patrick.net

Peter P,

Thanks for the correction --DPRK it is!
Did I really need to use the [saracsm on /off] tags, or was the tone obvious enough?

HARM, when sarcasm is the reality, tags are no longer needed.

"Two tech salaries combined (200k+) should enable a young family to get a reasonable townhouse with a comfortable mortgage, assuming with 10% - 20% down-payment."

You wont find that many women making that kind of cash. Second, marriage leads to kids (1 or 2, and as many as 3).
And then they become stay at home moms.
I seen way too much of this.

I know of a Web 2.0 company

Does anyone have any insight into KNOWNOW !!

You wont find that many women making that kind of cash.

Many wives earn more than their respective husbands. At least several people on this blog can attest to that.

Did you mean DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Kalifornistan)?

VELLLY NICE!

Does anyone out there, liberal, conservative or moderate, honestly believe the ER situation out there would be as bad as it is today (esp. in major border/gateway states like CA) if the illegal population had not exploded over the last 20 years?

Wouldn't that be easy to figure out? We just need to find a state that has few illegal immigrants and see what their ER situation is like.

Although I guess North Dakota/Montana aren't really urbanized either. Hm. Does Boston have a high illegal immigrant population?

Besides Google and Yahoo, can anyone name tech companies that treat their employees well?

It depends on what you mean by well.

Well as in comp?
Well as in free stuff?
Well as in cool culture?

You can't always have all of them.

FWIW, I've heard very very mixed stories from Apple. Real highs. Real lows.

If anything, it’s worse because of supply and demand - more docs want to live in cities, there’s a relative oversupply, and rural practices have to offer more to hire docs.

I hear that in a lot of rural areas, they depend on H1B visas to have doctors. Because American citizen doctors won't work there because the pay is too low and it suxors.

Classic. :)

Does Boston have a high illegal immigrant population?

Why, of course! They are generally Brazilian, Dominican, or Haitian, or Irish. (It's Boston, after all!)

I hear that in a lot of rural areas, they depend on H1B visas to have doctors. Because American citizen doctors won’t work there because the pay is too low and it suxors.

Again, it's a bit more complicated. The "traditional" path of the FMG (foreign medical grad) is the J1 visa, which requires time spent in an "underserved" area of the US (usually rural). There are more and more FMGs who are applying for and getting H1B visas, which have no such requirement. Maybe that's changing with all the news about the shortage of H1Bs.

The pay is generally better in these rural locations, although there is variation.

The company I work for makes things that go boom and things that track things that go boom. Business is good.

Hey, There are, I mean were, plenty of tech companies that treated employees REAALLY well. How about all those dot.bombs with their foosball tables, lounges stuffed to the gills with food, video game rooms, riding to meetings down the hall in scooters, and all that?

I suppose you could say that the result of treating employees well in that way is going belly up. Now back to the salt mines all of you!

Do people really work 50-60 hours a week in tech? I would understand if such workers are on commission. But code monkeys? What is the point?

Do people really work 50-60 hours a week in tech?

LOL! since the Late 70s/early 80s to today the real SV
heros are burning the midnight oil day and night and weekends.

You should see back in the 80s when we were a 24/7 nonstop shop.
LOL, I think we invented the term 24/7. Now those were the days!

Glamor boys need not apply! Jeans and T-Shirt are mandetory.

One tip, if the hiring manager is a minority and more than half the team members belong to the same ethnicity, it is unlikely to be a good place to work if you are not one of them.

I agree that the job market is hopping right now. Not a week goes by without at least a couple of unsolicited inquiries. However, as PAR said, very few if any of these seem like great jobs - or particularly stable ones.

Unlike RandyH, I am actually not very optimistic about the prospects for rank and file employees at some of the new breed of start-ups. There seem to be very few that are truly game-changing innovations that could prosper on their own.

I think this makes an important distinction. We are seeing a fairly sharp bifurcation of jobs in CA, which reflects the steady bifurcation of the overall economy. If you are a well funded entrepreneur, loaded with VC money and all your contacts from Ivy League MBA/grad school, your prospects are almost unlimited. If you are a rank-n-file code-monkey like most, unless you are an expert in a very high-demand field, you can still find work but it doesn't pay that well compared to the cost of living here.

Most tech workers are given unreasonable goals that cannot be accomplished in a 40 hour work week.

I give myself unreasonable goals too. That does not mean that I must achieve all of them.

You work as many hours as necessary to finish those tasks, even if those hours aren’t very productive.

Or you work what you feel right. Let the project fail once or twice. They will be conditioned into being more reasonable. Remember, your manager is a human too. Think in his shoes. Now, tell me what he is afraid of. :twisted:

I'm really starting to question the validity of domania's data. Look at this!

sold:
Feb 00 $2,028,000
Mar 04 $415,000
Apr 06 $23,400

I can wait to the what it gets sold for next :lol:

PaloAltoRenter (PAR) Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 11:04 am

"I saw a post recently by Don Dodge at Microsoft stating that an average of $40b per year has been pumped into startups over the last six years with only $18b per year finding an exit."

Its been about 3-5B per year based on PWC money tree data.
But many now are being acquired due to expensive IPO/Public process.

"My company is a B2B, and companies have to keep spending or we’re sunk."

Congrads, I was in B2B back in 1996-2003. 2001 was the peak in my opinion when the "4 Trillion B2B market" never happened. I am very happy and have done really well. They are still out there but the glory days are long gone. Your best bet now is Software as Services. SalesForce has done well. I expect some great results from NetSuites IPO.

Johnny5 Says:

"Besides Google and Yahoo, can anyone name tech companies that treat their employees well? "

Anyplace where the CEO/CFO have been around for decades and know their stuff cold! You got to look at Executive Bios. If is a CEO job hooper stay clear. Someone from the early Valley days and is around 50 yrs old helps alot. If they are former Military men, even better.

I been in Yahoo and they have boat loads of problems! Stay clear... the incompetence is massive. The CFO is not even an Accountant. We often wondered if who will go Postal at the HQ one day?

"Most tech workers are given unreasonable goals that cannot be accomplished in a 40 hour work week"

I call that incompetence in management. When you been in a "Sweet Spot" you know the difference.

Private medium/large-sized companies tend to be good. It is amazing what the stock market has done to misalign executive interests and long-term shareholder interests.

I personally avoid craigslist for the most part. The problem is that far too many of the companies that post there are on the small side with poor benefits, lousy pay, unpaid OT, and no real stability.

Not necessarily. It is a known fact the CL is a hot spot for geeks (and trolls). Many good engineering-oriented companies would post there.

Yahoo P/E = 53.42 ... way overvalued... still 99% is all advertising.
When you have econ slow downs Yahoo or Google they will fall.
Why? thats the advertising industry for you.

But Peter P, isn't it true that most of the best jobs never even get publicly listed? You have to be a member of the "club" (Bush, Kennedy, Rockafeller, etc.), and then they call you.

As Peter P has said, "competition" is for us proles. It is far better to be born lucky than to have to compete.

But Peter P, isn’t it true that most of the best jobs never even get publicly listed? You have to be a member of the “club” (Bush, Kennedy, Rockafeller, etc.), and then they call you.

Yes. The "best" ones.

America rewards the bold and the innovative. Inevitably, the entrepreneur type will get a bigger share of the pie.

"It is far better to be born lucky than to have to compete."

Paris Hilton is looking mighty fine these days.

Or you could go to a fundamentalist Xian law school...

As Peter P has said, “competition” is for us proles. It is far better to be born lucky than to have to compete.

Some competitive advantages can be acquired. But first one must become comfortable to compete unfairly.

Or you could go to a fundamentalist Xian law school…

Huh?

GOOG would be way ahead … YHOO will be destroyed …

Does it mean we have a good long-short pair?

Not investment advice

What do you guys think about the "mini-bailout" (They were given two more days.) of taxpayers who had trouble e-filing on Tuesday?

Perhaps our government is so compassionate that all large groups of "victims" can count on being bailed out.

First time poster, long-time lurker here.

OK, I am a psychotherapist intern working with 18-25 year-old homeless youth in the East Bay. I work for a non-profit. I don't see any problem with holding onto my job and sadly, I see growth in this industry. 18-25 year-olds who are just starting out in life here in the BA CANNOT pay for even the basic expenses at entry-level jobs. Also, even a rich area like the BA needs burger-flippers, janitorial services, manual laborers, etc. and these people certainly can't afford the cost of living here. These 18-25 year-olds end up homeless and if they're lucky they end up in our transitional housing program so that they can save up for the down payment on an apartment and furniture...

We have a vast underclass of 18-25 year-olds growing up in the BA who cannot afford to live on their own even when they are gainfully employed. Even the smart, talented, and educated ones aren't able to make it because housing is so ridiculously out of reach for someone entering the workforce. As a region, the BA fails its young people. The brain drain isn't just the older more experienced workers leaving the area, it's the young people who need to live elsewhere, where they can afford the basics on an entry-level wages/salary. So when you look at the future of the BA, where are we going to get new consumers to buy goods, services, and homes if we're pricing the youth out of the region? Is the BA going to become a wealthy retirement community full of the well-to-do sell-out Baby Boomers?

OK, off soap box for now.

Someone asked about changing careers. That's a huge question.

I'll just say that I've had 5 careers since I graduated with a BS in Finance with a minor in French. First, I was a seminarian, studying for the priesthood. Then I was an International Market Analyst working in Chicago and Paris. Then I was an Assistant Manager for Walgreens. Next, I was a web designer/developer.

Then I moved to the BA to go to school to get a graduate degree in counseling psychology in 2002. I was 32 then. I came here for a specific kind of education that wasn't really offered anywhere else. Now I'm saddled with massive student loans and consumer debt that I racked up paying for things like rent, gas, heat, electricity, phone service, food, healthcare, and transportation. I don't have many luxuries at all. When I was going to school, I lived off of student loans (and other debt as stated) and I made $12.00 an hour as a counselor working with severely disturbed students (children) and homeless youth (adolescents). Yes, I had experience and yes, that is what you get paid to do very difficult work in this field.

Social services is not a priority here in the BA as one would think. Very little money comes our way from government or donations. So, salaries and wages are excruciatingly low even though we need people to fill positions. I work for a very large East Bay Based Agency where we hve many openings. Many qualified people who serve those who need (whose ranks are growing daily due to the souring of the economy) go elsewhere where one can live off of a meager social services salary. So, while many people come to go to school here and get trained, not so many stay to work here or live here.

Don't get me wrong. I do what I do out of love and because this is what I was originally meant to do. I've found myself career-wise. It's just that with a graduate degree and all the training and interning I do I should have some sort of just compensation from the society that uses my services. Society should plan for a social wellfare net that most people will need at some point in our lives. And we should set mental health as a priority in this country. Need I explain the economic impact that poor mental health costs this country every year? (Remember, I started out as a corporate lacky with a Finance degree, so I can walk both sides of the fence here)

Anyway, thanks to all of you for several months of great reading...

"GOOG would be way ahead … YHOO will be destroyed …"

Both will suffer! There just wont be dollars pouring into advertising.
Thats the nature of slow downs. The only thing people will buy is
Toilet Paper and Tooth paste....and Ramen! Discretionary spending!
Google That!

OK, I am a psychotherapist intern working with 18-25 year-old homeless youth in the East Bay. I work for a non-profit.

I admire non-profit workers. Kudos to you.

I do what I do out of love and because this is what I was originally meant to do. I’ve found myself career-wise.

Congrats! I still have no clue what I want to do.

We have a vast underclass of 18-25 year-olds growing up in the BA who cannot afford to live on their own even when they are gainfully employed.

Rent isn't that expensive - especially in the East Bay. Right?