I survived the dot-com bust. At that time I had 20 years of experience programming. I worked at a cool hip marketing/multimedia company when the bottom dropped

I survived the dot-com bust. At that time I had 20 years of experience programming. I worked at a cool hip marketing/multimedia company when the bottom dropped out. The programmers who only had experience doing .com startup nonsense and very little tech background ended up working at Borders and Starbucks (actual examples). I went to a logistics company working on an Oracle code base. Lesson: don’t over-specialize, don’t self-limit your career. I have worked steadily as a programmer for 40 years, always plenty of demand even if it shifts around business domains. Watch out for fads. Old things like relational databases and Unix/Linux hang on for a reason. Younger less-experienced programmers I worked with who got laid off in 2000 when their startup tanked struggled for a long time to get back to their pre-bust salaries. They were probably overpaid in the first place, hired in as fresh talent in an overheated VC-driven job market that was not sustainable. When that happens it’s disillusioning and depressing. I see that happening again, kids fresh out of college hired at Facebook/Meta at crazy salaries that no other employer will match if/when Meta tanks.