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Not taught: - Just a reminder I could die one second from now. Tuesday a friend of 21 years, had his heart stop. CPR was performed all the way to the hospital

Not taught: - Just a reminder I could die one second from now. Tuesday a friend of 21 years, had his heart stop. CPR was performed all the way to the hospital where they found a blockage that they cleared, however his brain had been without oxygen for quite some time and there was no brain activity. 72 hour protocol was started (arctic sun) but he died Wednesday evening leaving his girl, 1 kid and 4 step kids. Taught: - The general population is extremely ignorant to climate change and the rather serious consequences it brings. I've had many people tell me it's fake, it's just something politicians use in debates, it's a conspiracy, that we aren't experiencing global warming but in fact are headed for a mini ice age, that they don't care because they can't stop it so they're going to keep on living their life how they want, etc. - That without a college degree, you are effectively a second class citizen in the workplace. I've had company after company reject me in the past 18 months for not having a degree, including one company doing the exact same job I do now that wouldn't even interview me citing "we require a BA/BS degree as well as previous experience" while at the time I had 12 years of experience and their company was 5-6 years old... my own employer does not promote without a degree, they will flat out tell you to get at a minimum a BA/BS and then preferably immediately start an Masters. Oh if I could go back 16 years and tell myself to get a degree. - I've learned that tech is largely elitist. Founders only want to deal with other founders once they've had a taste of mild success. Those in power can be college dropouts but they require BA/BS at a minimum for entry-level, non-technical, roles in their companies. They will tell you things like "the best way to stand out is to complete a major project or produce an important result" for entry-level work in their form rejection email. - I've learned that most of the current people at the helm will admit they were extremely lucky to have a mentor, that helped them without hesitation, when they had no experience or accomplishments behind their belt and were effectively still naive children, but they will only help those people that are well qualified on paper and stand a good chance of making them bank. They would rather bet on a likely win by throwing investment money for a cut at someone and introductions instead of helping someone by actually giving them work, creating something in their empire that the person can prove themselves on, and then give them more responsibility, and more, to let them learn by doing and building a reputation. Instead it is "come to me when you have a sure-fire idea, I'll buy a ridiculous amount of your company for a small sum, and you can make a little while I do little and get richer". - That Silicon Valley is comical. I'd always pictured it as these brilliant people doing neat stuff, making breakthroughs and driving future technology. Last year I had a lot of introductions made and had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people in the Bay Area that I never would have without the introductions, being a non-STEM, no-degree, no billion dollar idea guy in Indianapolis. While some of these people were truly brilliant, I realized nearly all of them are extremely myopic on one thing that interests them, they mostly don't care about anything else and they will pursue their idea at all costs even when it's something ridiculous or so fantastically unlikely to ever pan out. You'll ask for an introduction "I'd love to help, but I'm really busy" you'll ask if they need a janitor so you can get your foot in the door somewhere to try and build out your CV because you lack a degree "I'd love to help, but I'm really busy", they're friends with umpteen Giving Pledge members and you ask if they could introduce you to someone at one of the dozen philanthropic entities because you'd just like to ask them some questions and see what drives the organization and what they are doing so you can have insight to a different world "I'd love to help, but I'm really busy" you look at their project as an outsider, with an entirely different set of world experiences, and point out that only their friends know what a continuum transfunctioner is and that 99% of people don't and maybe it would benefit them to bring a few popular science YouTube influencers around and show them some of the public stuff on tape and "I'd love to do that but first I want to get this continuum transfunctioner fully operational even though experts in the field think it may never work, so maybe in 4-5 years when I'm not busy I can have the team think about actually explaining what we are doing to 99.9999999% of the world".

gregn 7y ago
Am in the same boat. Have 15 years programming experience, and can literally code circles around many or most of the people I am interviewing with, but because I don't have a degree, or interview poorly, I am getting rejection after rejection. It's funny. I always think about the Frank Zappa sketch: "What's in a diploma? A: Absolutely nothing." It's a piece of paper, but I guess it is a symbol of your subservience to a system, which in kind shows you are good at deferring to authority or something. If I were hiring, I would explicitly go after non-degreed programmers who show they can code. Dogmatic college kids often write terrible code, but they proceed with unchecked hubris because everyone tells them they're great, even though they never paid any dues or done real systems programming.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  When talking to me someone once referred to a degree as a "de facto dues card" and, that's basically what they are in many cases. Sure you need an education to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, things that require licensing but come on, my employer doesn't care what your 4-year is in...it could be in Late 15th century Peruvian funerary basket weaving... and that's fine with them, they just want that accredited degree. With companies that have rejected me for not having one the past 18 months, I've found that (via LinkedIn) a notable percentage of their employees have random liberal arts degrees and then 2 years out of college they are on their 3rd-5th job upgrading their title at each stop... Hi, hello, I've been at my job 13 years. I'm in it for the long haul if you pay me well, I only want to leave my current employer because after 13 years on the job I make a whopping 34k a year in a state where the hourdly median wage was 16.25 in 2016 which is within 500 dollars of what I make (a bit less I think). When people were making a big fuss to raise minimum wage to 15$ a year or three ago, I was like "no, that's what I make after 10-12 years on the job and I know my employer won't increase my pay!"
- awinder 7y ago
  "subservience to the system" -- frankly theres a large degree of difference between someone being subservient and someone playing the game (one in which the rules are discussed ad-nauseam for a good decade in primary school at that). Believing that college is completely worthless & that people don't really gain anything there is its own form of unchecked hubris, so we do agree on really narrowing that down in the workplace, at least.

gregn 7y ago

Am in the same boat. Have 15 years programming experience, and can literally code circles around many or most of the people I am interviewing with, but because I don't have a degree, or interview poorly, I am getting rejection after rejection. It's funny. I always think about the Frank Zappa sketch: "What's in a diploma? A: Absolutely nothing." It's a piece of paper, but I guess it is a symbol of your subservience to a system, which in kind shows you are good at deferring to authority or something. If I were hiring, I would explicitly go after non-degreed programmers who show they can code. Dogmatic college kids often write terrible code, but they proceed with unchecked hubris because everyone tells them they're great, even though they never paid any dues or done real systems programming.

ryanmercer 7y ago
When talking to me someone once referred to a degree as a "de facto dues card" and, that's basically what they are in many cases. Sure you need an education to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, things that require licensing but come on, my employer doesn't care what your 4-year is in...it could be in Late 15th century Peruvian funerary basket weaving... and that's fine with them, they just want that accredited degree. With companies that have rejected me for not having one the past 18 months, I've found that (via LinkedIn) a notable percentage of their employees have random liberal arts degrees and then 2 years out of college they are on their 3rd-5th job upgrading their title at each stop... Hi, hello, I've been at my job 13 years. I'm in it for the long haul if you pay me well, I only want to leave my current employer because after 13 years on the job I make a whopping 34k a year in a state where the hourdly median wage was 16.25 in 2016 which is within 500 dollars of what I make (a bit less I think). When people were making a big fuss to raise minimum wage to 15$ a year or three ago, I was like "no, that's what I make after 10-12 years on the job and I know my employer won't increase my pay!"
awinder 7y ago
"subservience to the system" -- frankly theres a large degree of difference between someone being subservient and someone playing the game (one in which the rules are discussed ad-nauseam for a good decade in primary school at that). Believing that college is completely worthless & that people don't really gain anything there is its own form of unchecked hubris, so we do agree on really narrowing that down in the workplace, at least.