8 ms·

I know nothing about the entertainment industry, but this idea of 'putting in your dues' by working your way up from a menial position based on personal relatio

by gamble 16y ago

I know nothing about the entertainment industry, but this idea of 'putting in your dues' by working your way up from a menial position based on personal relationships has always seemed naive. Either you can do something or you can't, and working as a dogsbody isn't going to impart those skills. This advice seems like the equivalent of telling someone who wants to be a game programmer to start in the QA department. You're better off just becoming a programmer. Create a game. Someone with a kick-ass demo is going to get ten times as many interviews as a guy who spends the same time pumping his connections. Maybe I'm naive about the way television works, but if I wanted to be a writer in TV I'd start by trying to write something that was so good, people couldn't ignore me. And if I couldn't find someone to produce it, I would try to produce it myself. More than one career started with a film that only cost a few thousand dollars to produce. And if it didn't work out, at least I'd have spent the time doing something creative and productive rather than wasting my life fetching coffee and dry cleaning.

atomical 16y ago
Well, if you define good as something that is not only a great story but in a list of themes that executives are looking to put up on the screen, then yes, that's probably all it would take.
jerf 16y ago
Supply and demand; the supply of people who want to be writers is too high, and you are going to have to go to great lengths to distinguish yourself or get really lucky. As others point out this may not be the only way in, but don't expect anything to be easy or even merely hard, because every metaphorical door into the place is jammed tight with people trying to get in. We get the same effect in our industry with games programming. Nothing about games really especially calls for endless deathmarches or 18 hour days with no overtime pay six days a week, any more than any of the many other industries in which programming is as critical or perhaps even more critical (there's more to games than programming) but somehow manages to get done in 40-ish hours a week. It's just the endless hordes of young programmers who think it's what they want to do driving the price through the floor by inflating supply until there's just no incentive for EA to treat them any better; they're not just replaceable, they're aggressively replaceable. I really recommend against any of these careers, the risk/reward just isn't there. The risk is much higher and it turns out there are many, many other jobs out there that are just as rewarding, except without the possibility of fame for a small percentage of jobholders.
- gamble 16y ago
  I think this is a common problem for any programming job that's particularly visible or technical. Most programming jobs are boring, frankly, and there are a lot of very smart people in the industry fighting for the few stimulating, high-status, technically-challenging jobs. For example, anything to do with aerospace seems to have competition that puts the games industry to shame.
  - ig1 16y ago
    Obviously it depends on your definition of high-status, but I know a lot of people hiring developers across a range of sectors for technically challenging jobs, and they all have trouble hiring talented people.
    - jerf 16y ago
      Every time I'm advising a young person or young people I always underline that there are challenges everywhere. If I just describe my job, it sounds terrible, very business programming oriented, but in fact in order to make it work I'm pushing myself very hard, lots of server and coordination problems, retrofitting code never meant to do this and doing it in the most developer-time effective manner, and even pushing the cutting edge a bit in some ways. It's as interesting as games programming could be and a lot less stressful, and like you say, there's stuff like this all over.
      - ebiester 16y ago
        It may be challenging, but something can be simultaneously challenging and boring. (For me, an MMORPG at high levels falls into this category.)
- greenlblue 16y ago
  Spot on. Any time some industry insider tells people they need to work like slaves to get a good position has no idea how economics works. Instead the industry insider should be telling people we have enough people looking to break in and you should work in some other industry until ours settle into a more manageable supply/demand ratio.
rauljara 16y ago
"I know nothing about the entertainment industry..." Then maybe you shouldn't speak about it as if you do. I have heard the same advice in this article from a number of people working as tv writers (either reading articles, or as part of my mfa in creative writing), and it does seem like the vast majority of them only got where they are by "working their way up". The idea that you can just make something good enough that people can't ignore it is, in fact, the view that is hopelessly naive. It isn't like the internet where you can easily achieve massive distribution. You have to get it in the hands of a very small number of people who are swamped by an incredibly large number of people in the exact same situation as you. The amount of good content that is generated by writers is overwhelming and, in fact, incredibly easy to ignore. Not saying you can't point to success stories of people who produced their own stuff. You can just point to more stories of people who lost a lot of money producing their own stuff and have nothing to show for it. Building relationships certainly seems to be a more reliable way to go about breaking into the industry.
- gamble 16y ago
  Is working for someone as a personal assistant really 'building relationships', though? I suspect that personal anecdotes are poor proof in this case because the huge number of low-level employees who pay their dues and get nothing out of it are hardly in a position to give advice on how to break into show business. On the other hand, if most people are trying to get in through relationships, then you would expect that most people who were successful would have done it that way. It doesn't say much about your relative chances with either approach.
  - mturmon 16y ago
    I don't think anyone meant personal assistant. The acronym "PA" means "production assistant". A good description is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_assistant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_assistant
- DannoHung 16y ago
  > The amount of good content that is generated by writers is overwhelming and, in fact, incredibly easy to ignore. Not saying you can't point to success stories of people who produced their own stuff. You can just point to more stories of people who lost a lot of money producing their own stuff and have nothing to show for it. Building relationships certainly seems to be a more reliable way to go about breaking into the industry. Obviously, the answer is to write terrible shit, because no one is putting any of that heaping pile of good content into consumable products.
SandB0x 16y ago
Watch Charlie Brooker's (foul-mouthed) guide to getting a job in TV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIyg2a72uV4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIyg2a72uV4 In fact, most of his Screenwipe/Newswipe series is worth a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpVTUdfcEMg&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpVTUdfcEMg&feature=relat...
kgo 16y ago
It's not really an entertainment industry thing. Someone who's paid his dues by getting a PHD from CMU is more likely to get a job at Google than some guy who just read books on his own. Sure the guy who read books might create some startup, get some heat, and get bought out by google. And that can happen to a writer outside of the industry. But all things being equal, the smart money goes on the PHD. And sure, every once in a long while you can get someone like Ross Perot, who mounts a serious Presidential campaign with ZERO political experience, but the overwhelming majority of serious presidential candidates paid their dues. I'm sure the analogy can be applied to about any industry out there.
- ZachPruckowski 16y ago
  It's the same thing in piles of fields ranging from sports to law - you have to work your tail off in the beginning for a very marginal shot at getting into the top rungs. Want to be a doctor? You're putting in 80-hour weeks as a resident. Want to make partner at a top law firm? Better be ready to spend a decade putting in half again as much work as your bosses. Want to be the next Michael Jordan? Better bust your ass off every step of the way, from high school tryouts all the way through college. That's 7 years of eating, sleeping, and breathing basketball to even have a shot at the pros.
danielnicollet 16y ago
True. You obviously don't know much about this industry. I worked for Disney Studios for a while after they bought Infoseek where I worked. Th clash of cultures was evident there as it is here. The main measures of success in the entertainment biz are qualitative, not quantitative despite what financial data and audience measurements can lead you to believe. There are many more talented writers than there are producers to produce their scripts. It's all about relationships and it's also about talent too but talent alone is just not enough. So I repeat the advice: just figure it the fuck out ;-)
Grinnmarr 16y ago
I think your perception that the entertainment industry is in anyway a meritocracy is naive. There are always exceptions to the rule but for the most part it is still a "it's not what you know it's who you know" industry. This discussion reminds me of one of my favorite all time bumper stickers: "Real Musicians Have Day Jobs."
dabent 16y ago
I honestly reminds me of two talks from Startup School. One from Tom Preston-Werner of GitHub. He talked about "luck" and how part is chance and part is you. He moved himself to Silicon Valley to improve his luck. He also talked about the basic steps he used to "work his way up" to a success: http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272178966 http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272178966 The other was from Brian Chesky of AirBnB. He and his co-founders basically did whatever they had to, including selling novelty cereal boxes, to move up. He started his talk by saying how he was "powerless and obscure" and the moves he and AirBnB made, including joining Y Cominator to get to where they were profitable and "on the map" http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272180383 http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272180383 We may not start out by fetching coffee for Paul Graham's 3nd assistant (I doubt he has one), but we do all have to start from somewhere and make whatever moves we have to in order to move up. That may involve toiling at night, moving to SF or elsewhere, or whatever. But it still just needs to get done. Enough said, I've got some coding to do this Saturday night.
- Natsu 16y ago
  > We may not start out by fetching coffee for Paul Graham's 3nd assistant (I doubt he has one), but we do all have to start from somewhere and make whatever moves we have to in order to move up. That may involve toiling at night, moving to SF or elsewhere, or whatever. But it still just needs to get done. Enough said, I've got some coding to do this Saturday night. I know what you mean. I spent part of my free time this weekend teaching myself how LadderLogic works so that I will be more helpful in debugging a certain faulty machine next Monday because I'm not sure we can rely on the folks they're going to call in to give us any kind of fix.
nikster 16y ago
It depends on your goals and this isn't just true for TV writing - it's true for everything. I just watched The Social Network, and it's a perfect example - slaving away as somebody's assistant, pumping your connections, doing something on the side, "meeting important people", you will eventually get into one of those exclusive finals clubs, and then live a life of secure mediocrity. Perhaps even at a very high level, making very good money. If, on the other hand, you're actually obsessed about creating something great, you end up inventing facebook. There's a good chance you'll fail, too but at least you have followed your dreams and imaginations. I guess it depends on what kind of person you are, and what your goals are. I assume that really great writers - or great anything -never did the connections thing.
jdietrich 16y ago
You want to know a dirty, filthy secret about the entertainment business? It's a business. Nobody wants to buy "good" scripts, because some abstract sense of quality doesn't pay anyone's bills. What the industry wants is commercial viability. They want safe bets, stuff that will be easy to market. They want sequels, spin-offs and derivative ideas that are familiar but just novel enough to be acceptable. That's what sells advertising, gets the viewers and puts money in the bank. What writers don't understand (and what they'll rarely be told) is that paying your dues is largely a process of disillusionment. To put it kindly, the industry wants sensible, informed writers who understand how TV is made and know how to write scripts that are easy to shoot and suit the medium. To put it less kindly but more accurately, the industry wants cynical, desperate writers who will write whatever cheap nasty dreck pulls in the viewers. Paying your dues is like a gang initiation, social proof that you're willing to crawl through Albini's trench of shit to get your script into production. Every menial chore that you perform, every late night you pull, every arse that you kiss entrenches you into the industry, further investing you in the payoff of getting commissioned. The longer you've been a dogsbody, the more confident a commissioning editor can be that you won't argue when they bring in a script doctor, when they ask for a few "tweaks", when they decide that a page one rewrite is in order. They know you won't argue over the casting or ask for too much money. Entertainment is a shit business, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svCA3DJRgfI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svCA3DJRgfI
patio11 16y ago
I know nothing about the entertainment industry, but this idea of 'putting in your dues' by working your way up from a menial position based on personal relationships has always seemed naive. I get very, very worried when I see "contribute to OSS" as career advice, for exactly this reason. No, we won't pay you, but if you could grind out some boring glue code for the frameworks that our for-profit businesses use to make money, that would be great. Why, if it turns out that you're good at it, we might even look upon that favorably in an interview... some day.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  I think the main reason to "contribute to OSS" is to learn (and demonstrate!) new skills that you would not otherwise be able to learn on the job. Businesses generally are not in the habit of paying people to do something for which there is no business need. So unless you work at Google, you are very unlikely to have an opportunity to build a webserver. Unless you work on the compiler team of a big company (almost all of which require prior experience with compilers), you are unlikely to have an opportunity to build a compiler or interpreter. Unless you work for Google or Bing, you are unlikely to have an opportunity to build a search engine. But if you contribute to Apache or Lighttpd, you're building a webserver. If you contribute to Python or create your own open-source language, you're building a compiler/interpreter. If you contribute to Lucene, you're building a search engine. All of these teach you skills that can be very valuable if you start your own company. If you can take your server count down from 27 to 1, that's money that goes straight to your bottom line. If you can spend 3 hours writing a script that fixes a problem throughout your codebase instead of 3 months doing it manually, that's time that you can use to innovate instead. If you can index the contents of the web efficiently, you'll know how to index lots of other things efficiently, and there's bound to be a startup idea in there somewhere. I don't think "writing some boring glue code for the frameworks our for-profit businesses use" is all that much of a resume boost anyway. Writing Mongrel or Factor or Rails, however...
  - patio11 16y ago
    Contributing patches to Rails is exactly what I am thinking of when I say this: it is a lot of work, visibility for new contributors is poor, and the main beneficiaries are going to be for-profit businesses. Yet I hear otherwise very savvy people telling unemployed CS grads that they should build up their github profiles by, e.g., doing patches to Rails. That strikes me as an astoundingly poor use of one's time -- you don't have a coding problem, you have a marketing problem. Patches have a very poor ROI for personal marketing.
fhe 16y ago
I once watched an interview of Ang Lee (crouching tiger, brokeback mt. the best director of our time, this is from my twice academy winning professor). Lee told of his early days as a director, when he simply couldn't get any gig for six years. (he stayed home, took care of the kids, and did a lot of cooking.) but he stuck with it, and eventually got some money to make a small budget movie that went on to win some international award, which launched his career. Looking back, he said something to this effect, "of my classmates who studied to be directors, the only ones who ended up being directors are the ones who stuck with directing all the way. Those who found jobs as editors, or critics,.. Those were the lucky ones who found stable jobs. But 20 yes later, they were still editing or crtiquing. None made it to directing their own films. Only the ones who stuck with it."

by gamble 16y ago

atomical 16y ago

Well, if you define good as something that is not only a great story but in a list of themes that executives are looking to put up on the screen, then yes, that's probably all it would take.

jerf 16y ago

Supply and demand; the supply of people who want to be writers is too high, and you are going to have to go to great lengths to distinguish yourself or get really lucky. As others point out this may not be the only way in, but don't expect anything to be easy or even merely hard, because every metaphorical door into the place is jammed tight with people trying to get in. We get the same effect in our industry with games programming. Nothing about games really especially calls for endless deathmarches or 18 hour days with no overtime pay six days a week, any more than any of the many other industries in which programming is as critical or perhaps even more critical (there's more to games than programming) but somehow manages to get done in 40-ish hours a week. It's just the endless hordes of young programmers who think it's what they want to do driving the price through the floor by inflating supply until there's just no incentive for EA to treat them any better; they're not just replaceable, they're aggressively replaceable. I really recommend against any of these careers, the risk/reward just isn't there. The risk is much higher and it turns out there are many, many other jobs out there that are just as rewarding, except without the possibility of fame for a small percentage of jobholders.

gamble 16y ago
I think this is a common problem for any programming job that's particularly visible or technical. Most programming jobs are boring, frankly, and there are a lot of very smart people in the industry fighting for the few stimulating, high-status, technically-challenging jobs. For example, anything to do with aerospace seems to have competition that puts the games industry to shame.
- ig1 16y ago
  Obviously it depends on your definition of high-status, but I know a lot of people hiring developers across a range of sectors for technically challenging jobs, and they all have trouble hiring talented people.
  - jerf 16y ago
    Every time I'm advising a young person or young people I always underline that there are challenges everywhere. If I just describe my job, it sounds terrible, very business programming oriented, but in fact in order to make it work I'm pushing myself very hard, lots of server and coordination problems, retrofitting code never meant to do this and doing it in the most developer-time effective manner, and even pushing the cutting edge a bit in some ways. It's as interesting as games programming could be and a lot less stressful, and like you say, there's stuff like this all over.
    - ebiester 16y ago
      It may be challenging, but something can be simultaneously challenging and boring. (For me, an MMORPG at high levels falls into this category.)
greenlblue 16y ago
Spot on. Any time some industry insider tells people they need to work like slaves to get a good position has no idea how economics works. Instead the industry insider should be telling people we have enough people looking to break in and you should work in some other industry until ours settle into a more manageable supply/demand ratio.

rauljara 16y ago

"I know nothing about the entertainment industry..." Then maybe you shouldn't speak about it as if you do. I have heard the same advice in this article from a number of people working as tv writers (either reading articles, or as part of my mfa in creative writing), and it does seem like the vast majority of them only got where they are by "working their way up". The idea that you can just make something good enough that people can't ignore it is, in fact, the view that is hopelessly naive. It isn't like the internet where you can easily achieve massive distribution. You have to get it in the hands of a very small number of people who are swamped by an incredibly large number of people in the exact same situation as you. The amount of good content that is generated by writers is overwhelming and, in fact, incredibly easy to ignore. Not saying you can't point to success stories of people who produced their own stuff. You can just point to more stories of people who lost a lot of money producing their own stuff and have nothing to show for it. Building relationships certainly seems to be a more reliable way to go about breaking into the industry.

gamble 16y ago
Is working for someone as a personal assistant really 'building relationships', though? I suspect that personal anecdotes are poor proof in this case because the huge number of low-level employees who pay their dues and get nothing out of it are hardly in a position to give advice on how to break into show business. On the other hand, if most people are trying to get in through relationships, then you would expect that most people who were successful would have done it that way. It doesn't say much about your relative chances with either approach.
- mturmon 16y ago
  I don't think anyone meant personal assistant. The acronym "PA" means "production assistant". A good description is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_assistant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_assistant
DannoHung 16y ago
> The amount of good content that is generated by writers is overwhelming and, in fact, incredibly easy to ignore. Not saying you can't point to success stories of people who produced their own stuff. You can just point to more stories of people who lost a lot of money producing their own stuff and have nothing to show for it. Building relationships certainly seems to be a more reliable way to go about breaking into the industry. Obviously, the answer is to write terrible shit, because no one is putting any of that heaping pile of good content into consumable products.

SandB0x 16y ago

Watch Charlie Brooker's (foul-mouthed) guide to getting a job in TV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIyg2a72uV4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIyg2a72uV4 In fact, most of his Screenwipe/Newswipe series is worth a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpVTUdfcEMg&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpVTUdfcEMg&feature=relat...

kgo 16y ago

It's not really an entertainment industry thing. Someone who's paid his dues by getting a PHD from CMU is more likely to get a job at Google than some guy who just read books on his own. Sure the guy who read books might create some startup, get some heat, and get bought out by google. And that can happen to a writer outside of the industry. But all things being equal, the smart money goes on the PHD. And sure, every once in a long while you can get someone like Ross Perot, who mounts a serious Presidential campaign with ZERO political experience, but the overwhelming majority of serious presidential candidates paid their dues. I'm sure the analogy can be applied to about any industry out there.

ZachPruckowski 16y ago
It's the same thing in piles of fields ranging from sports to law - you have to work your tail off in the beginning for a very marginal shot at getting into the top rungs. Want to be a doctor? You're putting in 80-hour weeks as a resident. Want to make partner at a top law firm? Better be ready to spend a decade putting in half again as much work as your bosses. Want to be the next Michael Jordan? Better bust your ass off every step of the way, from high school tryouts all the way through college. That's 7 years of eating, sleeping, and breathing basketball to even have a shot at the pros.

danielnicollet 16y ago

True. You obviously don't know much about this industry. I worked for Disney Studios for a while after they bought Infoseek where I worked. Th clash of cultures was evident there as it is here. The main measures of success in the entertainment biz are qualitative, not quantitative despite what financial data and audience measurements can lead you to believe. There are many more talented writers than there are producers to produce their scripts. It's all about relationships and it's also about talent too but talent alone is just not enough. So I repeat the advice: just figure it the fuck out ;-)

Grinnmarr 16y ago

I think your perception that the entertainment industry is in anyway a meritocracy is naive. There are always exceptions to the rule but for the most part it is still a "it's not what you know it's who you know" industry. This discussion reminds me of one of my favorite all time bumper stickers: "Real Musicians Have Day Jobs."

dabent 16y ago

I honestly reminds me of two talks from Startup School. One from Tom Preston-Werner of GitHub. He talked about "luck" and how part is chance and part is you. He moved himself to Silicon Valley to improve his luck. He also talked about the basic steps he used to "work his way up" to a success: http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272178966 http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272178966 The other was from Brian Chesky of AirBnB. He and his co-founders basically did whatever they had to, including selling novelty cereal boxes, to move up. He started his talk by saying how he was "powerless and obscure" and the moves he and AirBnB made, including joining Y Cominator to get to where they were profitable and "on the map" http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272180383 http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272180383 We may not start out by fetching coffee for Paul Graham's 3nd assistant (I doubt he has one), but we do all have to start from somewhere and make whatever moves we have to in order to move up. That may involve toiling at night, moving to SF or elsewhere, or whatever. But it still just needs to get done. Enough said, I've got some coding to do this Saturday night.

Natsu 16y ago
> We may not start out by fetching coffee for Paul Graham's 3nd assistant (I doubt he has one), but we do all have to start from somewhere and make whatever moves we have to in order to move up. That may involve toiling at night, moving to SF or elsewhere, or whatever. But it still just needs to get done. Enough said, I've got some coding to do this Saturday night. I know what you mean. I spent part of my free time this weekend teaching myself how LadderLogic works so that I will be more helpful in debugging a certain faulty machine next Monday because I'm not sure we can rely on the folks they're going to call in to give us any kind of fix.

nikster 16y ago

It depends on your goals and this isn't just true for TV writing - it's true for everything. I just watched The Social Network, and it's a perfect example - slaving away as somebody's assistant, pumping your connections, doing something on the side, "meeting important people", you will eventually get into one of those exclusive finals clubs, and then live a life of secure mediocrity. Perhaps even at a very high level, making very good money. If, on the other hand, you're actually obsessed about creating something great, you end up inventing facebook. There's a good chance you'll fail, too but at least you have followed your dreams and imaginations. I guess it depends on what kind of person you are, and what your goals are. I assume that really great writers - or great anything -never did the connections thing.

jdietrich 16y ago

You want to know a dirty, filthy secret about the entertainment business? It's a business. Nobody wants to buy "good" scripts, because some abstract sense of quality doesn't pay anyone's bills. What the industry wants is commercial viability. They want safe bets, stuff that will be easy to market. They want sequels, spin-offs and derivative ideas that are familiar but just novel enough to be acceptable. That's what sells advertising, gets the viewers and puts money in the bank. What writers don't understand (and what they'll rarely be told) is that paying your dues is largely a process of disillusionment. To put it kindly, the industry wants sensible, informed writers who understand how TV is made and know how to write scripts that are easy to shoot and suit the medium. To put it less kindly but more accurately, the industry wants cynical, desperate writers who will write whatever cheap nasty dreck pulls in the viewers. Paying your dues is like a gang initiation, social proof that you're willing to crawl through Albini's trench of shit to get your script into production. Every menial chore that you perform, every late night you pull, every arse that you kiss entrenches you into the industry, further investing you in the payoff of getting commissioned. The longer you've been a dogsbody, the more confident a commissioning editor can be that you won't argue when they bring in a script doctor, when they ask for a few "tweaks", when they decide that a page one rewrite is in order. They know you won't argue over the casting or ask for too much money. Entertainment is a shit business, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svCA3DJRgfI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svCA3DJRgfI

patio11 16y ago

I know nothing about the entertainment industry, but this idea of 'putting in your dues' by working your way up from a menial position based on personal relationships has always seemed naive. I get very, very worried when I see "contribute to OSS" as career advice, for exactly this reason. No, we won't pay you, but if you could grind out some boring glue code for the frameworks that our for-profit businesses use to make money, that would be great. Why, if it turns out that you're good at it, we might even look upon that favorably in an interview... some day.

nostrademons 16y ago
I think the main reason to "contribute to OSS" is to learn (and demonstrate!) new skills that you would not otherwise be able to learn on the job. Businesses generally are not in the habit of paying people to do something for which there is no business need. So unless you work at Google, you are very unlikely to have an opportunity to build a webserver. Unless you work on the compiler team of a big company (almost all of which require prior experience with compilers), you are unlikely to have an opportunity to build a compiler or interpreter. Unless you work for Google or Bing, you are unlikely to have an opportunity to build a search engine. But if you contribute to Apache or Lighttpd, you're building a webserver. If you contribute to Python or create your own open-source language, you're building a compiler/interpreter. If you contribute to Lucene, you're building a search engine. All of these teach you skills that can be very valuable if you start your own company. If you can take your server count down from 27 to 1, that's money that goes straight to your bottom line. If you can spend 3 hours writing a script that fixes a problem throughout your codebase instead of 3 months doing it manually, that's time that you can use to innovate instead. If you can index the contents of the web efficiently, you'll know how to index lots of other things efficiently, and there's bound to be a startup idea in there somewhere. I don't think "writing some boring glue code for the frameworks our for-profit businesses use" is all that much of a resume boost anyway. Writing Mongrel or Factor or Rails, however...
- patio11 16y ago
  Contributing patches to Rails is exactly what I am thinking of when I say this: it is a lot of work, visibility for new contributors is poor, and the main beneficiaries are going to be for-profit businesses. Yet I hear otherwise very savvy people telling unemployed CS grads that they should build up their github profiles by, e.g., doing patches to Rails. That strikes me as an astoundingly poor use of one's time -- you don't have a coding problem, you have a marketing problem. Patches have a very poor ROI for personal marketing.

fhe 16y ago

I once watched an interview of Ang Lee (crouching tiger, brokeback mt. the best director of our time, this is from my twice academy winning professor). Lee told of his early days as a director, when he simply couldn't get any gig for six years. (he stayed home, took care of the kids, and did a lot of cooking.) but he stuck with it, and eventually got some money to make a small budget movie that went on to win some international award, which launched his career. Looking back, he said something to this effect, "of my classmates who studied to be directors, the only ones who ended up being directors are the ones who stuck with directing all the way. Those who found jobs as editors, or critics,.. Those were the lucky ones who found stable jobs. But 20 yes later, they were still editing or crtiquing. None made it to directing their own films. Only the ones who stuck with it."