied Y. But somehow I ended up in this job! hearty laugh".
I have a degree but it amazes me that people who didn't go to college are never able to glide past this one. It seems like the only people who really ever bring up dropping out is the dropout. Only a very special kind of asshole will continue to press you about graduation dates etc.
Having said that,... I have a sneaking suspicion that people who dropped out like bringing it up just to say that they dropped out. You like bringing it up and debating it and then having people "agree" with you eventually, because you seek validation for the decisions you made.
It's called having a chip on your shoulder and the guy who said "oh you seemed smarter than that" was clearly fucking with you cause he's seen it a million times before.
I disagree. Why would you claim something falsely? It's possible they wouldn't press further, but it's also possible the person would say "Oh, X University! Was there Z when you went?"
Now, you could go on and tell me about how it's just that easy to make up something else, like, "Hmm, I don't remember that," but I learned a long time ago that making up facts about yourself can easily bite you in the ass. As I've grown older, I generally try to steer away from doing this. Taking the high road and being honest doesn't mean you have a chip on your shoulder.
The only "clearly fucking with" I got out of the grandparent post was the degreed person taking a jab at the non-degreed person, and it's not the first time I've seen a person with a lack of higher education insulted offhandedly that way. It's almost like people with degrees have a chip on their shoulder, or something... (I kid).
Now, to agree slightly with your post, I do sometimes mention that I have no college education (nor did I finish high school). At the same time, I am paid more than many people who do have degrees, but I am limited from many jobs because I lack a degree of any sort. However, I don't try to debate whether my way is better, because I know that learning works differently for different people.
As for validation? You may have a point there, but it's amazing to ME that so many people fail to realize that you can learn almost anything yourself. I don't think it's wrong to be proud that you gained the same (or better, being real-world experience) knowledge that another person had to pay $35,000 to learn.
Please don't think I'm being dismissive of college education though. I miss out on a great many things simply because it doesn't fall into my area of interest (classic literature and ancient history being prime examples). By getting a degree, you ensure that you're at least passingly familiar with the same basics as everyone else.
I do intend to go back to school eventually, but I have very little pressing need to earn a specific degree. If things keep going the way of MIT and free online courseware, I may skip the degree portion and gain personal enrichment without paying an institution for the privilege.
Nothing about those answers are false. It's a truthful answer designed to promote good will, not a lie. It's called having social skills.
His inability to play this game got him a stinging insult in front of a bunch of the execs' peers. Way to go dude. I'm just offering advice on how to avoid getting socially "stung", not on how to live your life in general.
> ability to learn anything yourself
I agree, I majored in economics and I'm a search engineer making over 200k. My degree is nearly worthless to me.
Maybe it's just that I don't feel lacking a degree is something to be ashamed of or glossed over. It's easy to get defensive when something you do is outside the norm and you get called out for it.
That may be the case for some, but I know others simply believe in full disclosure. When people ask 'what college did you go to', what they really mean is 'what college did you graduate from'.
Many who didn't graduate simply don't want to misrepresent that, and later be perceived as someone who isn't forthcoming or entirely trustworthy, or who is ashamed enough to withhold obviously pertinent information.
Since they lack the cred of a college degree, their rep is even more important to maintain.
So I should have lied about it? And that makes me the one with the chip on my shoulder?
I don't normally bring up the topic of my college decision in business settings, but it was relevant to the topic of the article. Also, in the scenario presented in the anecdote, I answered the college question very casually with, "I didn't finish college." I only argued the point when I was insulted.
Nothing in those answers is a lie or not true. It's just an answer that conveniently avoids getting insulted at a table full of people higher than you in the social hierarchy.
Maybe you just don't give a shit about walking into social boobytraps but to me learning how to speak to command respect is sort of an important part of my personal development.
Funny, I hear that explanation a lot from teenagers, and even they know it's a flawed argument. Maybe we just part ideological ways on this matter, but I don't have any problems gaining people's trust and respect through outright honesty.
At the time of the scenario in my anecdote, I was in my early twenties. Since then, my approach has changed somewhat, but I'm never disingenuous with my answers to questions.
I've found that the fallout from offering weaselly answers is often far worse than the results of an upfront disagreement. And even if you do agree to disagree, I'd rather have it happen early on so neither of us waste our time.
Your style of writing is awful. I had no idea whether you were the developer or the boss or what until the last two sentences. Try defining the variables first, not last.
And most people need an experience like that to learn to not be a doormat.
> Your style of writing is awful. I had no idea whether you were the developer or the boss or what until the last two sentences. Try defining the variables first, not last.
Sorry, I should have mentioned my position in the first paragraph.
> And most people need an experience like that to learn to not be a doormat.
I'm not sure doormat is the correct term. Naive would be a much better term. I only stuck with the company because I had signed a contract for the summer and my parents pushed me to stay.
I didn't let the guy walk over me. I implemented the google maps stuff the next week instead of that weekend. I regret my rather impolite reaction to his insistence that I do it that weekend. It's something I hope never to do again.
I successfully argued (politely) against a number of things like including storing and sending credit card data unencrypted. (I had to pull up some laws for that one.)
The whole situation wasn't helped by our communication issues, personality conflicts, and lack of maturity. (The one mature person in the group was rarely around since he had a day job.)
Get used to it. You aren't a founder - or at least haven't been presented as one (hmmm...) To the rest of the world you are no better than the guy who empties the trash. This is also what your boss Ben thinks but he's probably smart enough to keep his opinion to himself - as long as you're making him rich.
Why should I or anyone else think I'm better than the guy who empties the trash? A lot of what I do is the technical equivalent of janitorial work. I get paid more than physical-world trash guys, but that's just because fewer people can do what I do. It's not because I'm a better person. I'm probably not.
I'm fully aware that I'm working to make Ben (and his investors) rich, I went to business school so I know how these things work. I'm a consenting adult. I get paid for doing work that I enjoy and hanging out with people whom I like. I'm totally OK with this arrangement.
When I tell people where I work, I get two distinct reactions. "I can has what?" or "OMG! That's so cool! What do you do there!" I think that what we're doing is interesting from both a business and a technical standpoint and I thought I would offer to share with the HN audience.
