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"Low learning capacity"... Ha! Intellectual arrogance. It's way too common in our field (Computer Science). Exercises for anyone who thinks this way: 1. Pick

"Low learning capacity"... Ha! Intellectual arrogance. It's way too common in our field (Computer Science). Exercises for anyone who thinks this way: 1. Pick an individual sport (running, swimming, biking) 2. Study an elite athlete in that sport 3. Try to get as good as them. What you'll notice is that, in fact, you can get really really far. Coding is the same way -- I doubt someone who can't get through a book would ever become Jeff Dean (same way most of us won't be Usain Bolt), but they can become employable and lead a good, meaningful, productive life doing coding! Brains aren't so different from muscle fibers ... they can grow and learn anything with enough activation.

_m96l 8y ago
I never said folks couldn't pick up a stack of books and in theory study well enough to get a good tech job. I said they generally don't because they don't have the stamina, discipline, and curiosity to do so. Some do. The minority. Most don't. Respondents are attacking me as if I am saying this is how things should be. Trust me, I wish it was the opposite. I've been involved in hiring in all my recent roles, and we'd be happy to hire anyone who has enough motivation, discipline, and interest in the field to learn CS and React through books and come work for us. There's just not many of these. I didn't make it so. I didn't stand behind people taking Udacity courses and whispered in their ear "give up!" like some sort of comical Satan. If I could, I'd whisper "Try harder! You can succeed!" However when I did end up interviewing folks coming out of code bootcamps, I ended up not being able to offer them a job. Bluntly, most of them seemed to have no real interest in tech. They initially studied something else, were on a different track in life, typically had little interest in tech at best. Then they heard you can make 6 figures in tech no problem, and I met them 4-10 months later, often after they went through some lazy course designed specifically to game my interview process. Results from recruiting straight out of bootcamp simply do not justify the effort. In fact they're so bad that despite all our need for talent, we don't hire anyone straight out of bootcamp anymore. We'll gladly be your second job after bootcamp, but never your first. Because the vast majority who even complete these bootcamps realize the money isn't enough to keep them engaged in a field they don't inherently like - which is why they didn't go to tech in the first place. My impression is that a large majority of them leave the field after working for a short while on their new job. This is based on reports from friends in the industry + the fact we get a ton of resumes from people who just finished bootcamp, but very few from people who finished bootcamp and then worked in the industry for any amount of time. All this is for people who signed up and finished a bootcamp, which is already a high bar. The amount of people who bought a "micro-degree" from commercial companies like Udacity is probably far larger, and only a tiny minority of them even completed this relatively easy course (look up MOOC completion ratios), let alone went through a bootcamp which is far more taxing and less accessible. People will probably attack me like I'm the evil wizard who conjured this unfortunate situation. They're killing the messenger.
- stanfordkid 8y ago
  I think a lot of what you are saying makes sense. I'm looking at it from the reverse perspective: I've seen guys struggle through bootcamp and then make it in coding and land good jobs. With that being said they were all quant majors in undergrad, and actually enjoyed coding. I've also seen people with non-quant backgrounds land ok jobs doing menial coding (e.g working at an accounting firm on database stuff) ... but they are still making $50k-70k and happy about it... they got there by doing a coding bootcamp. Those are the two categories I'm talking about. I'm guessing you probably work at a company like Facebook or Google -- and I agree those companies can't find good candidates that meet their bar. I've worked at those places myself.
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    > With that being said they were all quant majors in undergrad, and actually enjoyed coding. Right, this is top edge of bootcamp folks, and these guys do get hired and do succeed. You're talking about folks who completed a tough STEM degree and then switched to tech. These are the folks you know. But these are already pre-selected people. They were already in the top 1% "most likely to succeed" before they even set foot in the bootcamp. You're missing the 99% who never went to college because they lacked the desire or ability to learn, then drifted into some skill-mill that took their money. These are the majority of bootcamp graduates. > I've also seen people with non-quant backgrounds land ok jobs doing menial coding (e.g working at an accounting firm on database stuff) Ten bucks say these were non-quant college graduates, and probably a good college too. So now we're not talking about the top 1%, but probably top 5%. What you're considering "menial coding" is just simpler jobs, but not really simple or brain-dead. That stuff gets automated... often by startups staffed by folks who went to Stanford CS.
    - povertyworld 8y ago
      Is there any other industry where people have to put up with this nonsense from hiring managers? You'd think a $100k javascript job was a partner at Goldman Sachs the way these guys talk about it.
jimmy1 8y ago
> Brains aren't so different from muscle fibers ... they can grow and learn anything with enough activation. While this line of thinking has become en vogue, especially to dismiss the notion of IQ entirely, I think doing so causes more harm to individuals. Yes we all have the same malleable brains with the potential of learning, but it just seems like some people come out way ahead, and over the course of a lifetime, that head start becomes insurmountable, in my opinion, and Psychology 100% firmly agrees. For all the flack the field of psychology gets, one of the most replicated studies in it's history is IQ and it's predictive nature of positive outcomes such as health, school success, job success, mental health, etc First a quote, and then some sources. "IQ doesn't necessarily set the limit for what we can do, but it does give us a starting point. And the truth is some people start ahead." - IQ measured in childhood correlates with important life outcomes, including school success, job success, health, mental health, and longevity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170757/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170757/ - All psychological traits are partially heritable, including intelligence http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Teaching/PhysiologicalPsychology/zCurrDir4200/CurrDirGeneticsTraits.pdf http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Tea... - The Heritability of IQ increases with age https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7a6b/ad93d88b0158d449881e56749d5443b3ff80.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7a6b/ad93d88b0158d449881e56... - One final one, having trouble tracking the source down but particularly relevant here to HN and YComb -- Higher IQ correlates to success of founders
- stanfordkid 8y ago
  Completely agree. When I say intellectual arrogance ... what I mean is the following: Many coding jobs are equivalent to being a brick layer (intellectually) Most CS degrees teach you how to benchpress 500 lbs. To a large degree you have to be genetically gifted to bench 500 lbs ... but you really don't need that to be a brick layer. So my point is not that you aren't right... you are. But rather, my point is, there is a lot of menial work to be done that involves code... and not all of it has to be done by high IQ people. As "software eats the world" more and more work will be produced. Coding will become more like addition and subtraction. If you went back to the age of the greeks, they were probably sitting there thinking that no one would ever need to use this stuff except for "High IQ people" like themselves.

_m96l 8y ago

I never said folks couldn't pick up a stack of books and in theory study well enough to get a good tech job. I said they generally don't because they don't have the stamina, discipline, and curiosity to do so. Some do. The minority. Most don't. Respondents are attacking me as if I am saying this is how things should be. Trust me, I wish it was the opposite. I've been involved in hiring in all my recent roles, and we'd be happy to hire anyone who has enough motivation, discipline, and interest in the field to learn CS and React through books and come work for us. There's just not many of these. I didn't make it so. I didn't stand behind people taking Udacity courses and whispered in their ear "give up!" like some sort of comical Satan. If I could, I'd whisper "Try harder! You can succeed!" However when I did end up interviewing folks coming out of code bootcamps, I ended up not being able to offer them a job. Bluntly, most of them seemed to have no real interest in tech. They initially studied something else, were on a different track in life, typically had little interest in tech at best. Then they heard you can make 6 figures in tech no problem, and I met them 4-10 months later, often after they went through some lazy course designed specifically to game my interview process. Results from recruiting straight out of bootcamp simply do not justify the effort. In fact they're so bad that despite all our need for talent, we don't hire anyone straight out of bootcamp anymore. We'll gladly be your second job after bootcamp, but never your first. Because the vast majority who even complete these bootcamps realize the money isn't enough to keep them engaged in a field they don't inherently like - which is why they didn't go to tech in the first place. My impression is that a large majority of them leave the field after working for a short while on their new job. This is based on reports from friends in the industry + the fact we get a ton of resumes from people who just finished bootcamp, but very few from people who finished bootcamp and then worked in the industry for any amount of time. All this is for people who signed up and finished a bootcamp, which is already a high bar. The amount of people who bought a "micro-degree" from commercial companies like Udacity is probably far larger, and only a tiny minority of them even completed this relatively easy course (look up MOOC completion ratios), let alone went through a bootcamp which is far more taxing and less accessible. People will probably attack me like I'm the evil wizard who conjured this unfortunate situation. They're killing the messenger.

stanfordkid 8y ago
I think a lot of what you are saying makes sense. I'm looking at it from the reverse perspective: I've seen guys struggle through bootcamp and then make it in coding and land good jobs. With that being said they were all quant majors in undergrad, and actually enjoyed coding. I've also seen people with non-quant backgrounds land ok jobs doing menial coding (e.g working at an accounting firm on database stuff) ... but they are still making $50k-70k and happy about it... they got there by doing a coding bootcamp. Those are the two categories I'm talking about. I'm guessing you probably work at a company like Facebook or Google -- and I agree those companies can't find good candidates that meet their bar. I've worked at those places myself.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > With that being said they were all quant majors in undergrad, and actually enjoyed coding. Right, this is top edge of bootcamp folks, and these guys do get hired and do succeed. You're talking about folks who completed a tough STEM degree and then switched to tech. These are the folks you know. But these are already pre-selected people. They were already in the top 1% "most likely to succeed" before they even set foot in the bootcamp. You're missing the 99% who never went to college because they lacked the desire or ability to learn, then drifted into some skill-mill that took their money. These are the majority of bootcamp graduates. > I've also seen people with non-quant backgrounds land ok jobs doing menial coding (e.g working at an accounting firm on database stuff) Ten bucks say these were non-quant college graduates, and probably a good college too. So now we're not talking about the top 1%, but probably top 5%. What you're considering "menial coding" is just simpler jobs, but not really simple or brain-dead. That stuff gets automated... often by startups staffed by folks who went to Stanford CS.
  - povertyworld 8y ago
    Is there any other industry where people have to put up with this nonsense from hiring managers? You'd think a $100k javascript job was a partner at Goldman Sachs the way these guys talk about it.

jimmy1 8y ago

> Brains aren't so different from muscle fibers ... they can grow and learn anything with enough activation. While this line of thinking has become en vogue, especially to dismiss the notion of IQ entirely, I think doing so causes more harm to individuals. Yes we all have the same malleable brains with the potential of learning, but it just seems like some people come out way ahead, and over the course of a lifetime, that head start becomes insurmountable, in my opinion, and Psychology 100% firmly agrees. For all the flack the field of psychology gets, one of the most replicated studies in it's history is IQ and it's predictive nature of positive outcomes such as health, school success, job success, mental health, etc First a quote, and then some sources. "IQ doesn't necessarily set the limit for what we can do, but it does give us a starting point. And the truth is some people start ahead." - IQ measured in childhood correlates with important life outcomes, including school success, job success, health, mental health, and longevity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170757/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170757/ - All psychological traits are partially heritable, including intelligence http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Teaching/PhysiologicalPsychology/zCurrDir4200/CurrDirGeneticsTraits.pdf http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Tea... - The Heritability of IQ increases with age https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7a6b/ad93d88b0158d449881e56749d5443b3ff80.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7a6b/ad93d88b0158d449881e56... - One final one, having trouble tracking the source down but particularly relevant here to HN and YComb -- Higher IQ correlates to success of founders

stanfordkid 8y ago
Completely agree. When I say intellectual arrogance ... what I mean is the following: Many coding jobs are equivalent to being a brick layer (intellectually) Most CS degrees teach you how to benchpress 500 lbs. To a large degree you have to be genetically gifted to bench 500 lbs ... but you really don't need that to be a brick layer. So my point is not that you aren't right... you are. But rather, my point is, there is a lot of menial work to be done that involves code... and not all of it has to be done by high IQ people. As "software eats the world" more and more work will be produced. Coding will become more like addition and subtraction. If you went back to the age of the greeks, they were probably sitting there thinking that no one would ever need to use this stuff except for "High IQ people" like themselves.