4 ms·

Tenures are not 2-3 years when you're financially independent. When you have an epic trump card in all conversations about what you should spend your time on, d

by codemac 14y ago

Tenures are not 2-3 years when you're financially independent. When you have an epic trump card in all conversations about what you should spend your time on, do you think you'd spend more than a minute doing something you didn't want to? I believe the term is "fuck-you money". """ This is an allusion to a Randy/Avi conversation of two years ago wherein Avi actually calculated a specific numerical value for "fuck-you money." It was not a fixed constant, however, but rather a cell in a spreadsheet linked to any number of continually fluctuating economic indicators. """

nostrademons 14y ago
Do engineers in SV actually spend time doing things they don't want to do? You don't need a lifetime supply of cash to have "fuck you money", you only need enough to be reasonably certain that you can find some other way to get more money. In Silicon Valley, that's about 2 days for a skilled engineer. None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do.
- jmillikin 14y ago
  Almost all SV developers, even those at the "perfect job", still have to do things they don't want to. This is a factor in salaries; the more unpleasant a company is to work at, the more they have to spend to hire skilled developers. And "fuck you money" isn't only enough money to tide you over to your next job, it's enough money to quit working forever, to live completely as you want for as long as you want.
  - nostrademons 14y ago
    Anyone who wants to accomplish anything has to do things they don't want to. This is not a function of the money in the bank, it's a function of the difficulty of the task. Someone founding their second startup still has to empty the wastepaper baskets; or perhaps they can hire a cleaning crew, but then, someone on their first startup can do that too, and they don't get quite the same respect from their employees as if they did it themselves. I define "fuck you money" as "Can you stand up in the middle of an important meeting and say 'fuck you, I quit' to your boss?" You don't need to be set for life for that, only to be sure you can get a job with someone who doesn't give a damn that you just said fuck you to your previous boss. And it's as much a function of reputation and chutzpah as money.
  - kirubakaran 14y ago
    "to live completely as you want for as long as you want" Money doesn't make you immortal yet :)
- notbitter 14y ago
  None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do. Your friends sound young.
  - nostrademons 14y ago
    Early 30s, largely working on maintenance & refactoring of a 10-years-old codebase, with some iOS devs mixed in. (Perhaps I shouldn't speak for them, as people might hide all sorts of unhappiness to avoid rocking the boat. But they seem happy, and when I've offered them jobs on my projects - which I think are much more interesting, but I've learned that what's interesting to me is not necessarily what's interesting to everyone - they've declined.)
- pfedor 14y ago
  None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do. That would be remarkable. That would mean that the solution to an optimization problem without constraints ("Of all the things I could be doing, which will make me the happiest?") is the same as to a corresponding problem with an extra constraint ("Of all the things I could be doing that also bring enough money to pay the mortgage, which will make me the happiest?") It doesn't often happen in life that adding an extra constraint, especially one that limits the space of possible solutions so drastically, doesn't change the solution. No doubt there exist people like that, but it seems unlikely that it would be true for all of your friends. They probably just put on an act which is expected in this kind of environment, and you naively take it at face value.
  - nostrademons 14y ago
    It's a different way of thinking about the problem. Most of my friends are not trying to optimize their life. Instead, life happens. The way to be happy is...to be happy, to change the things that you can change that make you unhappy, and accept everything else and not worry about it. It's not an act any more than you choosing to view the world through the lens of an optimization problem is an act. You can't really judge what someone's desires are - just because they don't desire what you desire doesn't make it wrong. Reminds me of something a girl I once dated once told me. We were talking about a mutual friend of ours, someone who (like me) tends to view everything through a hyper-logical lens and treat it as an optimization problem, and she said something along the lines of, "I can't read anything he writes. It's like everything has to follow logically from some past premise, but he doesn't realize that not everyone starts from the same assumptions as him. How can you relate to someone like that?" FWIW, I've thought like that for much of my life (which is perhaps why said girl and I are not together), so I do understand what you're saying. I'm trying to point out that it's possible for people to genuinely be happy doing whatever they're doing, at least until something better comes along. And I'll go out on a limb and say that most people think like that, and the type of achievement-driven, believes-they'll-be-fulfilled-if-they-had-$10M mindset is overrepresented on HN. (BTW, people generally tend to associate with others of similar worldviews - remember my date's comment of "How can you relate to someone like that?" - which is why the bulk of my friends are perfectly happy doing whatever they do, and perhaps the bulk of your friends are always striving for something better.) (It probably also helps that there're lots of jobs available for Xooglers in Silicon Valley, and that category is already fairly self-selecting for people who enjoy programming, so the universe of "things I enjoy doing that will pay the mortgage" is quite large.)

by codemac 14y ago

nostrademons 14y ago

Do engineers in SV actually spend time doing things they don't want to do? You don't need a lifetime supply of cash to have "fuck you money", you only need enough to be reasonably certain that you can find some other way to get more money. In Silicon Valley, that's about 2 days for a skilled engineer. None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do.

jmillikin 14y ago
Almost all SV developers, even those at the "perfect job", still have to do things they don't want to. This is a factor in salaries; the more unpleasant a company is to work at, the more they have to spend to hire skilled developers. And "fuck you money" isn't only enough money to tide you over to your next job, it's enough money to quit working forever, to live completely as you want for as long as you want.
- nostrademons 14y ago
  Anyone who wants to accomplish anything has to do things they don't want to. This is not a function of the money in the bank, it's a function of the difficulty of the task. Someone founding their second startup still has to empty the wastepaper baskets; or perhaps they can hire a cleaning crew, but then, someone on their first startup can do that too, and they don't get quite the same respect from their employees as if they did it themselves. I define "fuck you money" as "Can you stand up in the middle of an important meeting and say 'fuck you, I quit' to your boss?" You don't need to be set for life for that, only to be sure you can get a job with someone who doesn't give a damn that you just said fuck you to your previous boss. And it's as much a function of reputation and chutzpah as money.
- kirubakaran 14y ago
  "to live completely as you want for as long as you want" Money doesn't make you immortal yet :)
notbitter 14y ago
None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do. Your friends sound young.
- nostrademons 14y ago
  Early 30s, largely working on maintenance & refactoring of a 10-years-old codebase, with some iOS devs mixed in. (Perhaps I shouldn't speak for them, as people might hide all sorts of unhappiness to avoid rocking the boat. But they seem happy, and when I've offered them jobs on my projects - which I think are much more interesting, but I've learned that what's interesting to me is not necessarily what's interesting to everyone - they've declined.)
pfedor 14y ago
None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do. That would be remarkable. That would mean that the solution to an optimization problem without constraints ("Of all the things I could be doing, which will make me the happiest?") is the same as to a corresponding problem with an extra constraint ("Of all the things I could be doing that also bring enough money to pay the mortgage, which will make me the happiest?") It doesn't often happen in life that adding an extra constraint, especially one that limits the space of possible solutions so drastically, doesn't change the solution. No doubt there exist people like that, but it seems unlikely that it would be true for all of your friends. They probably just put on an act which is expected in this kind of environment, and you naively take it at face value.
- nostrademons 14y ago
  It's a different way of thinking about the problem. Most of my friends are not trying to optimize their life. Instead, life happens. The way to be happy is...to be happy, to change the things that you can change that make you unhappy, and accept everything else and not worry about it. It's not an act any more than you choosing to view the world through the lens of an optimization problem is an act. You can't really judge what someone's desires are - just because they don't desire what you desire doesn't make it wrong. Reminds me of something a girl I once dated once told me. We were talking about a mutual friend of ours, someone who (like me) tends to view everything through a hyper-logical lens and treat it as an optimization problem, and she said something along the lines of, "I can't read anything he writes. It's like everything has to follow logically from some past premise, but he doesn't realize that not everyone starts from the same assumptions as him. How can you relate to someone like that?" FWIW, I've thought like that for much of my life (which is perhaps why said girl and I are not together), so I do understand what you're saying. I'm trying to point out that it's possible for people to genuinely be happy doing whatever they're doing, at least until something better comes along. And I'll go out on a limb and say that most people think like that, and the type of achievement-driven, believes-they'll-be-fulfilled-if-they-had-$10M mindset is overrepresented on HN. (BTW, people generally tend to associate with others of similar worldviews - remember my date's comment of "How can you relate to someone like that?" - which is why the bulk of my friends are perfectly happy doing whatever they do, and perhaps the bulk of your friends are always striving for something better.) (It probably also helps that there're lots of jobs available for Xooglers in Silicon Valley, and that category is already fairly self-selecting for people who enjoy programming, so the universe of "things I enjoy doing that will pay the mortgage" is quite large.)