3 ms·

I was a teenager during the the dot-com bust in the Silicon Valley (Palo Alto/Stanford to be precise). Even PhD's and extremely driven & accomplished people cou

by dclusin 13y ago

I was a teenager during the the dot-com bust in the Silicon Valley (Palo Alto/Stanford to be precise). Even PhD's and extremely driven & accomplished people could not find jobs. They simply weren't there. In the event that there is a bubble in start up investing I don't think that it will be as bad as it was when and if it deflates. The primary reason I think this is because the amount of demand for skilled software/hardware workers has grown to such huge & global proportions that it is not possible for VC's to affect it meaningfully anymore. Although I guess you could have said the same thing about housing in the U.S. back in the 2000s.

jurassic 13y ago
I know things were terrible for everyone during the dot bomb era, but just wanted to say that PhD holders often have a hard time finding the right position even in good times. They are highly specialized and believe they should command a high salary, but employers are resistant to paying a large premium unless their particular expertise serves their business need. Since PhD theses are by their nature esoteric, this leads to an unfortunate mismatch in expectations.
- dclusin 13y ago
  They were taking unskilled jobs or jobs they were extremely overqualified for just to make ends meet is what I was trying to get across. Several of my friends parents had to do this until things got better.
baudehlo 13y ago
Even in 2000 it wasn't just about VCs. Big old companies put a lot of effort and manpower into new tech too. Those long established companies rolled back projects at the same time as the crash, funding was pulled from technology departments, and all technology people suffered due to the bust. I was out of work for 6 months and I was one of the lucky ones (had a cushion, hit the end of it, but found an amazing role).
larrys 13y ago
"Even PhD's and extremely driven & accomplished people could not find jobs. " That's definitely something that people usually don't take into account when they have a great job currently or pursue a "great" career. Something in demand today that gets you in a great lifestyle will also put you in a super specific niche that, with all you qualifications, you can only do a very narrowly defined job. That may only exist in one place (the place you are currently working). Otoh, if you are in, say, less glamorous job "sales" and you lose your sales position you can always find a job making money and selling something else. Not that there aren't super specialized sales jobs (say jet engines at GE) that would be hard to duplicate but you could probably land another high paying industrial equipment sales position.

by dclusin 13y ago

jurassic 13y ago

I know things were terrible for everyone during the dot bomb era, but just wanted to say that PhD holders often have a hard time finding the right position even in good times. They are highly specialized and believe they should command a high salary, but employers are resistant to paying a large premium unless their particular expertise serves their business need. Since PhD theses are by their nature esoteric, this leads to an unfortunate mismatch in expectations.

dclusin 13y ago
They were taking unskilled jobs or jobs they were extremely overqualified for just to make ends meet is what I was trying to get across. Several of my friends parents had to do this until things got better.

baudehlo 13y ago

Even in 2000 it wasn't just about VCs. Big old companies put a lot of effort and manpower into new tech too. Those long established companies rolled back projects at the same time as the crash, funding was pulled from technology departments, and all technology people suffered due to the bust. I was out of work for 6 months and I was one of the lucky ones (had a cushion, hit the end of it, but found an amazing role).

larrys 13y ago

"Even PhD's and extremely driven & accomplished people could not find jobs. " That's definitely something that people usually don't take into account when they have a great job currently or pursue a "great" career. Something in demand today that gets you in a great lifestyle will also put you in a super specific niche that, with all you qualifications, you can only do a very narrowly defined job. That may only exist in one place (the place you are currently working). Otoh, if you are in, say, less glamorous job "sales" and you lose your sales position you can always find a job making money and selling something else. Not that there aren't super specialized sales jobs (say jet engines at GE) that would be hard to duplicate but you could probably land another high paying industrial equipment sales position.