"This is the sort of stuff that makes writing webapps and doing data plumbing for a living seem completely banal and amateurish." "I don't know. My data plumbi

"This is the sort of stuff that makes writing webapps and doing data plumbing for a living seem completely banal and amateurish." "I don't know. My data plumbing gets parents home to their kids an hour faster. " Illustrates a classic dilemma, one I am working through. Would you rather work on something that is intellectually demanding, but maybe used for "trivial" purposes (the spore algorithms end up being part of a not so great game) or something that is intellectually trivial but adds "business value" (most web apps). It is hard to get into the first type of work, but you'll probably gte "just a salary", the second type of work is easier but could probably make you significant money(at least in a startup).