I graduated in December 2001, with a BS and M.Eng in CS from a well known school. This was almost precisely the low point after the dot com crash. I spent 4

I graduated in December 2001, with a BS and M.Eng in CS from a well known school. This was almost precisely the low point after the dot com crash. I spent 4 months at home with my parents doing nothing. I had some random uninteresting interviews; the most interviewing was for JPL in Pasadena, but it wasn't a fit. Then I managed to find a summer internship at EA in April 2002. Not even a full time job. The game industry was the only thing in software "going well". It's completely decoupled from the web/dotcom business. I think EA's stock doubled from 2002-2004 because everything else in tech was completely stagnant, at least business-wise. I moved to Redwood City first, then SOMA later in 2002. SOMA was completely different -- sort of tumbleweed-y as someone here put it. My roommate from craigslist was 5 years older and worked at a company in San Mateo, but otherwise I met almost no other tech people. Everyone I knew from college said they wanted to move out to California, but not many did because they couldn't find jobs (although most of my college friends were not in tech). I did have a college acquaintance who started at Google in 2002, and I found that interesting because I had used Google since summer 2000, but not noteworthy as far as I can remember. After that summer internship in 2002, I converted to full time at EA for a $60K salary. That sounds ridiculously low now! In 2003, I was sick of my job at EA, but I wanted to stay in SF. The only decent companies I could find with programming jobs (i.e. not doing IT at a bank) were Dolby and I think Macromedia, which later was bought by Adobe. That was kinda it for the city? Most jobs then were on the peninsula. "Startups" weren't a thing. I don't know when they became a thing again, but I think it did have something to do with the Google IPO in 2004 (I've worked there since 2005, after they posted a recruiting billboard near EA/Oracle in Redwood City). I think I bought Hackers and Painters around 2004 or so. I was reading the Joel on Software forum at the time, and I think I got the recommendation there. That was my Hacker News. I learned so much as a green programmer from reading that forum and Joel's essays. (To a lesser extent I learned from Paul Graham's essays, which at that time weren't only about startups. Although I thought he was sort of arrogant until I saw him speak in person at Google, I think in 2005 or 6 when he was starting YC.) All of that wisdom still applies, so for the younger people who haven't seen them, start with the top 10 essays here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ .