7 ms·

The main reason he failed is because the industries he picked - first publishing and second sitcoms - were declining industries. And no matter how smart or hard

The main reason he failed is because the industries he picked - first publishing and second sitcoms - were declining industries. And no matter how smart or hardworking you are - and this dude was smart and prudent and hardworking - you can't fight against larger macroeconomic forces.

aristidb 13y ago
Sorry for the nitpicking, but you meant "macroeconomic". I agree with your point though.
- not_that_noob 13y ago
  Yep typo. It was 'macro' in my head.
deaconblues 13y ago
Publishing I can understand, but a seasoned sitcom writer -- especially a Roseanne alum -- should have been able to pick up more writing work. I'm not saying he's lazy or entitled or anything like that, just that the world can sometimes be a scary place where you end up in a bad situation just by luck of the draw.
- not_that_noob 13y ago
  The article makes the point that sitcoms declined as reality TV was on the ascent. Fewer jobs available writing for sitcoms, and there were other great writers with current experience competing against him.
  - beachstartup 13y ago
    he only briefly mentions this, but he took 2 years off to spend more time with is family at exactly the wrong time, when the jobs started disappearing. quite honestly anyone who takes two years off when their career is at peak potential shouldn't be surprised at anything career-wise that happens from that point forward. all bets are off when you just check the f out for 2 years. how many successful people could take 2 years off from their work and expect things to be fine when they come back? this line of (non-) reasoning is sheer lunacy.
    - lgieron 13y ago
      Regarding your last question - I'd say it's pretty much the norm in our field.
      - beachstartup 13y ago
        you should try it and see what happens. go ahead, give yourself a 2 year break.
        lgieron 13y ago
        I did that. After the break, I found a contract that paid more than a double than the previous one. Then another break (this time a little less than a year), and another bump in pay. If you can show you're valuable, the gaps don't matter (at least, that is my experience).
      - kamaal 13y ago
        You must be kidding. Let alone taking a 2 year break. If you are not having side projects which you work after office hours, late night and weekends. If you are not learning quickly, adapting or improving your skills fast enough. You are setting yourself up for disaster.
larrys 13y ago
"And no matter how smart or hardworking you are " We aren't talking about buggy whips here. There are jobs in that industry. Who do you think are getting those jobs? People who are stupid and lazy? Of course a rising tide floats all boats. And of course it would have been better if he was an in demand programmer in SF. But most people aren't. And this is something they do need to deal with.
- guyzero 13y ago
  "Who do you think are getting those jobs? People who are stupid and lazy?" People who are young and cheap. It says so right in the article.
  - redschell 13y ago
    I think it comes back to something we talk about quite a bit here: the advantage of the youthful entrepreneur. It's not that inexperienced 20-somethings and college dropouts are in any way superior to their older, credentialed, experienced peers. It's just that, when you're taking moonshots, you should expect to miss most of the time. When you're tired of failing, you can go back to school, or start in a new career field. The gaps in your resume are there, but they're forgivable. You were hungry and foolish then, but you're ready to eat and learn now. As others have noted, those gaps hurt a lot more when they appear later on. It's not fair, but it's just the way it is, unfortunately. Even if you were on your way to 20 years of employment at your stable dream job, layoffs can happen. Shit can happen. Count on it.
  - larrys 13y ago
    So are you claiming that there are no older people in those comedy writing jobs? At all. All are gone? Somehow I don't think that is the case.
    - willvarfar 13y ago
      (Did you read the whole article? He directly addresses this.)
    - 13y ago
ChuckMcM 13y ago
You need to be careful with that line of reasoning. Things change, it wasn't clear necessarily when Rosanne was on that Sitcoms were dying. Nor that the replacement wouldn't need jokes. The take away is things change and if multiple things change at the same time in a negative way it hurts. What struck me was sitting in a library surfing the web. I'd much rather sit in the library and read books. If his description of the days being so long an boring and lonely for the homeless, does it make sense to start a program to read to them for a couple of hours a day. It won't be boring and it could be educational.
- nerfhammer 13y ago
  Plus you can check books out of the library, to read when the library is closed.
  - bentcorner 13y ago
    Can you do that if you're homeless? (I don't know for sure - my local library doesn't say either way except for the statement "living in or owning property in [my area]").
    - cafard 13y ago
      It must depend on a lot on the library, which must depend a lot on the city. I have read of cities in New Jersey winding up in litigation over trying to push out the homeless essentially camping there. I believe that a co-worker used to complain of the homeless crowding the main DC library.
    - rst 13y ago
      Depends on the library, and perhaps on when you ask. The Cambridge Public Library web site now says they require a "current local address", so the homeless may be out of luck. But they used to require only that you be able to sign your name. (This was advertised with posters featuring a very dejected looking cat.)
- rst 13y ago
  And it was particularly hard to foresee that the replacement wouldn't need writers, which had been a basic requirement of broadcast serial entertainment since before television.
mapgrep 13y ago
I saw Bill Gates speak at Berkeley in 2001. He was urging, practically begging, the students to major in computer science. Because you see in 2001 software and the internet looked like a "declining industry" as you put it. The dot-com bust made the idea that software would revolutionize the world look like so much idiocy. Anyone who took Gates' advice is doing VERY well right now. But there was loads of skepticism in that audience, and lots of questions about offshoring. My point is, it is incredibly hard to tell what will be a "declining industry" even five years forward. There's no way this guy would have known that television writing would get nuked by reality television. Also, I hope people who read your comment don't make the mistake of thinking they can necessarily avoid this sort of misfortune simply by being smart enough.
- willvarfar 13y ago
  Even as a teenager I reasoned that the job market and economy in general was like a rollercoaster and that the best time to study a subject was during a depression when nobody was hiring it. So many students reasoned the exact opposite, though, and avoided CS because of the recent bubble. I'd have pursued CS whatever the economy, though. I'm just lucky my take was right and my timing was lucky.
mathattack 13y ago
Yes. Taking 2 years off didn't help either. This sounds like the plight of people who take extended maternity or paternity leaves, only to find themselves unwanted in the workforce. Age discrimination is tough!
brown9-2 13y ago
Which makes the idea that people who fall on hard times have no one to blame but themselves quite silly - people shouldn't be punished for failing to accurately predict the future of an industry. In other words, the fact that these once huge industries were rapidly declining is a great argument for an increased social safety net.
sneak 13y ago
No, the main reason he failed is because he had 9 dependent humans.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  And some sort of obsession with excellence. Wikipedia relates that the median price of a home there is $1.98 million. I'm sure there is somewhere cheaper in L.A. that still has a very reasonable public school system.

aristidb 13y ago

Sorry for the nitpicking, but you meant "macroeconomic". I agree with your point though.

not_that_noob 13y ago
Yep typo. It was 'macro' in my head.

deaconblues 13y ago

Publishing I can understand, but a seasoned sitcom writer -- especially a Roseanne alum -- should have been able to pick up more writing work. I'm not saying he's lazy or entitled or anything like that, just that the world can sometimes be a scary place where you end up in a bad situation just by luck of the draw.

not_that_noob 13y ago
The article makes the point that sitcoms declined as reality TV was on the ascent. Fewer jobs available writing for sitcoms, and there were other great writers with current experience competing against him.
- beachstartup 13y ago
  he only briefly mentions this, but he took 2 years off to spend more time with is family at exactly the wrong time, when the jobs started disappearing. quite honestly anyone who takes two years off when their career is at peak potential shouldn't be surprised at anything career-wise that happens from that point forward. all bets are off when you just check the f out for 2 years. how many successful people could take 2 years off from their work and expect things to be fine when they come back? this line of (non-) reasoning is sheer lunacy.
  - lgieron 13y ago
    Regarding your last question - I'd say it's pretty much the norm in our field.
    - beachstartup 13y ago
      you should try it and see what happens. go ahead, give yourself a 2 year break.
      - lgieron 13y ago
        I did that. After the break, I found a contract that paid more than a double than the previous one. Then another break (this time a little less than a year), and another bump in pay. If you can show you're valuable, the gaps don't matter (at least, that is my experience).
    - kamaal 13y ago
      You must be kidding. Let alone taking a 2 year break. If you are not having side projects which you work after office hours, late night and weekends. If you are not learning quickly, adapting or improving your skills fast enough. You are setting yourself up for disaster.

larrys 13y ago

"And no matter how smart or hardworking you are " We aren't talking about buggy whips here. There are jobs in that industry. Who do you think are getting those jobs? People who are stupid and lazy? Of course a rising tide floats all boats. And of course it would have been better if he was an in demand programmer in SF. But most people aren't. And this is something they do need to deal with.

guyzero 13y ago
"Who do you think are getting those jobs? People who are stupid and lazy?" People who are young and cheap. It says so right in the article.
- redschell 13y ago
  I think it comes back to something we talk about quite a bit here: the advantage of the youthful entrepreneur. It's not that inexperienced 20-somethings and college dropouts are in any way superior to their older, credentialed, experienced peers. It's just that, when you're taking moonshots, you should expect to miss most of the time. When you're tired of failing, you can go back to school, or start in a new career field. The gaps in your resume are there, but they're forgivable. You were hungry and foolish then, but you're ready to eat and learn now. As others have noted, those gaps hurt a lot more when they appear later on. It's not fair, but it's just the way it is, unfortunately. Even if you were on your way to 20 years of employment at your stable dream job, layoffs can happen. Shit can happen. Count on it.
- larrys 13y ago
  So are you claiming that there are no older people in those comedy writing jobs? At all. All are gone? Somehow I don't think that is the case.
  - willvarfar 13y ago
    (Did you read the whole article? He directly addresses this.)
  - 13y ago

ChuckMcM 13y ago

You need to be careful with that line of reasoning. Things change, it wasn't clear necessarily when Rosanne was on that Sitcoms were dying. Nor that the replacement wouldn't need jokes. The take away is things change and if multiple things change at the same time in a negative way it hurts. What struck me was sitting in a library surfing the web. I'd much rather sit in the library and read books. If his description of the days being so long an boring and lonely for the homeless, does it make sense to start a program to read to them for a couple of hours a day. It won't be boring and it could be educational.

nerfhammer 13y ago
Plus you can check books out of the library, to read when the library is closed.
- bentcorner 13y ago
  Can you do that if you're homeless? (I don't know for sure - my local library doesn't say either way except for the statement "living in or owning property in [my area]").
  - cafard 13y ago
    It must depend on a lot on the library, which must depend a lot on the city. I have read of cities in New Jersey winding up in litigation over trying to push out the homeless essentially camping there. I believe that a co-worker used to complain of the homeless crowding the main DC library.
  - rst 13y ago
    Depends on the library, and perhaps on when you ask. The Cambridge Public Library web site now says they require a "current local address", so the homeless may be out of luck. But they used to require only that you be able to sign your name. (This was advertised with posters featuring a very dejected looking cat.)
rst 13y ago
And it was particularly hard to foresee that the replacement wouldn't need writers, which had been a basic requirement of broadcast serial entertainment since before television.

mapgrep 13y ago

I saw Bill Gates speak at Berkeley in 2001. He was urging, practically begging, the students to major in computer science. Because you see in 2001 software and the internet looked like a "declining industry" as you put it. The dot-com bust made the idea that software would revolutionize the world look like so much idiocy. Anyone who took Gates' advice is doing VERY well right now. But there was loads of skepticism in that audience, and lots of questions about offshoring. My point is, it is incredibly hard to tell what will be a "declining industry" even five years forward. There's no way this guy would have known that television writing would get nuked by reality television. Also, I hope people who read your comment don't make the mistake of thinking they can necessarily avoid this sort of misfortune simply by being smart enough.

willvarfar 13y ago
Even as a teenager I reasoned that the job market and economy in general was like a rollercoaster and that the best time to study a subject was during a depression when nobody was hiring it. So many students reasoned the exact opposite, though, and avoided CS because of the recent bubble. I'd have pursued CS whatever the economy, though. I'm just lucky my take was right and my timing was lucky.

mathattack 13y ago

Yes. Taking 2 years off didn't help either. This sounds like the plight of people who take extended maternity or paternity leaves, only to find themselves unwanted in the workforce. Age discrimination is tough!

brown9-2 13y ago

Which makes the idea that people who fall on hard times have no one to blame but themselves quite silly - people shouldn't be punished for failing to accurately predict the future of an industry. In other words, the fact that these once huge industries were rapidly declining is a great argument for an increased social safety net.

sneak 13y ago

No, the main reason he failed is because he had 9 dependent humans.

maxerickson 13y ago
And some sort of obsession with excellence. Wikipedia relates that the median price of a home there is $1.98 million. I'm sure there is somewhere cheaper in L.A. that still has a very reasonable public school system.