I don't know if much has changed based on my professional experience. For me, the code was always the fast part. The hard part was figuring out what to do. Maybe others had more mechanical coding jobs, but I've been pretty baffled by those who think producing more text (email, code, or docs or whatever) with less understanding is any sort of gain. Seems like the same sort of braindead thinking that would make someone think the fast typer is the the best programmer.
The context from working in a Valley startup funded by YC and run by one of their former executives is they are not seeing the talent they once did despite mining the same sources. There is little self reflection to consider the Silicon Valley offer has changed versus the talent itself.
I literally said, "we're all adults here," and I was corrected. The new batch of Cal grads are children, they said -- which is an indictment of all US graduates and not just Cal for some reason. Or maybe the startup funders are just like the ancient Greek writers who complained kids today don't want to work.
My grandfather’s career was in decline before my father hit adulthood (autoworker, electronics), my father’s career (nuclear control systems engineer) was in decline from the day he established it, and I’ve never expected my new-fangled software career to be there for the next generation, but there’s a rhyme probably.
I find this comparison to printers arbitrary, precious, and specious. Aren’t the armies of software engineers in tech more akin to the line-level autoworkers than artisans? The numbers would certainly suggest so. But it’s also silly to pretend such a new profession is anything akin to a generations-old trade. But maybe those tradesmen aren’t such victims either in this context? How privileged to be able to pass your profession down to the next generation! No one in my family has had that since farming, when only the oldest benefited.
Sounds like your brain was cooked by sound bites over reason and statistics! Culture war indeed!
In fact, we see this now in Silicon Valley where 80% of workers are foreign born. Not a representative group of Americans by any stretch, and we see a lot of negativity towards folks Silicon Valley will never interact with as a result. And who are the wealthy bigots? Not the richest people in the history of the world. No, those other bad folks in the poor states who deserve it. They aren't under-represented.
I’m afraid I can’t parse much of what you’re trying to convey. I can say that we’re talking about science granting right now, not silicon valley jobs. Nobody was talking about wealthy bigots, that’s all you.
Well, yeah, management sees a weak labor market and imagines the ability to fire all those troublesome engineers. Remember, especially in recent years, tech management is made up predominantly of grads from a select set of "elite" universities, whose caliber is determined mostly by how rich the parents are. It's no surprise we're in a moment of extreme labor disdain. The idea engineers with years of education are as fungible as manual labor has been tried again and again with the same results. LLMs won't change that.
> It's no surprise we're in a moment of extreme labor disdain.
So sad to think that a generation or two ago, everyone wanted to emulate the HP Way. Now all of that is gone and unless you are a superstar, you're just a commodity to be managed, and extinguished when the time comes.
Sorry, going to have to disagree with you there friend. It is not the case that everyone wanted to emulate the HP Way. The HP Way represented the best of Silicon Valley thinking, and if you read the book, you will see that even those guys were an outlier.
I remember that there is a passage in the book where the HP guys go and meet with other leaders of American corporations, and most of them felt that they did not have any kind of obligation back to society. I am a huge fan of the HP Way, but they were unusual, and not the norm.
That and the large technology companies don’t really have many ideas for new software or features that will make them more money. Can only increase profits by reducing costs.
15 YOE, here: Well, I just interviewed between October - Decemeber of last year, and since then, the company I joined has gone full vibe-coding and is changing to AI interviews. So...
It's funny because Apple said on stage Lightning was their connector for the next decade in 2012 then shipped it for exactly a decade, despite being the first to ship a USB-C device. When they switched to Lightning in 2012, the peanut gallery complaint was Apple making everyone buy new cables and accessories. Either too fast or too slow for their critics with the same timing.
Jeff Bezos started Amazon with family money. Sure, there were richer folks, but few have parents capable of giving them hundreds of thousands of dollars for a business venture.
I see a lot of folks lamenting how Yegge has ignited a fire under leadership for egoless, factory worker style engineers. I don't think many would care much otherwise, but his post here is lamenting AI is not enough of a factory worker yet. On a site mostly populated by folks who put most of their lives into becoming skilled professionals, hearing "we think your work should be the kind of work we send to the cheapest, least-developed places on earth" like factory work is disheartening. Of course, it mostly seems like Yegge is here to make money off meme coins and selling Dolt plus his vibe-authored book, so why would anyone take this seriously?
I mean, he can't explain what he's building except pickaxes to make more pickaxes, so it's a bit suspicious. It's just incredible how much impact he has had with this little hustle, given his products are basically turtles all the way down.
reply