3 ms·

The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 3: Where to go and why

33 points by brett 19y ago

rms 19y ago
Biotech sounds like a good industry to get based on pmarca's standards. I'd love to move to the world capital of biotech, but I actually have no idea where it is or if there even is one.
- menloparkbum 19y ago
  Biotech is a huge and broad-ranging field. It could be a really old, staunchy industry (people have been making drugs and making biological modifications since forever), or a brand new thing, depending on your vantage point. You need a lot of specialized equipment. Results are slow. You pretty much need a PhD in order to do any sort of meaningful work in the field. Etc. It really depends on what you mean, but the national capitals for a lot of innovative biotech work in the USA are Bay Area and Boston.
  - timr 19y ago
    Small correction: you need a PhD, several years of post-doctoral work, and a contact on the inside. Even then, after 13+ years of post-secondary education and slave-wage "training," you might very well find yourself un- or under-employed by age 40, because you're considered too expensive or (ironically) too specialized. There are so many new bio PhDs minted every year that the labor supply is far out-pacing demand. Right now, the big names (I'm lookin' at you, Genentech...) are hiring extremely talented people into glorified lab-tech positions. In short, biotech is no panacea.
    - nostrademons 19y ago
      "There are so many new bio PhDs minted every year that the labor supply is far out-pacing demand." If you want a science field where demand far outpaces supply, try geology, with an eye toward either oil or mining. In the oil industry, there are 30,000 qualified geologists to fill 90,000 jobs. My sister's salary offer jumped $10K in the year she delayed entry into the workforce. She also says that there's a huge software opportunity in geology, because existing software sucks. However, you need some pretty specialized domain knowledge, and you'll be competing against Schlumberger and Halliburton. That's great for technical superiority, but you'll probably have difficulty breaking into Halliburton's old-boy network.
  - yubrew 19y ago
    Biotech in the US happens either in Boston or the Bay Area and to a lesser extent in the DC/MD/NOVA hub. I have heard that Boston is more an old boy network and that the Bay Area biotech start ups are more receptive to hiring younger people (not MD or PhD) as early employees. For starting your own biotech company, it will be very difficult to garnish credibility without a terminal degree or board of big name collaborators. A good approach to starting a business in this space is to pick your target audience, and find out if your team can easily fix any of their biggest problems. If not, iterate to a different target audience until you find a good problem for your team. In the medical device realm, I know of a couple groups of undergrads that have developed technologies that attracted VC attention. Titles and credentials are not deal breaking obstacles.
- aswanson 19y ago
  Make it Pittsburgh, rms. Or Singapore, maybe? Don't bring any chewing gum or spraypaint, though.
  - kingkongrevenge 19y ago
    I'm not even really sure what biotech is. The biggest concentration of pharmaceutical and medical device companies is in the Delaware valley.
    - rms 19y ago
      There are lots of subdivisions of biotech, just like there are lots of subdivisions of information technology... you can drill down from web technology to web services, then to consumer facing social media, etc... I don't think there is a capital for the new model of biotech I'm going by... here's hoping that Grahamian philosophy works with biology.
trekker7 19y ago
So what do you all think are the best, high-growth sub-industries within the current software technology world?
- kingkongrevenge 19y ago
  Defense, Homeland Security, and Intelligence contracting and product development are huge growth markets. But that's probably not what you have in mind.
ardit33 19y ago
One thing he failed to mention, whatever you do, make sure you are in the money "making part of the bussiness". E.g. If you are tech person, work on a pure technology company, where the product you are making is the money maker. You will be treated much better, as the company will try to maximize your productiviy. If you are a tech guy, working, let's say in a finance company, where technology is considered as an "expense", then you will never be treat as well, b/c you are less worth to the company, and they will always try to minimise your expense.
- rms 19y ago
  I learned this when I was working at US Airways in the maintenance half of the company. You wouldn't believe how much money the ancient software being used cost the company, but no one would spend money to upgrade the software because maintenance only cost the company money. A rarely mentioned difference between the legacy airlines and profitable ones like Southwest is that Southwest is not running operations and maintenance on 70s era mainframe software.
  - kingkongrevenge 19y ago
    I've seen the opposite twice. Rock solid old mainframe systems are replaced just for the sake of replacing them, with poor outcomes. For the most part I've been impressed with mainframe systems. The old languages suck, but if I had a big IO bound problem with very high reliability requirements I'd give IBM a call.
    - rms 19y ago
      This is why US Airways is screwed... the cost of replacing the mainframe is incredibly high and the cost of not replacing is incredibly high. Meanwhile, Southwest gets to operate with a modern computer system.
- dpapathanasiou 19y ago
  Another way of thinking about this is: don't take a job where your compensation is tied to a finite metric. E.g. jobs that are paid by the hour, or based on how many units of something you produce.
davidw 19y ago
> hell, people often don't even care who the top filmmaker in New York is, and quite a lot of films get made out of New York. Picking nits, I would say that Woody Allen has a claim at that title, and is not exactly a lightweight in the film industry.
- dfens 19y ago
  I thought so too, but apparently not so much: "As his star waned and box office numbers dwindled, U.S. studios began to demand more control over casting and other major decisions." http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/FilmFest/article/256029 http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/FilmFest/article/256029
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]

33 points by brett 19y ago

rms 19y ago

Biotech sounds like a good industry to get based on pmarca's standards. I'd love to move to the world capital of biotech, but I actually have no idea where it is or if there even is one.

menloparkbum 19y ago
Biotech is a huge and broad-ranging field. It could be a really old, staunchy industry (people have been making drugs and making biological modifications since forever), or a brand new thing, depending on your vantage point. You need a lot of specialized equipment. Results are slow. You pretty much need a PhD in order to do any sort of meaningful work in the field. Etc. It really depends on what you mean, but the national capitals for a lot of innovative biotech work in the USA are Bay Area and Boston.
- timr 19y ago
  Small correction: you need a PhD, several years of post-doctoral work, and a contact on the inside. Even then, after 13+ years of post-secondary education and slave-wage "training," you might very well find yourself un- or under-employed by age 40, because you're considered too expensive or (ironically) too specialized. There are so many new bio PhDs minted every year that the labor supply is far out-pacing demand. Right now, the big names (I'm lookin' at you, Genentech...) are hiring extremely talented people into glorified lab-tech positions. In short, biotech is no panacea.
  - nostrademons 19y ago
    "There are so many new bio PhDs minted every year that the labor supply is far out-pacing demand." If you want a science field where demand far outpaces supply, try geology, with an eye toward either oil or mining. In the oil industry, there are 30,000 qualified geologists to fill 90,000 jobs. My sister's salary offer jumped $10K in the year she delayed entry into the workforce. She also says that there's a huge software opportunity in geology, because existing software sucks. However, you need some pretty specialized domain knowledge, and you'll be competing against Schlumberger and Halliburton. That's great for technical superiority, but you'll probably have difficulty breaking into Halliburton's old-boy network.
- yubrew 19y ago
  Biotech in the US happens either in Boston or the Bay Area and to a lesser extent in the DC/MD/NOVA hub. I have heard that Boston is more an old boy network and that the Bay Area biotech start ups are more receptive to hiring younger people (not MD or PhD) as early employees. For starting your own biotech company, it will be very difficult to garnish credibility without a terminal degree or board of big name collaborators. A good approach to starting a business in this space is to pick your target audience, and find out if your team can easily fix any of their biggest problems. If not, iterate to a different target audience until you find a good problem for your team. In the medical device realm, I know of a couple groups of undergrads that have developed technologies that attracted VC attention. Titles and credentials are not deal breaking obstacles.
aswanson 19y ago
Make it Pittsburgh, rms. Or Singapore, maybe? Don't bring any chewing gum or spraypaint, though.
- kingkongrevenge 19y ago
  I'm not even really sure what biotech is. The biggest concentration of pharmaceutical and medical device companies is in the Delaware valley.
  - rms 19y ago
    There are lots of subdivisions of biotech, just like there are lots of subdivisions of information technology... you can drill down from web technology to web services, then to consumer facing social media, etc... I don't think there is a capital for the new model of biotech I'm going by... here's hoping that Grahamian philosophy works with biology.

trekker7 19y ago

So what do you all think are the best, high-growth sub-industries within the current software technology world?

kingkongrevenge 19y ago
Defense, Homeland Security, and Intelligence contracting and product development are huge growth markets. But that's probably not what you have in mind.

ardit33 19y ago

One thing he failed to mention, whatever you do, make sure you are in the money "making part of the bussiness". E.g. If you are tech person, work on a pure technology company, where the product you are making is the money maker. You will be treated much better, as the company will try to maximize your productiviy. If you are a tech guy, working, let's say in a finance company, where technology is considered as an "expense", then you will never be treat as well, b/c you are less worth to the company, and they will always try to minimise your expense.

rms 19y ago
I learned this when I was working at US Airways in the maintenance half of the company. You wouldn't believe how much money the ancient software being used cost the company, but no one would spend money to upgrade the software because maintenance only cost the company money. A rarely mentioned difference between the legacy airlines and profitable ones like Southwest is that Southwest is not running operations and maintenance on 70s era mainframe software.
- kingkongrevenge 19y ago
  I've seen the opposite twice. Rock solid old mainframe systems are replaced just for the sake of replacing them, with poor outcomes. For the most part I've been impressed with mainframe systems. The old languages suck, but if I had a big IO bound problem with very high reliability requirements I'd give IBM a call.
  - rms 19y ago
    This is why US Airways is screwed... the cost of replacing the mainframe is incredibly high and the cost of not replacing is incredibly high. Meanwhile, Southwest gets to operate with a modern computer system.
dpapathanasiou 19y ago
Another way of thinking about this is: don't take a job where your compensation is tied to a finite metric. E.g. jobs that are paid by the hour, or based on how many units of something you produce.

davidw 19y ago

> hell, people often don't even care who the top filmmaker in New York is, and quite a lot of films get made out of New York. Picking nits, I would say that Woody Allen has a claim at that title, and is not exactly a lightweight in the film industry.

dfens 19y ago
I thought so too, but apparently not so much: "As his star waned and box office numbers dwindled, U.S. studios began to demand more control over casting and other major decisions." http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/FilmFest/article/256029 http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/FilmFest/article/256029

deleted 19y ago

[deleted]