5 ms·

I went to Stanford undergrad and honestly, the Bay Area tech scene (and Seattle from what I've noticed) looks unappealing to me. The culture is a turn off. I'd

I went to Stanford undergrad and honestly, the Bay Area tech scene (and Seattle from what I've noticed) looks unappealing to me. The culture is a turn off. I'd much rather have a 40 hour a week job somewhere else, where everyone understands it's a job and you can be your own person at home. It's hard to articulate, and I could write much more about it, but it's almost like the identity you have to don to fit in there feels too all-consuming. I don't want to pretend I'm changing the world instead of just installing a new social hierarchy run by the meritocratic elite. I don't want to pretend that programming is my only hobby -- I want to do other things than learn new Javascript frameworks at home. I like my nice 3 bedroom house which is just minutes from downtown and is less than 3x my annual income. It's admittedly an outsider's perspective but the only reason I would go back is to save up money for a few years then go somewhere else.

opportune 7y ago
I think you would be surprised just how many people see their job as a means to an end in Seattle/Bay Area, especially outside of the startup world. At FAANG and other big companies I think there is actually very little Kool-aid drinking compared to the smaller companies. And at a subset of those companies, people work normal hours and don't brag about things like working on side projects at home. Especially many of the parents I've worked with have been great engineers but at the end of the day just want to go home and spend time with their family, and it's fine from both a career and social perspective.
proverbialbunny 7y ago
There is a lot of things that could be said here: 1) I switched from being a software engineer to a data scientist in 2010, in part because of the culture. I totally get not enjoying the culture, though I do recognize how much it varies from person to person and company to company, so I try not to stereotype. But on some level, I get it. 2) We're opposites in some way. I've been writing code since I was 8 years old, and enjoy it. I'm the type of person who loves to find a fun and challenging problem and dive in so much I don't turn off. However, people like me are rare. In the last 15 years in the Bay Area, I've only worked with one other person who fit that criteria. Everyone else treated it like a 9 to 5 job. Me, I've never been one to judge or think negatively of that. That's how people are. It's normal. I get there are problems with SE culture, but some people being super passionate about what they do, to me isn't one of them. I don't believe I've ever annoyed anyone, bothered anyone after hours, or done anything unreasonable, and if I did I would appreciate people letting me know in a 1-on-1 fashion. The last thing I want to do is bother my coworkers. 3) You're on ycombinator, the center of Bay Area tech culture. Frankly, I'm baffled you like hacker news, for the people who like this kind of stuff after work hours, yet at the same time are anti that. YC is the heart of tech passion, and if you don't like it, why are you here? Not judging. Your comments and views are valuable. I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.
- tmpz22 7y ago
  > You're on ycombinator, the center of Bay Area tech culture Citation needed. I think YC users think they are the center of tech (or the universe?). What would be that actual proof that it was? Do we know how many users HN has? What % of VC actually spend time here? What % of meaningful founders actually spend time here? Ya the CEO of github will drop a post on a major thread concerning his company, but so what? Honestly the more time I spend here the more I see two notable demographics: cynics trying to feel superior (like myself), and people trying to justify their own salary and lifestyles via a fat FANNG paycheck. P.S. and college students / recent grads who know everything.
  - proverbialbunny 7y ago
    It could be trending away from that, but historically https://www.ycombinator.com/ https://www.ycombinator.com/ is the center of bay area startup culture, and then those startups grew into bay area tech culture as a whole. Ycombinator comes from Stanford which centers around creating CEOs, creating most of the companies in the bay area. Most non-yc bay area companies still have Stanford at its roots. I don't have a direct data point, but almost every company I've interviewed for in the last 10 years and have worked with, their CEO or CTO or some other c-suite "club" is strongly tied to Stanford and from that directly or indirectly tied to YC.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  Well, don't paint with a broad brush. I love solving problems too, and I love learning new things. I too played with computers as a kid and my middle school friends and I built websites for fun. I wasn't exposed to real programming (beyond neat Javascript tricks) until CS class in high school. However, science has always been my #1 thing, and programming is my probably my #3. Interesting, but not the only thing I want to do. Working 40 hours a week at it is enough for me. I still love learning new things and getting better at the craft, but when I go home, I have other hobbies. I'm hacking my treadmill with Arduino for fun. I'm brazing metal. I'm riding my bike more. I'm reading a fiction book that just came out. I just read a book about world development. All of that is a lot more interesting to me than going home and sitting at a different desk doing more programming, you know? And while I'm not offended by your comments and this is entirely non-personal -- really, I'm just curious as well and enjoy talking to people with different perspectives -- the attitude that if I'm not always programming, I'm "less than" than other programmers seems oppressive to me. I'm still smart, I'm still curious, I'm still good at my job. But there's still the perception that if I am not programming more, I am falling behind. So the solution for people like me is to pretend to be someone like you, who loves programming above all other things, and it's mildly exhausting. It's great that you love programming so much and I kind of envy you. But not everyone needs to be exactly like you to be a worthwhile contributor. (Again, not personal, I just enjoy putting these thoughts into words.)

opportune 7y ago

I think you would be surprised just how many people see their job as a means to an end in Seattle/Bay Area, especially outside of the startup world. At FAANG and other big companies I think there is actually very little Kool-aid drinking compared to the smaller companies. And at a subset of those companies, people work normal hours and don't brag about things like working on side projects at home. Especially many of the parents I've worked with have been great engineers but at the end of the day just want to go home and spend time with their family, and it's fine from both a career and social perspective.

proverbialbunny 7y ago

There is a lot of things that could be said here: 1) I switched from being a software engineer to a data scientist in 2010, in part because of the culture. I totally get not enjoying the culture, though I do recognize how much it varies from person to person and company to company, so I try not to stereotype. But on some level, I get it. 2) We're opposites in some way. I've been writing code since I was 8 years old, and enjoy it. I'm the type of person who loves to find a fun and challenging problem and dive in so much I don't turn off. However, people like me are rare. In the last 15 years in the Bay Area, I've only worked with one other person who fit that criteria. Everyone else treated it like a 9 to 5 job. Me, I've never been one to judge or think negatively of that. That's how people are. It's normal. I get there are problems with SE culture, but some people being super passionate about what they do, to me isn't one of them. I don't believe I've ever annoyed anyone, bothered anyone after hours, or done anything unreasonable, and if I did I would appreciate people letting me know in a 1-on-1 fashion. The last thing I want to do is bother my coworkers. 3) You're on ycombinator, the center of Bay Area tech culture. Frankly, I'm baffled you like hacker news, for the people who like this kind of stuff after work hours, yet at the same time are anti that. YC is the heart of tech passion, and if you don't like it, why are you here? Not judging. Your comments and views are valuable. I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.

tmpz22 7y ago
> You're on ycombinator, the center of Bay Area tech culture Citation needed. I think YC users think they are the center of tech (or the universe?). What would be that actual proof that it was? Do we know how many users HN has? What % of VC actually spend time here? What % of meaningful founders actually spend time here? Ya the CEO of github will drop a post on a major thread concerning his company, but so what? Honestly the more time I spend here the more I see two notable demographics: cynics trying to feel superior (like myself), and people trying to justify their own salary and lifestyles via a fat FANNG paycheck. P.S. and college students / recent grads who know everything.
- proverbialbunny 7y ago
  It could be trending away from that, but historically https://www.ycombinator.com/ https://www.ycombinator.com/ is the center of bay area startup culture, and then those startups grew into bay area tech culture as a whole. Ycombinator comes from Stanford which centers around creating CEOs, creating most of the companies in the bay area. Most non-yc bay area companies still have Stanford at its roots. I don't have a direct data point, but almost every company I've interviewed for in the last 10 years and have worked with, their CEO or CTO or some other c-suite "club" is strongly tied to Stanford and from that directly or indirectly tied to YC.
asdfman123 7y ago
Well, don't paint with a broad brush. I love solving problems too, and I love learning new things. I too played with computers as a kid and my middle school friends and I built websites for fun. I wasn't exposed to real programming (beyond neat Javascript tricks) until CS class in high school. However, science has always been my #1 thing, and programming is my probably my #3. Interesting, but not the only thing I want to do. Working 40 hours a week at it is enough for me. I still love learning new things and getting better at the craft, but when I go home, I have other hobbies. I'm hacking my treadmill with Arduino for fun. I'm brazing metal. I'm riding my bike more. I'm reading a fiction book that just came out. I just read a book about world development. All of that is a lot more interesting to me than going home and sitting at a different desk doing more programming, you know? And while I'm not offended by your comments and this is entirely non-personal -- really, I'm just curious as well and enjoy talking to people with different perspectives -- the attitude that if I'm not always programming, I'm "less than" than other programmers seems oppressive to me. I'm still smart, I'm still curious, I'm still good at my job. But there's still the perception that if I am not programming more, I am falling behind. So the solution for people like me is to pretend to be someone like you, who loves programming above all other things, and it's mildly exhausting. It's great that you love programming so much and I kind of envy you. But not everyone needs to be exactly like you to be a worthwhile contributor. (Again, not personal, I just enjoy putting these thoughts into words.)