Post: #26

(04-22-2016 01:24 AM)All or Nothing Wrote:  

(04-22-2016 01:11 AM)philosophical_recovery Wrote:  Take SpaceX, for instance. Cool tech, no doubt, but they work their employees to the bone (over 100 hours a week from the rumors I've heard) and sometimes don't even pay 80k.

People need to understand that:

Engineers = Blue collar workers + technical skills

They are the intellectual workhorses of major corporations. A workhorse with a high speed mind is still a workhorse.

Being an engineer, I used to think that we were special.

We aren't.

The author that spurned this is correct, however. Some technical people are worth an order of magnitude better than the others.

Doesn't matter if you can't escape a salary and monetize it.

You're still a salary drone.

Good engineers or not, throw enough of them at a problem, and give them access to a lab and testing equipment, and they can solve a problem (if a solution exists), or waste a lot of money and find out something can't be done.

Or, they could miss something fundamental and just waste a bunch of money.

Point is, enough men are good enough at math and have a long enough memory and access to existing literature to be able to get to the bottom of problems, solve them, write the report, and build your widget.

Sometimes, you fuck up and piss off the skilled guy that knows all the intricacies of the interconnected bits and you lose a few years because nobody else can wrap their head around the problem.

Other times, you stumble across a guy that can absorb that, deal with the politics, and get you product working again.

Forging a path out of that fray is a worthwhile goal.

Post: #27

If you really want to delve into this shit deeply, you'll see that part of the rise of "nerd culture" and the encouragement of anti-social tendencies and beta behavior is so that people like Alex St. John can have people who have no friends, no life, and no sexual options who are basically, for all intents and purposes, machines that they can abuse and work to death with no reprocussion or backlash. It all connects.

People like Alex St. John are not our friends, and not role models.

Post: #28

Don't hate the player, hate the game. His cynicism reminds me of the owner of the Heartattack Grill - a man who used to own a chain of Jenny Craigs.





Those corporate campuses sound like absolute hell to me. Smoking restricted to three designated areas on campus, workouts and diets guided by whatever the latest pseudo-science is - but the slaves flock to it.

Post: #29

I can see both sides here (and would appreciate further discussion to help sharpen my views on the topic), but tend to agree with Aurini. The people getting exploited have the freedom to walk away. If they're making a bad business deal (which they are), it's on them. It's not St John's, my, or your responsibility to look out for their best interests.

Post: #30

Well these guys end up in this situation because they're not willing to take the risk to go out on their own. They rather sit there and wallow in self pity and get angry at the boss for "exploiting" them. Thats what this society is coming to nowadays it seems. We are starting to value victimhood and self pity inside of telling people they have the power to change their lives. Game Development has changed with the advent of Engines like Unreal and Unity, You can create a game with a AAA engine with little costs other than labor. Before it took millions of dollars in licensing fees to acquire such an engine. A lot of those guys could actually leave the industry if they weren't happy and try to create their own game.

But it's not those people who are complaining. It's the professional victims that are complaining as we seem to have a class of people who their only purpose is to get offended on behalf of other people.

Post: #31

Reading all of this makes me glad that I work a programming job very, very far away from the 80+ hour work weeks of Silicon Valley. I enjoy my job coding and the challenges it presents, but I don't want it to rule my entire damn life. I work on software used internally at my company and it's a much more relaxed environment compared to the breakneck pace of startups.

To be fair, if you want to work on games you should pretty much expect that kind of treatment if you work for a game company, and you shouldn't be in it if you don't absolutely love it. However, there are a lot of programming jobs that pay well and have good hours. It's all about what you're looking for, and I think the biggest issue is that Millennials think they can "have it all": working on some big ambitious game/startup/world-changing project AND have easygoing work conditions.

Post: #32

(04-21-2016 07:16 PM)polar Wrote:  There are lots of connections here to the Gervais principle series, which are a must read on office politics. In a sense, this is written from the standpoint of a Sociopath talking to a Sociopath

I agree this as a classic example of the Gervais principle. I thought of it when I read this, but I wasn't ready try to explain it. I should know not to underestimate RVF. Anyway, I was a classic example of the clueless when I was working the 80 hour weeks hoping to get ahead. I now understand that the most important thing is to have table stakes, and to use them to sit at the negotiating table and play to win.

The author's strategy is explicitly to find the clueless, who will work to provide far more value than they will ever receive in pay or respect.

Post: #33

philosophical_recovery ' Wrote:  Being an engineer, I used to think that we were special.

I've come to realize most of the elite professions are just glorified laborers and servants. A pilot is just a glorified bus driver. A doctor is just a glorified body servant. An engineer or skilled tradesman is just a glorified Mr. Fixit.

The only jobs that truly wield power are business owners, politicians, and high ranking military officers.

Post: #34

There are a few choices when it comes to breaking into a high pay bracket.

If you want to work in a sexy field, are you willing to work harder than others for it?

If you want to break into a high-paying career field...are you willing to work twice the hours vs. everyone else to make twice the cash?

If you're going to strike it out on your own and build a business, build up those millions of dollars in equity... Do you have the people skills to hire those who you need to work for you, and are your sales skills good enough to keep the cha-ching coming? (and if you're not good enough YET, how are you going to get there? The "work hard" option is the best way.)

Post: #35

I work 30 to 35 hours a week for 120's base as a lead software engineer. The guy is right about needing to offer meaningful incentives to key players so they work harder and how it is a good deal for the company. I would work 80+ hours a week and love it if I weren't held to such low standards with maxed out salary brackets so you can only get 5% a year. The rest of the team would follow me too at minimal cost.

Post: #36

Perhaps his words would make a little more sense if the whole brainpower of the west was used to build rocket ships, and nuclear bombs and ships to pluck out soviet subs.

instead we get more apps and blowjob machines.

Post: #37

The hatred of "white males" is reaching genocidal level now. I can't count the number of times that article referenced terms like "overwhelmingly white" etc despite the fact white males are underrepresented in tech relative to their share of the US population. It is Asians who constitute between 30-40% of the tech workforce while making up 5% of the US population.

These fuckers don't even pretend to care about objective reality anymore. Anything and everything is the fault of white males. Black guy shot a hispanic guy? White male is the problem. Women bleed from vaginas? White male did it. Blacks and whites are both underrepresented in tech while Asians are overrepresented by 800%? Kick more white males out of tech. It's infuriating, I'm half hoping to see a massive anarchic war break out just to see these fuckers dragged out and shot in the streets, and I don't care what race does the shooting.

Post: #38

(04-23-2016 02:53 AM)ms224 Wrote:  Perhaps his words would make a little more sense if the whole brainpower of the west was used to build rocket ships, and nuclear bombs and ships to pluck out soviet subs.

instead we get more apps and blowjob machines.

Let's build the cool shit! I'm down. Programming lame apps and designing blowjob machines is lame. Space vehicles are fun as hell to design.

Post: #39

Holy SHIT this thread is a goldmine for TEFL Business. I can't wait to print all this off and not only discuss what Poland thinks but also teach them a crapload of colloquial expressions, Business terms etc.

Post: #40

(04-23-2016 03:03 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  The hatred of "white males" is reaching genocidal level now. I can't count the number of times that article referenced terms like "overwhelmingly white" etc despite the fact white males are underrepresented in tech relative to their share of the US population. It is Asians who constitute between 30-40% of the tech workforce while making up 5% of the US population.

These fuckers don't even pretend to care about objective reality anymore. Anything and everything is the fault of white males. Black guy shot a hispanic guy? White male is the problem. Women bleed from vaginas? White male did it. Blacks and whites are both underrepresented in tech while Asians are overrepresented by 800%? Kick more white males out of tech. It's infuriating, I'm half hoping to see a massive anarchic war break out just to see these fuckers dragged out and shot in the streets, and I don't care what race does the shooting.

Did the author mention kicking more white people out of tech?

Post: #41

I want to do a kickstarter/indiegogo campaign to raise equity for an real high tech company in case anyone has any interest.

Quote:RE: Guide to hiring IT people in Silicon Valley pisses off SJWs (of course)

(Today 03:53 AM)ms224 Wrote:
Perhaps his words would make a little more sense if the whole brainpower of the west was used to build rocket ships, and nuclear bombs and ships to pluck out soviet subs.

instead we get more apps and blowjob machines.


Let's build the cool shit! I'm down. Programming lame apps and designing blowjob machines is lame. Space vehicles are fun as hell to design.
Do you lift?