Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy - <AUTHOR> http://business.time.com/2014/02/26/student-loans-are-ruining-your-life-now-theyre-ruining-the-economy-too/ <comment><USER3> It's not the interest, it's the principal. And I don't understand how the principal got so high.

Is calculus ten times more expensive to teach than it was thirty years ago? Is Shakespeare? Supply is totally inelastic, because it's almost impossible to get a new college accredited (for profit schools all started with an already accredited school and expand them). Same with demand - not having a college degree puts you on a lower track that's almost impossible to break out of, and the connections, etc. mean that MOOC's aren't a good substitute for undergraduate education, while the professions all require specialized schooling afterwards.

So where does all the money go? At a non profit university it goes to faceless, non-teaching administrators to play the school prestige game, and maybe a little research.

A generation is broke because they're not paying for education, they're paying for education that can't be unbundled from empire-building.

<comment><USER4> Sort of, it's a bit more complex than that. Tuition costs and textbook costs have skyrocketed (see [http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/23/charts- just-h...](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/23/charts-just-how- fast-has-college-tuition-grown) ) while faculty salaries have stagnated or even gone down in real terms ( [http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/C2BAFA70-057E-4097-908B-6E4...](http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/C2BAFA70-057E-4097-908B-6E4A6B5A6D38/0/TABB.pdf) )

Empire-building is correct though in the sense that public institutions are the ones raising their tuition costs by so much (78%!), and a big reason for this is do to college's building new infrastructure, which often times they have no need for. Take SF State University who I used to work for, they built a brand new gymnasium and a brand-new library at a cost of over a billion dollars for a student population in which 78% are commuter students who hold down part-time jobs and spend no time on campus. It just doesn't make financial sense. That said, faculty costs are still the primary problem and why community colleges get the taxpayer a much better bang for the buck. See [http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dic...](http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dickeson2.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Though I agree cancerous physical plant growth is an issue, a couple of additional points:

1) Spending on non-faculty salaries have gone through the roof with the exponential growth of well paid but educationally marginal deanlets, deanlings, and administrators.

2) Although total salaries for the tenured professoriat hasn't necessarily exploded, salary per classroom-student hour has as tenured professors have seen their teaching requirements fall, and as large lectures are increasingly taught by poorly paid adjuncts.

A generation ago a 3-3 or 4-4 was typical for a tenured liberal arts or social sciences professor, and most freshmen seminars were taught by full faculty. Today many teach 2/2 or even 2/1, and they might well be all be graduate / upper class seminars and supervising student research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is an interesting NPR Planet Money podcast where they try to break down why Duke's tuition costs $60,000/yr (and Duke claims that the _actual_ cost of a student is really $90,000/yr).

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/02/26/283018555/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/02/26/283018555/episode-520-dukes-30-000-tuition- discount)

One of the most interesting points is that colleges are in a unique inverted position when it comes to price vs. demand. Cutting their tuition price would actually _decrease_ the perceived value of the degree, and thus lower the demand for their product.

You can grind your teeth at the rest of the podcast where the administrators claim a lot of this cost is building amenities and facilities that students now expect out of a high-tier college like all-single dorms, a myriad of cafeteria options, and 24/7/365 library and IT staffing. I'll go back to my lawnchair now.

<comment><USER7> > _You can grind your teeth at the rest of the podcast where the > administrators claim a lot of this cost is building amenities and facilities > that students now expect out of a high-tier college like all-single dorms, a > myriad of cafeteria options, and 24 /7/365 library and IT staffing._

I've seen a fair number of universities in the U.S. and other similarly developed countries, and one of the most striking differences I've noticed is that U.S. university physical plants tend to be _really nice_ — super well- maintained and frequently renovated, "deluxe" feeling — whereas even top-tier universities in other countries often feel a bit threadworn and sometimes even kind of run-down, even if they have beautiful old buildings. The latter function perfectly well as universities, mind you, but the impression is that they're being pretty careful with their maintenance budget....

<comment><USER8> When your customers are price-insensitive, it becomes stupid to not go all out on amenities.

<comment><USER6> And the price-insensitivity comes from the easy availability of student loans, I take it. So we've effectively closed the loop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The issue is even worse than this article suggests. The article focuses on graduates. But students who fail to graduate, for whatever reason, are even worse off. They usually can't payoff their debt, so they go into default and have their credit destroyed for the rest of their lives. They can't try to go back to school later because they can't get new loans, and, with the latest laws, can't even transfer the credits they had. It becomes a catch-22 and downward spiral.

<comment><USER10> its even worse than that..

Currently, if you have no income you are harassed to get into the payment by income program but that program requires you to make payments on previous loan payment program to become fully qualified for that lower payment plan.

So guess what happens? Congress in their wisdom limited said plan to one try. That is right most of the people on that default list could have been avoided if the limit income plan was implemented properly.

<comment><USER11> Soon we will start seeing news of young graduates committing crime to pay off their student loans. Heck, it would be interesting to see a movie with this plot line.

<comment><USER12> If you squint, "Falling Down" is sort of this movie, where ordinary guy loses his shit because of forces beyond his control.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106856/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106856/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It blows my mind that it costs $400k to become a quality dentist in the USA these days.

No wonder I see people train overseas and then just get a license here.

How is health care ever going to be affordable in this country if the doctors and dentists have to carry so much debt?

<comment><USER13> It boggles the mind. By the time I graduate I will owe about 1 year's projected income (about $70k) and I think that's a pretty good return.

If a dentist can make back nearly half a million then something needs to be done about the cost of dentristry, something doesn't add up.

<comment><USER14> I don't know how it works for dentists, but my understanding is that for doctors we've essentially given the doctors' guild the ability to legally dictate how many medical graduates they will allow, making them the envy of unions around the world (and schools, who are very happy with an arrangement that allows them to auction off a restricted supply of meal tickets). Sometimes you'll hear the AMA blame congress because they've gotten congress to pay for part of the education process and it hesitates to periodically increase the handout, but the reality is that they could change things tomorrow if they wanted to. Which they don't, because they rather enjoy the sky-high salaries that come from the artificial scarcity they've created.

The market is slowly working around this constraint by allowing nurses to train and take on some of the responsibilities that were previously subject to the artificial labor scarcity.

Unfortunately this only represents about ~1/3 of the problem with our medical industry by market share. The other two thirds come from drug price overruns (US drug buyers pay twice as much as single-payer countries which have much more size = bargaining power) and the medical insurance industry (a textbook case of "costs of competition" dramatically exceeding the benefits in a measurable way).

<comment><USER15> > The other two thirds come from drug price overruns (US drug buyers pay twice > as much as single-payer countries which have much more size = bargaining > power)

As an infuriating elaboration on your point, the United States has a huge single payer in Medicare that is by law prevented from effectively negotiating drug price.

<comment><USER16> Medicare isn't allowed to negotiate, but it automatically gets the average selling price, inclusive of all discounts. Disproportionate share hospitals get 23.1% discount. It's not like the US gov't isn't extracting it's share.

Medicaid IS allow to negotiate and has federally mandated discounts. Medicaid covers more people in the US than ANY of the Canadian provinces who do negotiate. What does that tell you?

<comment><USER14> Methodology is important. See here: [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1395w-3a](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1395w-3a)

> the manufacturer's "average sales price" means ... sales to all purchasers > ... in the United States ... divided by the total number of such units

So it looks like the ASP is fixed to the shit price that results from fragmented bargaining by US companies. A 23% discount on a 100% markup = drug companies laughing all the way to the bank.

As for Medicaid, I'm not familiar enough to answer. Do they get decent prices or is there similar corruption at play?

<comment><USER16> Corruption? Calm down.

The top 3 insurers (who negotiate these prices) in the US cover nearly 100 M people. Medicare gets those discounts included as well.

As for Medicaid, it often pays the lowest price of all purchasers in the US. For many doctors, Medicaid reimburses them so little, they _lose_ money on drugs. That's why many doctors don't want to take Medicaid patients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The root of this problem is that the liberals have been paddling relatives good sounding notions such as "everyone needs to go to college" thing and the subsequent government moves to ensure that every tom dick and harry can go to college.

This was about to happen.

<comment><USER18> Everyone gets to drive on roads in the US because we each pay a bit per gallon of gas.

Couldn't we all go to school if we each paid a little bit for it and you just had to show up?

<comment><USER19> Tell me: where did you get your free car?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> At what point do these students realize the cost indicates they should stay from that school? Like, "Oh wait, even though X is a better school than Y, it will cost 5x more, and my starting salary will only be 5% less." Is that happening? It just seems some of these people are naive. Another example is ones that are unaware of the economy of the city they aspire to live in, and get a degree with little value in that city. And then they're unemployed...

Now that doesn't mean the college system isn't flawed or unfair. I think that it is. But some of the discussion should be on how we tell young adults to best navigate their way through the system, as it exists at present. Picking your dream school, a "good" school, whatever, should not be independent of some analysis on what the return on investment is. For students that can do that, there are still opportunities out there... I say that because I've made decisions where I got in but didn't go to my dream school. It sucks. But the extra value from the quality of the education didn't seem worth $100k in debt once I get on the job market.

<comment> aaron-lebo How many 18 years olds are making rational decisions about return on investment in 10-15 years time?

I'm not sure how you go about adequately informing students about a major life decision they are making.

<comment><USER21> At this point; I'd accept "more than not at all."

Anecdotes ahead, proceed with caution: Very average PA public school; had a "home ec" course, in which we did hilariously outdated calculations on things like interest vs compound interest. Not a single mention of what I'd call "practical economics"; e.g. actually balancing a real budget (which, FWIW, I've heard is becoming more a thing in certain districts), calculating the costs of goals, and perhaps touching on long term financial planning. When I first had to handle retirement fund options; you could have handed me a live squid for all I knew what to do with it. I got _lucky_. I had parents who filled in many of the gaps, and were willing to be a resource as I got older, as well as some more informed friends; but I worry about how people with less might have gotten by.

<comment><USER22> why is it the schools job to teach their finances? I see school as more academic, while personal matters like that should be taught at home.

<comment><USER23> Are you kidding? What home?

Oh, you mean the people who the banks gave giant loans to that it turned out nobody could afford and put everyone into foreclosure? Or their kids, who signed their life away to bankruptcy-proof loans on a degree they never finished, and can't get a job good enough to pay it back?

Have you _seen_ what passes for a parent?

Yes, let's have those people teach their kids personal financial management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So stop letting the government guarantee the loans. Watch how the prices fall once only a small fraction can afford to take a $200,000 loan to pay for their college, afterwards. US colleges have been spoiled. That's why prices are so high.

<comment><USER25> More likely, you will just see the proportion of foreign students increase dramatically. College these days is already mostly made up of semi-rich kids from America and actually-rich kids from China. With loans at least some middle class American kids get a shot.

<comment><USER26> If the government+voters emergent system had any sense of responsibility, public schools would expand/reserve space to serve their public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Meh. This is (mostly) the students' and the families' who abet their stupid decisions fault.

If you go to an in-state community college and then matriculate to an in-state university in my state the total cost of college is (~$4500 for 2 years of CC living at home + ~$25000 for 2 years of closest to home in-state school) ~$30000 + the cost of living at home.

Meanwhile people continue to whine about sending their kids to school in places where they wrack up that much in debt per academic year before accounting for housing and travel expenses.

If you don't want to be in debt and you aren't rich or dirt poor make reasonable decisions and stop whining. If you can afford to replace your mini- van with a Prius, you can probably afford to send your child to college, especially if you save the difference during the CC years.

The real issue is that people feel entitled to the best schools and will so make absurd decisions to enable it regardless of what their child is studying or how well they actually do in college.

And all of the above said, I do agree that college is increasing in price more than it should. I think it's because research and lifestyle costs are getting pushed into tuition combined with state legislatures who don't want to support colleges in their state budgets that are really doing it. This has many pernicious effects, like transforming the college meal plan into a clone of your closest mall's food court.

<comment><USER28> Wow. I like you blamed this entire mess on students and parents.

>>The real issue is that people feel entitled to the best schools and will so make absurd decisions to enable it

Nonsense. People want to send their kids to the best schools because the best schools are the gatekeepers to the upper class. Someone who graduates from an Ivy League school gets to build a network with affluent alumni and has a high chance of landing a job that pays six-figures right off the bat. Someone who goes to a merely good state school though? There is a very good chance they won't even find a job after graduation.

<comment><USER27> You exaggerate. Mostly it's people who don't do well at their colleges that have trouble. At Ivy Leagues it's fewer people because they have the worst grade inflation and don't accept many borderline students.

For state schools there are lots of people at the margin - IE they don't do well enough to really reap a benefit from their degree.

Maybe getting good grades at a public won't get you 6 figures in your first job, but in most fields you aren't going to get that from an Ivy League, either.

But if you do well or choose a good major your in state school will be fine - you'll get a job, and it'll pay alright.

This is 3 or 4 times as true if you're planning on being something like a Nurse or a Teacher and less true if you're planning on being a hedge fund manager, but frankly if I were a student I'd be happy for the future hedge fund managers of the world to go somewhere else.

<comment><USER29> I have a degree from a cow college. I'm very good at what I do. But I'm at a disadvantage: my network doesn't include people who are valuable to know. The dudes who started Dropbox are dudes friends of mine knew in college. People like that aren't in my rolodex. That's what these colleges are for: social entry into that class of mover shaker, be it MIT for tech or an Ivy for politics. This stuff is the difference between having doors open to you and needing a crowbar to get anywhere. I happen to be both good enough to demand attention and savvy enough recognize when there's an opening, but I get that getting where I am now has been a luck-based thing.

And that's a tech degree, mind. I get the feeling you really have no idea how hard it is to find a livable-wage job if aren't in tech or cleaning bedpans. The idea that fundamentally irrational people - teenagers! - should be expected to make decisions to actively limit their upside based on a downside risk they literally cannot contextualize is a failure to understand humans.

<comment><USER30> Hope is not lost in this situation - you just have to work at it more. I'm a stellar mind who also went to public schools for undergrad and grad, but I focused on self-development and networking after.

I went from $50k a year to likely over $120k (that is in negotiation) in the span of 1 1/2 years of hard effort &learning.

I too racked up lots of debt from school, about $200k total. I am forced to focus on money because of this. I made the decision to go all in on developing my career & making the decisions I deferred until after grad school.

<comment><USER31> You got into 200K debt with a CS degree? I assume you did a Masters from Stanford or some other elite place?

<comment><USER30> Math actually - it was a top 15 program

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> All I can hope is that more universities follow what GA Tech started. I'm doing an MSc in CS for less than 7,000$. This is the total cost, not per year. They did get 2 million $ from AT&T and close partnership with Udacity in the making, but still if they eventually manage to make this program break even and even profit (which no one knows for sure yet) then this should be the start of a movement that demands other top ranked universities to offer low cost MOOC versions as well. (there is also the aspect that GA Tech is a public university, but I don't think this matters. Profit is profit, and the costs are the same costs, or am I missing some basic difference?)

p.s. The main fear of "why would students want to take our 40-60K$ on-campus program if we offer the same degree online for a fraction of the price" is being put to a test here. So far I didn't see evidence that the number of on campus GA Tech graduate students decline, but I don't know for sure, time will tell.

Future will tell if this model works (I realy hope it does), but if one university can do it, others can as well.

</comment><comment><USER33> How much of a typical student loan is tuition and books, and how much of it is room, board, computers, Starbucks and partying?

I know tuition and books have skyrocketed but at the same time I know people who spent student loan money on flat screen televisions, computers, spring break trips, and used cars.

<comment><USER29> This is the "poor people have refrigerators" thinking writ large. Tuition and room and board can easily crack $100k at the schools that are social gatekeepers for the upper class (that people want to go to for that reason).

<comment><USER33> Time magazine piece on that exact topic -

[http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/02/are-college-kids- blowi...](http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/02/are-college-kids-blowing- their-student-loan-money-on-clothes-and-beer/)

<comment><USER29> "Informal research" is my favorite kind.

<comment><USER34> Seriously.

> _When I asked my stepson, who graduated last winter, if he knew of kids > using their student loans for non-school-related purchases_

Might as well ask your stepson if he knew anyone doing drugs instead of going to class. It's a drug pandemic! Do you know anyone who has cheated on a test? It's a cheating pandemic! Do you know anyone that sleeps around? Promiscuousness pandemic!

People love to gossip, and they love telling stories about outliers. Asking directly for stories that stand out is about the worst kind of "informal" research you can get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> College tuition is the perfect alignment of the stars, economically speaking. There's no new supply of public universities. Reputations are _extremely_ sticky. A college degree is often a job requirement. The highest paying jobs mostly recruit out of the top universities, so students are extremely price inelastic at certain levels. The government subsidizes student loans at artificially low rates. More and more foreign students want to attend US universities. Etc.

Hell, it's almost a surprise that college tuition hasn't grown at an even faster pace. In ten years this is going to become a _serious_ national issue and I think you'll see the federal government step in to cap the tuition increases. It's gonna happen.

</comment><comment><USER36> _On the plus side, more students than ever before are attending college, which is a certainly a good thing, as van der Klaauw points out, even if it is a contributing to factor to overall debt increasing. A degree is usually worth the cost of college, even if the price tag is increasingly tough to bear._

It's not clear to me that 'a degree is usually worth the cost' but even if it were the case that going to college were the optimal decision for each individual who chooses to go, this locally optimal decision doesn't mean that it's good that 'more students than ever before are attending college'.

A college credential could have a positive NPV for each person thinking of getting one, but still be negative for the group overall. For each individual it's rational to participate in the credentials arms race only because if they don't, but everyone else does, they will be at a disadvantage.

(I acknowledge that many people get more from a college degree than just credentials.)

</comment><comment><USER37> Somebody somewhere is getting the interest payments on all that debt.

<comment><USER38> Yes, the US government, $41.7B last year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm always amazed that all these articles seem to miss the fact that the dept of education is the one who decides loan caps for federally backed student loans. Its easy to see that the increase in tuition is directly related to those increases when you're in, say, medical school. Its not so easy to see tuition increases when you're at a 4 year school with many disciplines to obfuscate the increases. The only question I have is _why_ does the government believe that so many of these fields have graduates seeing 300% increases in salary? No number I've seen even remotely suggest the rate that they're approving things. So why are they doing it?

That is the question journalists should be asking.

</comment><comment><USER40> it's not just the principal, it is the interest: loans get up to 6.8 and 8.0 percent. still subsidized rates, but much higher than less valuable investments like houses.

Rates are also fixed with no possibility to refinance. you have to make other decisions, like buying a house and borrowing extra to pay off your student loan. this could have other repercussions and is not very "free market."

but in the end, the degree itself is supposed to be worth about a million in lifetime earnings. for professional degrees it is multiple millions. maybe it is all worth it anyway and the price of education is still too low.

</comment><comment><USER41> My father was an economics prof at a Canadian university. In canada a large part of the tuition cost is the actual professors. What the student pays doesn't even cover the professor salaries, the rest is made up by the government.

Consider that a tenured prof makes about 120k and teaches only 2 courses per semester, 2 semesters per year, while an undergraduate might have 6 courses per semester and pay 6-10k. My faculty had 2400 undergraduate students and while some classes in first year had 100 students, most were 20-30 students per class.

<comment><USER42> Outside of a few programs most tenured profs dont make anywhere near 120k. In my area, UMich is 80-100 and 2nd tier schools like Eastern Michigan pay 50-70. Getting a phd in most liberal arts fields does not pay, even if you manage to avoid adjunct hell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have question how young students can give legal consent for such loan? Most teenagers can not legally drink or have a sex, but they can agree to this sort of commitment?

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe most freshmen in US college are 18.

Cannot drink but everything else is legal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> _by the time he graduates in 2016, he'll face $400,000 in student loans_

Why choose to study in New York? I imagine one could train to be a dentist for ~30% of that cost (including living expenses) in Central Europe or in India. Perhaps you'd need to do an extra exam before being licensed to practice back home, but avoiding that doesn't seem worth a > $200k premium.

</comment><comment><USER44> this was a good article about how quickly loan balances multiply after default, and how discharing in bankruptcy or otherwise is basically impossible [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/business/24loans.html?page...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/business/24loans.html?pagewanted=all)

</comment><comment><USER45> whenever something starts to get paid by loans, the prices rise. fractional reserve banking means loans are created almost out of thin air, it's the fiatest of fiat money, and it creates a push to increase prices. banks constantly need a sure thing, something to actually create the value to back that money. and when they all start jumping on a bandwagon, the wheels eventually break. i hope something will be done here, but if recent history has taught us anything, US government will pay most of the bills, saving the banks, and then be heavily attacked for - being in debt! the economic scene today is a bad joke.

</comment><comment><USER46> "Chris Rong did everything right."

LOL

</comment><comment><USER47> Why are student loans so high, the market so ridden with defaults, and the price of education so high? I think (well, I'm a little more certain than that) the answer is basic economics. Here's my take:

You (America) have a government that offers discount loans - i.e. loans with poor prospects/low interests rates - in the hope of driving a higher allocation of capital to education than would occur in a pure private lending market (i.e. the government takes risks with the taxpayers' money that private lendors would not take with their own.) (Also, might be worth noting the psychological effect of borrowing from the government - I think people tend to feel safer doing this than borrowing from an obviously competitive private firm. If you read the article, the casual attitude of student debtors to defaulting on their loans shows this - the government has no teeth. The private firm goes bankrupt if it doesn't get a return on investment. The government just devalues the dollar if it gets in a tight spot.)

The justification here would be that the positive externalities of education are high, and an equilibrium capital allocation following purely upfront costs would be suboptimal.

However because humans are humans, the availability of below-market price loans means that people are willing to spend more on education than they would if they were forced to pay a market price. And again, because humans and humans, colleges, which in America have little government oversight as to pricing, raise their pricing. Why? Because people will still pay it. For whatever reason, colleges are able to bank on their prestige and identity, on the promise of access to important social circles, and so pure pressure for price is diluted.

Forget all the shit about increasing salaries for professors, or construction frenzies. Basically the final equilibrium price for a college is the price that they can get away with charging. And this price happens to be far higher than it would be in a purely private education market. Because students can gamble with taxpayers' money. And the universities can sense that there's cash on the ground - and if they don't rush for it, another will just take it. This is why your institutions glorify the most profligate administrators - the ones with the most grandiose investment schemes, the ones who can create an appearance of money well spent - because the best administrators help draw in as much cash as possible.

So the result is that what started as an incentive to encourage education actually creates a toxic market with widespread debt defaults. Instead of more education, you just wind up enriching university administrators (definitely) and professors (maybe) and creating way more university facilities than private demand would have ever warranted. So congratulations: as a country, you've just spent XX billion building a shitload of luxurious dubiously-useful education infrastructure. Because as a country, you shoulder the cost - through your government's wasteful allocation of capital.

Congratulations. The whole country just gave a shitload of money for nothing to university administrators and contractors. You wanted to push capital into educations, but instead you got rich universities. Well done eh?

See, this is why America's model of mixed-capitalism is so poisonous. If you want to give cheap loans for education, you need to control prices at the institutions where they're valid. Though even that doesn't work - you'll find state-controlled institutions in countries that practice this still constantly pushing for the maximum tuition increase every single year, using every excuse they can.

The better solution is probably no public loans or grants whatsoever. Though that doesn't address the positive externality of education (which I do believe in.)

<comment><USER48> "the psychological effect of borrowing from the government - I think people tend to feel safer doing this than borrowing from an obviously competitive private firm. If you read the article, the casual attitude of student debtors to defaulting on their loans shows this - the government has no teeth. The private firm goes bankrupt if it doesn't get a return on investment. "

All of the above is incorrect.

(a) Student loans in the US are mostly not from the government in the first place, they are from private investors or banks that the schools have made deals with. The USG role is guaranteeing them.

(b) Generally, in classical capitalism, firms will go bankrupt if they don't get adequate returns on investment - but this situation has been distorted by the government guarantees. They get reimbursed if the debtor defaults, and carry on. By exploiting this subsidy they make big profits, that's why they're in it.

(c) I don't know about student-loan-borrower attitudes, but their debt and enforcement of it are not casual. The GSLs are _not dischargeable in bankruptcy_ , so they are basically a lifelong burden unless paid off. And defaulters are subject to wage garnishment and other onerous court judgments.

<comment><USER47> Thanks for the clarification, but it sounds like the net effect is exactly the same: bad loans are made, money is lost, the taxpayer is forced to subsidise the indiscriminate purchase of education.

As always with such schemes, there is an ongoing push to implement them in as complicated and opaque a fashion as possible, to try and hide the naked fact of what is going on. So no one will admit "we take money from taxpayers and make loans no sane private investor would ever consider," they'll just talk about FDCRP-approved rates this and Fannie Mae-that and fiduciary-backed iron bond multiplexing high-yield 7.5% rederived blahblahblah.

Same bullshit that happens when bank deposits are federally insured.

<comment><USER49> It seems to me that you have a-priori decided to whip a particular horse regardless of the context/relevance. Not arguing that particular horse should not be whipped, but its not the main horse in the race that is being discussed.

<comment><USER47> Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about. I've simply been trying to show that these allegedly disconnected economic phenomena (government lending, high fees, high students loans, defaults, political pressure to drop interest rates) are actually all the result of a single misguided policy direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> There is really three simple reasons that we have this 'problem' today.

1\. People who cannot afford it are choosing very expensive universities.

2\. The government is giving money away like candy, there is a definite bubble here because this money will be defaulted on. I know a professor at an art school who says his students easily get $150k to go study art. Many won't even get a degree with that money. Getting a degree or being on a path to get a degree in x years is not a requirement of getting the money. He says that these students will graduate and be lucky to go on to make $25-30k a year. That is pretty rough. This also drives tuition way up because schools know they can just charge more and the thanks to the govt. students and money will still funnel in by the truckload.

3\. Students with student loan money live like rock stars. These are teenagers here. They suddenly have a bunch of money. do you thing that they are carefully considering that every dollar they spend will have to be paid back with interest? Teenagers... I have seen this over and over again personally. Luxury apartments, nice cars, buying, spending... "A part time job? are you kidding? who has time for that, I've got to focus on my party life.. Errrr studies".

</comment><comment><USER50> >* $400,000 in student loans. "If the money weren't a problem I would live on my own," says Rong. "My debt is hanging over my mind. I'm taking that all on myself."*

How typical, someone complaining that education is so expensive and yet they are going to the most expensive school. This is ridiculous. This is like complaining that your Mercedes was too expensive when you could have bought a more reliable and efficient car for less money.

The article states that the average year at college today costs $18,497, yet this guy is going to rack up $400k in dept over 6 years? by my math that is $111k. This guy is spending 4 times the average and crying foul.

I personally know a dentist who worked part time all through school, he went to community college, state university, private grad/dental university and has the same diploma that this guy will have on his wall... The difference - <USER2> guy I know only had $40k in debt upon exiting school. He paid it off in two years (by the time he was 26). I'd say he did things the right way.</comment>


To Sell or Not to Sell: Silicon Valley Acquisitions Market Heats Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/141/to-sell-or-not-to-sell.html <comment><USER2> I hate articles like this with a passion. It makes everyone think you'll just get acquired easily. Let's start building companies for the long term. Stop building shit that you just want to get rid of. IPOs are really complicated beasts, but I like them as an exit option, because the company keeps going. Could you imagine if facebook sold to yahoo? Holy shit, I cannot even fathom that outcome.

<comment><USER3> You are still thinking that an 'exit' is necessary. Most public companies went public because they were too big to stay private forever. There are many huge private companies in existence.

The need for an exit is basically a result of the fact that tech companies are virtually never built with the intention of making money directly.

If you hate article like this, you probably should hate exit thinking. If you hate exit thinking, you should probably hate many funding structures which require it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> it seems like an easy decision to me.

get out as soon as you get your FU money. Once you have the FU money, you can afford to continue gambling with startups.

The web is littered with thousands of startups that were once "hot", you gotta quit while you are ahead.

<comment><USER5> Sounds like bubble gambling talk to me. I'd rather make something a bit more lasting.

<comment><USER3> If you owned a 'hot' company in the bubble & decided to 'make something a bit more lasting,' you probably went bust. Those that got out, won.

If you think that the market is too hot, what you are saying is that startups are overvalued. If you hold an asset you believe is overvalued, you should sell it. Holding overvalued assets because they wil be even more overvalued later is bubble talking.

BTW, I'm not saying there is a bubble. Just reacting to the commentator's POV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't believe FastCompany quoted joshu from here as well. A stupid blog post from mashable using that comment is ridiculous but excusable, but FC?

I wonder if they asked him if they could use that quote...

 _One of the Valley's recent poster boys for this phenomenon is Joshua Schachter, who sold his social bookmarking service Delicious to Yahoo in 2005 for a reported $30 million. This summer, on an online discussion board, he told a commenter that Yahoo has "killed a lot of good startups, wasted a lot of engineers' time, etc." In summation, he added, "I wish I hadn't sold [Delicious] to them."_

<comment><USER7> The author did not ask but did ask for an interview, which I declined (sorry Farhad.)

I would welcome a discussion of how to make acquired startups successful, though. I have a number of ideas on what goes wrong and how.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think you have to see acquisitions like an organ transplant. It takes a lot of effort to keep the host from killing the transplant and even the best efforts can fail. It's the rare success that should be surprising, not the failures.

</comment><comment><USER9> I dislike these sorts of posts. While the likes of 37signals are very quick to point out that there are lots of benefits you can have as a _founder_ of a small company that never "exits", they forget about the employees.

Sure, if I am founder I can sell back some of my stock to the VCs/take some money out as a "bonus"/dividends, but what about the employees who have (often) taken serious risks and worked long hours for sub-market pay?</comment>


Levi's Commuter X Jacquard by Google Trucker Jacket - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-lcdMfziw <comment><AUTHOR> First thing that comes to mind: no helmet, why?</comment>


Ask HN: Have you tried Ketogenic diet? Can you share your experience / advice? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking into it mostly for mental clarity, energy, and focus, I'm not as interested in weight loss, although that could be a nice bonus. <comment><USER2> I'm just finishing up week 10.

Works great, but I listened to 5-10 episodes of the 2ketodudes podcast before I started.

The worst part of it really was the keto flu and getting used to not eating so dang much. Once my liver started providing all the energy I needed, I was able to do things I had not before thought possible, like heavy cardio for 90 minutes a day. (I'm still not in shape yet, of course, but I don't run out of energy.)

My 18-year-old daughter said she was interested in starting, so I made a one- page PDF "Dad's Guide To Starting Keto" Ping me if you're interested and I'll email you a copy.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an entertaining, quick overview of the state of scientific knowledge around keto: [https://www.gimletmedia.com/science-vs/ketogenic-diet- should...](https://www.gimletmedia.com/science-vs/ketogenic-diet-should-you- do-it)

Asking here will get you anecdotes, which might be interesting, but won't tell you anything about how likely the diet is to help you. For all you know, it's a placebo effect or something unique to another person's body.

</comment><comment><USER4> When I need to concentrate, I drink whipped cream and coffee. 3 dl of cream and a cup of coffee and I'm down for 8h of hard math problems. People say that it is unhealthy, but it is not. The whipped cream is _instead of_ other food sources, if you drink it _in addition to_ a regular lunch, then that would probably make you fat.

</comment><comment><USER5> For a balanced perspective check out Mic the Vegan's take on it: [https://youtu.be/MzHLAqyO7PQ](https://youtu.be/MzHLAqyO7PQ)

<comment><USER6> If you intended to make a snarky response then it's excellent, otherwise your advice for a "balanced perspective" from a YT Vegan persona is at least laughable.

<comment><USER5> I meant balanced as in, here's another perspective to provide balance to the sides, not that this individual perspective is balanced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi,

Strictly applied, I've followed a "ketogenic" diet by definition. My body operated on ketones for prolonged periods over about a year.

This came from intermittent fasting. This did not come from a strong meat- based diet with high fat. I believe those are very bad ideas.

The process was roughly Mon to Wed/Thu/Fri with no food whatsoever. I used keto-sticks to ensure my body switched to ketones as fuel.

Each day I stepped on the scale, I lost 2/3 - 1 whole KG a day. It was amazing.

Psychologically, there was a sort of buzz that I felt enhanced focus and was pleasurable. I was also amused at how I conquered hunger. It stopped ruling my life and I decided when to each and how much.

Physically, I did not feel like I could climb a mountain or anything. I felt light and floaty, but also slow and somewhat weak. This was not necessarily a bad thing at all. I did _not_ feel heavy and sluggish or lethargic, but rather capable of focus and walking around, just perhaps slower, but more comfortable.

Heads up: the first 3-day session was very hard. Headaches were an issue. From there it became easier. Then second nature.

I lost 20+ kilos over the year, but most of that was during the 3+ day fasts. I took many weeks off throughout the year and easily switched from normal eating to fasting throughout.

I have also tried meat/fat based keto diets and I think they are bad. They did not work for me in any way, and I have red of people damaging themselves from this harmful diet fad. I tried many other diets as well, but fasting was all that worked.

Some of the weight was regained, but I still fit into the clothes I bought at the target weight I reached through this method. I happen to believe this diet is perfectly natural and even medically beneficial.

<comment><USER2> Great point. Keto means running off of ketones. It does not mean eating meat. It also has little to do with how much fat you eat (Although many keto people, including myself, believe in eating fat to satiety)

When you're ketogenic your body is burning fat for fuel. There's a switchover period from being a sugar-burner to being a fat-burner (Even though we do it naturally every night when we sleep) This can be uncomfortable for some.</comment></comment>


Be Optimistic About the Future – Kevin Kelly and Marc Andreessen - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnU5Dikdr2U&feature=emb_logo <comment><USER2> No privacy. In future privacy will be a luxury only billionaires will be able to afford.

The internet is more likely going to wall up in subtle and complex ways rather than stay open.

CEOs make astronomical salaries and benefits while shareholders and workers receive... not much.

Most healthcare costs are a rounding error compared to a lot of military budgets.

Automation is eating large chunks of the economy meanwhile capital is no longer as valuable.

Wages in real terms are flat lining. Commerce is screaming about costs and low revenue while demanding even lower salaries.

Worldwide interest rates are basically zero at best.

And the climate is heating up. Or its totally not. Depends on who you believe.

Most new tech gadgets turn into landfill in around 1-3 years.

Everything is fine.</comment>


The Day After: Looking At How Well Knol Pages Rank On Google - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/080724-140223.php

<comment><USER2> Knol pages are probably optimized and tuned heavily for Google search results, but I doubt the indexer/engine itself has any "if (IsKnolPage) rank++" kind of code in it.

When I started a small travel blog, after about a week it was quite well indexed for some terms, but I'm guessing most of that was the fast that I registered it on Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools, and submitted a sitemap, etc.</comment>


STEM Shortage Claims and Facebook's $19 Billion Acquisition of WhatsApp - <AUTHOR> http://math-blog.com/2014/03/10/stem-shortage-claims-and-facebooks-19-billion-acquisition-of-whatsapp/ <comment><USER2> This post is largely about discrimination and uses Brian Acton as a timely centerpiece. The truth is however more complex (IMHO):

\- Culture matters a lot in hiring. By this I mean a Stanford grad is much more likely to hire another Stanford grad in a field of qualified candidates. This isn't simply a form of nepotism as such. Two grads from the same college will share a larger common cultural base;

\- The culture the founders bring shapes the organization. Many startups are started by Stanford and MIT grads. It shouldn't surprise you that this biases the makeup of their workforces and what they look for;

\- Speaking as someone who has interviewed in the field of programming there are many frauds. I don't even necessarily mean deliberate frauds but there are clearly people who are employed as programmers/engineers who have no business being such. It's astounding how you can stump someone with 5-10 years of experience by asking them to code a simple loop (seriously);

\- If people are worried about foreign labour putting downward pressure on wages, the indentured servitude that is the US work visa and immigration system should be the target of your anger. It allows bodyshops to hire people from, say, China and India and pay them a pittance because they know those people can't leave for 8+ years if they ever want a green card.

Make a green card automatic after, say, 6 years on an H1B, even if you change jobs, and a lot of those problems would go away.

As for other fields, I can't speak to those, other than anecdotally a lot of fields seem to have the earning potential of being a waiter in Manhattan.

<comment><USER3> "Cultural fit" is just another name for racism, sexism, and ageism. Yeah, all of those things can be culture. Why should it be any less wrong to discriminate based on college attendance than on race?

What else is cultural fit? "Sorry, you don't fit our culture of being heterosexual here."

We're supposed to be adults. We're supposed to know how to get along and play nicely with others, regardless of how different we are from each other. This "cultural fit" line is bullshit apologia for real discrimination.

<comment><USER4> I think that's invalid. If you find someone who's a great programmer, but obviously won't get alone with your teammates, then you definitely should not hire him. Team dynamics are as important than individual skill levels.

<comment><USER3> That might hold water if every company I've ever worked for hired much more than just self-diagnosed-with-Aspergers', white-guy assholes. I've never seen a group of programmers get along. "So-and-so should be fired/shouldn't be hired because we just don't get along" is not an acceptable excuse. Any other industry and your boss will tell you that you better learn to get along.

This is Kindergarten level issues here. You're supposed to know how to tie your own shoes and play nicely with others by the time you're 6 years old. Why do we continue to let the tech industry endorse childish behavior in the work environment?

EDIT: The one job I hated _the most_ was the one where I was hired because I was a "good cultural fit". Turns out, they thought I was of the "culture" that enjoyed working free overtime. Nerf guns and free soda weren't enough to keep me in the office after _6pm_ , so I started to get squeezed out, _culturally_.

<comment><USER5> > Why do we continue to let the tech industry endorse childish behavior in the > work environment?

Sometimes assholes are super-productive geniuses (note that there are more assholes who _think_ they're a genius) so even if they don't get along with the rest of your team (or any humans, really) it's a tough tradeoff whether it's worth having them around.

You have to balance whether they're doing more harm than good to the overall endeavor. In our case, we have one very senior guy who's highly antisocial but absolutely a crack dev. We've given him an extremely flexible work-from-home arrangement. It works out well because we hardly see him, and he's happy communicating over email and just churning out code in his batcave or whatever.

<comment><USER3> Hey, so excellent example. There is no way that guy fits into _anyone 's_ culture, yet the company still made it work. The premise still stands, "not a cultural fit" is always code for discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if we as an industry will continue to practice almost blatant age discrimination as the current generation of engineers grows older.

If we continue to obsess over youth, the job market will be _remarkably_ unpleasant 15 years from now.

<comment><USER7> Claims of age discrimination is like claims that there is untapped cheap labor in hiring women in first world countries. If the claims were true anyone could hire up all of the cheap labor and stomp their discriminating competitors. That doesn't happen. Either it's really a grand conspiracy like some claim or the situation is not so simple. I think it's more likely older people expect to get paid more for their experience, are less likely to learn new things on their own like younger people are, are less likely to start up their own companies like younger people are because doing so is risky.

You see people obsessing over youth. They are not. They are valuing risk takers, people who know modern tech, people who don't expect to be paid so much just because they know more less useful to the current situation skills and knowledge. The quality of a low age itself is irrelevant. It will be the same 15 years from now. Current younger people will feel more entitled to higher pay, will feel less willing to compromise or settle for jobs which their younger peers would be happy to get. Ultimately if someone brings value to a job it's the stupidity of the employer to not understand their value. If a company can make 10x more from hiring someone why wouldn't they? Companies which don't hire the best value makers don't do as well, which allows those companies which do hire those people to float to the top. It is the same thing with women. Any sane businessperson would hire people no matter their gender if those people can make them more money, and anyone who is leaving value on the table by being discriminatory despite the lost potential leaves room for their competitors to destroy them. If you think older people can make you more money ultimately then you hire them and rule the tech world.

<comment><USER6> > _Claims of age discrimination is like claims that there is untapped cheap > labor in hiring women in first world countries. If the claims were true > anyone could hire up all of the cheap labor and stomp their discriminating > competitors._

Who is claiming that first world women are an untapped source of cheap labor? In what field?

> _[older people] are less likely to start up their own companies like younger > people are because doing so is risky._

Even if true, this is irrelevant. Age discrimination in this context applies to employee hiring.

> _They are valuing risk takers_

Is "risk taking" a criteria your company applies when looking for talent? None of the startups I've worked with have ever sorted engineering candidates by "risk taking".

> _It is the same thing with women. Any sane businessperson would hire people > no matter their gender if those people can make them more money, and anyone > who is leaving value on the table by being discriminatory despite the lost > potential leaves room for their competitors to destroy them._

The crux of your argument is that the market will punish bad behavior. I think this _sounds_ convincing. However, it is a flawed argument. For one thing, the market can't reward new approaches if no-one tries them.

50 years ago you could probably have made the argument that outright discrimination against women and minorities was rewarded by the market. After all, all companies observed similar hiring practices - including the market leaders.

Taking a snapshot of current practices, and claiming they are some sort of epitome "because free market!" is simply a logical fallacy.

<comment><USER7> >Who is claiming that first world women are an untapped source of cheap labor? In what field?

The people who claim that women are discriminated against purely based on gender. If women really are being discriminated based on gender, and companies are hiring less qualified men in favor of more qualified women, then someone should be able to hire up all of the women who are being snubbed by all of the sexist companies and have a competitive advantage over them, right? Same situation with older people, right? Unless of course if this isn't about age or sex. I'm female and not getting any younger by the way. But I still don't buy the bull others try to sell.

>Age discrimination in this context applies to employee hiring.

Are older people better employees or worse? Are they hiring based on age or the other things and age is only an easy thing to blame?

>Is "risk taking" a criteria your company applies when looking for talent?

No startup is a sure thing. Younger people are less risk averse. It's not that a company wants people who will take risks it's that older people want more of a sure thing. They walk in and expect a salary which matches their years of experience, while most places hiring have no use for their experience. Their experience would add no value to their business, and so hiring a younger person who does not demand such a high salary is a better option.

>For one thing, the market can't reward new approaches if no-one tries them.

There is no law keeping the people clamoring about ageism from do that. No one can force others to nor should they be able to. Clearly if they believe that hiring older people is such a good move they should be able to make a lot of money.

I'm unaware of laws which make it harder or impossible for older people to get hired?

<comment><USER6> > _Unless of course if this isn 't about age or sex. I'm female and not > getting any younger by the way. But I still don't buy the bull others try to > sell._

You're rebutting a straw man.

> _No startup is a sure thing. Younger people are less risk averse._

Again, a moot point. If an employee is applying to work for a startup, they're acknowledging the risk. The risk, by the way, is negligible for employees.

> _It 's not that a company wants people who will take risks it's that older > people want more of a sure thing. They walk in and expect a salary which > matches their years of experience, while most places hiring have no use for > their experience._

This is a contrived example. Furthermore, it doesn't make sense. By a "sure thing" do you mean salary vs. equity? I can assure you most young engineers also value salary.

> _Their experience would add no value to their business, and so hiring a > younger person who does not demand such a high salary is a better option._

What are you basing this on? It reads like a caricature.

> _Clearly if they believe that hiring older people is such a good move they > should be able to make a lot of money._

I already addressed this. If you're intent on repeating your original claim, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

<comment><USER7> >You're rebutting a straw man.

>Ageism: people are not being hired because of their age only and not for any other reason.

>The risk, by the way, is negligible for employees.

What. Employees don't care that they might not have a job? Employees don't care that they might not be able to be paid?

>This doesn't make sense.

Companies don't want to pay for what they don't need. People feel entitled to what they feel they are worth and not necessarily what value they give to a company based on what the company needs. When they have a lot of experience but nothing useful to contribute they blame things which do not factor in at all in hiring.

>What are you basing this on? This reads like a caricature.

I think you are mistaking my snark for me actually asserting things.

>I already addressed this. If you're intent on repeating your original claim, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Whose responsibility is it to fix the apparent ageism if the people complaining about it don't want to do anything to solve their own problems?

<comment><USER6> > _When they have a lot of experience but nothing useful to contribute they > blame things which do not factor in at all in hiring._

You're relying on make-believe scenario to argue a point.

> _I think you are mistaking my snark for me actually asserting things._

Sure.

> _Whose responsibility is it to fix the apparent ageism if the people > complaining about it don 't want to do anything to solve their own > problems?_

Who, aside from you, say they don't? It's an industry wide issue which _is_ actually being addressed.

<comment><USER7> >You're relying on make-believe scenario to argue a point.

I live in a reality where technology is constantly changing, where people need to learn new things or get left behind in their usefulness. If they have years of experience in software or systems which no one uses anymore that doesn't guarantee them anything.

>It's an industry wide issue which is actually being addressed.

People solving their own problems instead of complaining about them on message boards? Mission Accomplished! Wait, so companies really were not hiring the best people who give them the most value and now suddenly are thanks to people speaking up? When did all of this happen?

<comment><USER6> > _Then mission accomplished! Wait, so companies really were not hiring the > best people who give them the most value and now suddenly are thanks to > people speaking up? When did all of this happen?_

being addressed != addressed

This discussion has obviously run its course.

<comment><USER7> Get back to me in 15 years when ageism is no longer something people complain about.

Won't happen. It will always be like this. People who refuse to adapt blame others instead of doing something about their own problems. If anything people will invent new isms to blame their problems on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, it's really simple

FB's (and Google's and Yahoo's) definition of talent is whoever passes their "quiz show" interview

However, yes, you don't need to know the worse case complexity of shell sort for most tasks, especially at the beginning of a project where load demands are smaller.

<comment><USER9> Here's the odd thing - if I meet a candidate who _knows_ about shellsort, I'd already be impressed. Many people I interview have trouble with much more basic concepts than that.

And of course, it is worth keeping in mind that when you hire an employee that hopefully at some point, the load demands are higher. And it's kind of awkward if your product hits rapid growth, but your engineers are currently busy learning about algorithmic efficiency.

Nobody sane asks about "worst-case efficiency of shell sort" unless you yourself suggest shell sort as an algorithm. But it _is_ expected that you get the general idea of O notation, because it actually does matter for day-to-day work.

And, as a practical interview tip: It's perfectly OK to say "I don't know about this specific case" \- just follow it up with "for most sorts, O(n^2) is an upper bound, so if I'd guess, I'd go with O(n^2).", or something like that. It tells the interviewer that you know general principles.

That's the big problem in most interviews - candidates treat it like a test, where there's just the right answer, and nothing else. It's not a test. It's an attempt to somehow, within an hour usually, find out what you know and how you think. Throw the interviewer a bone or two, and help them do that. Silence and short "I don't know" answers really just waste time for everybody.

<comment><USER8> " That's the big problem in most interviews - candidates treat it like a test, where there's just the right answer, and nothing else. "

Humm no. Google interviews are (or at least were) pretty much right or wrong answers mostly.

The best interviewers could do what you say, but for the most part, no.

<comment><USER9> I have to ask - is that your personal experience, or what you _read_ about the interviews?

<comment><USER10> An important thing to realize is that no matter how much they try, a company the size and profile of Google has at best only a loose control over their hiring process.

There are too many internal recruiters of varying ability and agendas, and too many interviewers of varying ability and agendas.

A company like Google can have stated hiring principles and techniques, but in practice it's going to be nearly random.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very well written article and I can add some context being in the unhired category of engineers.

I graduated from Georgia Tech sometime in the last couple of years with a 3.64 GPA. I know that GPA doesn't mean much but really at Georgia Tech they make you work for it like a dog. I have some projects on GitHub and well I thought companies would come knocking at my door. Boy was I mistaken. So I started applying late into my graduation semester.

I got interviews with Amazon / Google and another Tech giant. I got turned down without an interview from Facebook / Palantir and some other older startups. I did not apply to a lot of companies, and I feel that was the real difference bw me and friends that got offers from all of those companies that I've mentioned above. Past summers I had worked at management consulting companies and ultimately after not getting any offers from Tech companies, I moved back home to Asia. And although I did feel a little crushed at the time, I'm working at a big engineering company back home, and I don't make as much money, I'm learning to like what I do.

Perhaps after a couple of years of nursing my self-esteem, I'll try again. Till then yea it sucks to not fit in. It sucks to not be a culture fit. It sucks to be told that you are not adequate after slogging it out at a supposedly "world class" engineering school. The best reason that I got rejected was because other candidates felt coding was their calling and I didn't seem all that committed. wtf! I'm of Asian descent and well was on a F1 Visa (non-resident/citizen) with a horrible accent. Perhaps there were other factors that resulted in me not being hired because I did make it through the phone screens for some companies, and also because I have other asian friends that did get offers. . But yea atleast it feels good to know that there are PhDs out there that can't get jobs either so it wasn't all me.

<comment><USER12> I can tell you that sadly accent can have more weight than we all wish it would have. It's a double issue, even if you are interviewing with the most liberal and ethical person who loves you and think you're a great fit but had problem understanding due to heavy accent, it's not in your favor. And even if your accent it's only light, there are sadly still people out there that will even subconsciously prefer the candidate that bad the "better" English. It's sad, but I think it's more of a reason than your actual skills. I go to GT and can vouch anyone who graduated with your GPA is probably very smart and talented. Don't give up! Knowing how to interview is a skill by itself, there are many common mistakes people do that are not related to their skill set. My wife had a heavy Russian accent and spent a year working solely on her English, and interview skills (went to a career coach). From dozens of rejections, she now got 2 offers in one month, and she is almost 40 :-)

<comment><USER13> I agree about accent, but I want to encourage the parent post by saying that since his written English is excellent, he may be able to avoid that discrimination by sticking to text communication until he's established a relationship with someone at the interviewing company. This is what I try to do - I'm hard of hearing, and someone who doesn't understand the implications of that can easily jump to the conclusion that I'm an idiot or dishonest if I hesitate in answering a question. It just takes longer to process speech when someone changes topics quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> No one seems to want to discuss the idea that Yahoo! and Facebook were simply adhering to their illegal agreement to not poach talent from each other.

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/01/15/silicon_valle...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/01/15/silicon_valley_hiring_cartel_apple_google_and_other_accused_of_driving_down.html)

<comment><USER14> Ahem... [http://www.businessinsider.com/emails-eric-schmidt-sergey- br...](http://www.businessinsider.com/emails-eric-schmidt-sergey-brin-hiring- apple-2014-3)

<comment><USER14> Double AHEM..

[http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/google-viewed- fac...](http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/google-viewed-facebook- poaching-defcon-2-event-new-emails-reveal)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> $19 billion in cash and stock (slightly less than the inflation adjusted cost of the Manhattan Project)

Holy Crap !!! That cannot be right - surely not....

Edit: According to Wikipedia : "The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (about $26 billion in 2014 dollars)."

So, if you allow 7bn to be slightly less, then yes. It is right.

And there is worse to come - also according to wikipedia and the BBC, the US spends around 50bn pa, (the UK an embarrassing 4.6bn a year) on science funding - but really, half of US science spending on a mobile IM app.

How utterly depressing.

<comment><USER16> There may be a disparity based upon how inflation is calculated. Plus or minus 40% after an interval of 75 years is not unreasonable for the purposes of an "about this big" comparison.

A Paasche index will understate price inflation, while a Laspeyres index will overstate it, due to demand elasticity. Governments may change the formula used to report changes in the money supply, using different measures like M1, M2, M3, and MZM, along with the average velocity of money. This obscures the amount of value intentional inflation extracts from the productive economy, at the cost of mathematical accuracy.

You could buy exactly one Manhattan project with 1939-1946 dollars for $2billion, of which 90% was production, and 10% R&D. You could buy exactly one Apollo Program with $25.4billion in 1961-1972 dollars. One LHC costs $9billion 2008 dollars. Tevatron was a bargain next to that at only $120million 1980 dollars.

Put into that sort of scale, with $19billion in 2014 cash, you could do any one of the following:

Build an entire city designed for 50000 inhabitants supplied entirely by renewable energy sources.

Build an entire archipelago of artificial islands.

Bury an Interstate highway under Boston.

Build 3 international-class airports.

Build two subway lines under an existing major city.

Replace 5 long-span highway bridges.

Buy 6 Human Genome Projects.

Replicate the Channel Tunnel.

Does that bring it into perspective?

<comment><USER15> Where do you get your marvellous comparison figures from?

Yes, it puts it into a more depressing perspective. Although I would tip my hat to the founders if they decided to build "WhatsAppTown", a city of the future.

In fact I want them to - because when we throw around this kind of cash (the amounts normally only State actors have) we get outliers - sometimes a boring miser who just wants more, sometimes a visionary who tries to build their Jeston style future.

I just hope Facebook stock is going to those who watched the Jetsons on Saturday mornings.

<comment><USER16> I searched the web for "megaprojects" and grabbed figures from any site that at least sounded legit, so caveat emptor. I pulled anything that felt like it would cost between 15 and 25 billion US$ if it was completed (or completed again) this year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really dont see the STEM shortage that people are talking about. Last year I graduated from a local college and we had no shortage of STEM from Biology to Comp Science to Information Systems. We recently bought an engineering school full of students so next year our STEM foot print will be even larger.

Lets be honest here sometimes its cheaper to use foreign labor and that is why these companies are doing it. I dont necessarily agree with it but a lot of companies out there are doing it including my employer.

<comment><USER3> "Lets be honest..."

Yes, let's. I want Mark Zuckerburg to admit out loud that the reason he can't find _qualified_ engineers is because he's not willing to pay. No more of this "they don't exist" lie.

This, coupled with the Google/Apple/Intel/Adobe/etc. collusion to prevent salary negotiation wars, it's very clear: Silicon Valley companies aren't special anymore. They are now just like every other corporation in America. They're focused on nothing but the bottom dollar. They have their HR departments spewing morale boosting propaganda and they do their damnedest to keep those employees locked in as wage slaves. Free lunches! Games in the break room! Climbing walls! All that shit is designed to keep you in the office, to entice you into working overtime, for free.

When I'm looking at job listings, I look for the tell-tale lie on their websites: If they say something like, "our employees are our greatest asset," I know they doth protest too much. They really treat employees like fungible commodities. Unfortunately, I've let my judgement be blinded too many times and have had to learn the hard way that it is true in every case.

<comment><USER17> Employees are now commodities. Other industries have realized this and now the tech sector is realizing it as well. Especially now that people are more computer literate than they were 20 years ago combined with globalization plus the internet. The pool is much bigger than yesterday.

<comment><USER18> Employees are ALWAYS commodities. These issues are not new. This is exactly the same labor vs. capital struggle that has happened, well, forever.

Companies exist to run business processes that create money. Employees are an input to that process. Employers only care about employees to the extent that the employees help that process run efficiently.

Expect these things to become ever more apparent as more and more complex work becomes commoditized. Remember when you could make real money as a Wordpress developer? Now a person who wants a website (if they still want a website and not an Etsy / Amazon / Facebook / whatever presence) should really just sign up with Square Space. The market needs products & services... employees are a by product.

<comment><USER19> "Employees are ALWAYS commodities.".

Yes, this is the MBA training, that engineers are labor, to be reduced in cost. This leads to shortage, confusion by MBA. Until they solve what you just said, treating engineers as commodities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While there certainly are companies whose business model is to get cheap workforce from India or China on H1B (just take a look at H1B stats), there is something I don't get. Where and how this pay inequality for local vs. imported workforce manifests for more desirable companies like Google or Facebook?

As a student outside United States I had a chance to do internships in the US several times (on J1 visa), and as I am finishing my degree soon, it was natural for me to try and get a job there. My observation is that the salary and benefits I was offered at Google, Microsoft and Facebook wasn't much different than if I was American - if any, it was even slightly higher than what they pay American new grads (data based on talking with American peers and reading Quora posts). My non-American friends who also got a job in the US also didn't complain about getting lower than their American peers. Thus, should I expect fewer bonuses/pay raises? Smaller chance to get promotion? Less desirable project?

<comment><USER21> An important point is that H1Bs basically increase the supply of talented engineers. So even though they're being paid salaries equivalent to their American peers at MSFT/GOOG, without them, the Americans would be making a lot more. With a shortage of engineers, who knows, may be the starting salary would've been $200k instead of $100k. I personally think this is a good thing and keeps America competitive. But some would argue otherwise.

<comment><USER22> The problem is that H1B's increase the supply of _indentured_ engineers.

The solution is to convert H1Bs to Green Cards much faster. That way all the engineers are competing on a level playing field.

I actually _like_ having more foreign engineers as long as they have green cards. Engineers tend to create companies and a need for more engineers. We all win.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I find that hiring practices can often discriminate against those who grew up poor/not middle class.

I remember someone writing about how they hired saying things like "I look for evidence of interest in technology from a young age." Well, I had tons of interest in technology from a young age, but my resume can't reflect that. I didn't have a computer until I was about 13 or 14 because we couldn't afford one earlier, even though my parents really wanted one. I think our school library might have had one computer for the whole school, which was not available. I certainly couldn't go to expensive tech camps or the like, we couldn't afford it. I did get all the science books from the public library and read them as much as I could. I didn't start programming until college. I get very very positive reviews from all the jobs I ever worked though, but my resume might be passed up because I didn't have the opportunities others had.

</comment><comment><USER24> Surprise! Double standards, discrimination, illegal practices and plain incompetence in the hiring business. Those self-absorbed tech rock star companies are actually not smarter than the rest.

</comment><comment><USER25> Brian Acton's rejection by Facebook is used as a pro argument for the idea that tech companies are just pretending to not find qualified candidates, when there are plenty. I am not sure which way it is but the argument used is flawed. Brian Acton never stated that he went to Facebook to be a programmer. Not even a senior one. At that moment he already had managerial experience, having lead large dev teams at Yahoo. It way more likely that his Facebook interview was centered around a managerial role and the fit, for one reason or another was not there. Not taking any sides, I want to say that Brian Acton's example is just a nice/easy/convenient media story. Not at all indicative of anything related to availability or lack of STEM people.

<comment><USER26> Thank you for pointing this out. I've seen no indication that he interviewed as a programmer at Facebook or Twitter. Considering he was managing a large team at Yahoo, it's unlikely that he would be. He might even have been interviewing for a director or VP-level position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > However, in this era of e-mail, Skype, and many people working successfully > in the technology business from a large distance (e.g. India or China), why > exactly couldn't the desperate "starving" technology companies offer him a > job he could do from Texas?

I feel like there's a blindness by some STEM professionals to the fact that not all jobs can be done nearly anywhere, least of all those available to semiconductor engineers. I blame the acronym for bundling us all together unnecessarily.

</comment><comment><USER28> I recently had to have one aspect of this issue pointed out to me, since it was never a major concern of mine and I'd been completely blind to it: seniority.

I _do not_ currently work for a start-up, or even what you would typically consider a technology company. However, the group I work with, the program in the businessy sense, is not very old. The original kernel of the group began less than ten years ago, and has grown in fits and spurts. Many, if not most, of the "founders" are still here, as well.

When the program started, many of the founders were young and relatively inexperienced. Today, they're still young but are more experienced---in this specific project. And at least some of the people who have been hired since are older or more experienced---at least in terms of having worked in a wider variety of environments---or both.

As a result, in some situations, someone with more experience and skills is being supervised, managed, or lead by someone with significantly less experience. The situation isn't improved by weird incentives that place emphasis on some jobs more than others, similar to the cliche about sales versus engineering.

So, how's this for a weird situation: people who would be senior are doing junior work, because "job market"; people who would likely be junior are in charge, because of good timing (For those of you who plan to be future Zuckerbergs, what _are_ you going to do when you really do need to hire a rocket scientist?); people who are ready to move up can't, because nobody is leaving or dying off; and people who might be better off leaving won't, because they would be taking a pay and prestige cut.

[Note: I am _absolutely_ not talking about myself. I knew what I was doing when I got here. I have no real urge to "move up" in the world. I'm a technical guy. I'm mechanism, not policy.]

</comment><comment><USER29> Zuckerberg quoted as saying: "Our policy is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find. The whole limit in the system is just that there aren't enough people who are trained and have these skills today."

Two huge unanswered questions. What do you mean by "trained and have these skills?" And at what price?

At $50,000 a year, I would also like to hire as _all_ the engineers. I will place them into jobs that pay 100K a year, and I will keep 50k. How many times would I like to do this? Answer: all of the times.

Now, suppose I have to pay them 125K a year, and I can hire them out at 100k a year. How many times would I like to do this? Answer: none of the times.

So there's a massive shortage of 50k/yr engineers, but a huge glut of $125k a year engineers. It sounds like there's a severe shortage of programmers willing to work for far less than they're worth. How is this different from any other field?

</comment><comment><USER30> For perspective, the budget of the NIH, which funds a huge percentage of all the biomedical research in the US is about 31B. This is research that subsidizes and lays a foundation for many of the medical advances we have today. For additional perspective, this 31B in public money is about equivalent to all the private R&D spending done on medical research.

So the thought that someone would spend 19B on a messaging platform, which is an already solved problem, is sad. 19B probably isn't "cure cancer" kind of money, but you'd be able to solve some pretty real problems with it.

</comment><comment><USER31> When they say they can't find the right person, they mean that Frank's cell phone ran out of juice.

So, my brother used to work in a small clock shop. These were really precise clocks (nanosecond) and they did distributed timing. You have an oil field, maybe, and want to know the size of it? Send out a blast pulse and record the echos. But the recorders need to really know where and when they hear the echo over a few hundred square miles. Its not easy stuff to deal with.

But the company had Frank. Frank had been there since the beginning. He had written all the code for the clocks, he built and wired the entire place, he knew the whims of the servers and the phone system, the slight burning smells that meant an imminent failure. Frank was the company, and the rest of them where there to make sure Frank was working and happy. Yeah, he owned a bit of the equity, not a major share, but a bit. No-one else knew all the passwords or the files like Frank. Frank barely had time for his kids, let alone to train anyone else. To keep things going, Frank was the ONLY person.

So, this worried the owners a lot. If Frank got cancer or in an accident, they were screwed. Hell, everyone was screwed. But to train anyone up was near impossible. Because Frank didn't have the time between putting out the little fires in the code and sleeping and making money for the owners. Frank didn't have them in a bind as much as Frank himself was in a bind. He wanted time to see soccer games, but he wanted his kids to go to college more, and that meant the money came first.

So, what was everyone supposed to do? They needed a new Frank. But anyone they brought on was just confused by the spaghetti of wires and the nonsense code that Frank had made 20 years ago to solve some problem half drunk at 2am on a Saturday. There was no record because there was no time to make one. You had to just clone Frank's brain, because nothing else would do in time.

My brother left that company because trying to untangle the Gordian Knot that Frank and the comapny were committed to was a noose.

But there are a few thousand Franks out there. There are a ton of companies that are in this bind. They have 2 or 3 guys that can actually do the job. And trying to replace that team is impossible. When the Zuck merps out that they can't find anyone, he is not lying, but mis-speaking. He means that Frank's phone is out of juice.

</comment><comment><USER32> Interesting article.

Whenever an article like this pops up the usual chorus is, there is no skill shortage, just a shortage at the price the employer is willing to pay.

Sadly I've seen myself as someone on the hiring side of the table fall into a few of these traps listed in the article.

A newly minted Phd, is one type of person that I've found myself having trouble hiring. Same with an newly minted Masters.

The reason is that often their area of specialization doesn't really help in the role I'm hiring and therefore I wouldn't give them any bump in pay for their extra schooling. On the other side of the table, especially for a Phd, they often expect a bump in pay for their additional schooling so its tough for me to hire someone like that.

 _EDIT_ to clarify, I don't reject these people out of hand, infact it helps them get an interview over others, but when it comes to offer time ie salary, I don't give any real value to a masters or Phd. Or put another way, if the salary I'm willing to offer is $125,000 its the same regardless of education.

To be clear, In a fund with 12 people, we have 5 Phd's and one more with a masters, so we do hire well educated people:)

Post grad education might get you interviewed first, but will have almost no bearing at all on if I extend a job offer or not.

The same can be said for what school you went to. MIT education, great I'll put you at the top of the interview pile, but when it comes time to extend an job offer, where you went to school doesn't factor into what we offer at all.

Too far along in their career can also be tough. Often this is due just to salary demands not fitting a junior role.

A new grad has no job they are quitting so they don't need a "bump" in pay to leave. Someone who is well into their career might be a good fit but is making a good salary where they are so they require a sizable pay increase to leave. Given this, it often makes sense to go with the younger candidate whose salary fits the role.

 _EDIT_ To flesh out the senior developer comment a bit more. There are really 3 areas I've had trouble with in the past.

1) The 10 year developer who has 1 year of experience 10 times over. This is just a junior developer who wants the salary of a senior developer.

2) Its harder to find senior developers, regardless of what you pay. As Joel once said the good developers always have jobs, hence his internship program.

3) the hire bar is, umm..., higher for senior developers as they are expected to do more, mentor, design architecture, etc. This means I'm more picky as to who I hire.

Having said that, there are times where experience rules, and in this case you get what you pay for.

 _NOTE_ This post has generated more upvote and downvotes than almost any other post I've written. So half the people agree with me and half disagree?

<comment><USER33>
      > A newly minted Phd, is one type of person that I've found myself having trouble hiring. Same with an newly minted Masters.

The PhD issue makes some sense, a person who just spent two to four years becoming an expert in a narrow area of specialization may want to use that knowledge, and may not be all that much more valuable if you don't need it (especially since his or her other skills may not have "kept up").

However, for masters degrees I wonder if you're considering the fact that the degree (in many fields) can be seen as a "signal" [1]. Many masters programs are highly applied and, assuming a reasonable degree of rigor, more challenging than undergraduate programs. So, looked at in this way, wouldn't it make sense to use a masters degree to help narrow your pool down to people who can handle challenging work? In this case, you would pay more not for the additional knowledge, but for the free screening the degree provided.

Disclaimer: I'm getting a masters degree in CS (and already have one in econ, hehe), although from what I've seen, people don't have much trouble finding jobs, so...

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_\(economics\))

<comment><USER34> A master's degree, assuming no experience, is more like a warning signal for someone who's stayed in academics too long and has no practical skill. It's like you're hiring a really expensive junior developer if they've never built real world software under business constraints that needed to like be bug free, and scalable. It's like the code written in graduate college gave a shit about memory use, file or network i/o performance, a good ui design, or like actually doing the thing it's supposed to. Sorry, ranting due to bad experience in the past.

The thing is, more education will enable a good developer to be even better. It's doesn't seem to help a struggling developer in any shape or form. Unfortunately sometimes I get the impression that people stay in school to address a problem that can't be addressed with more classroom time and end up doubling down on a field that maybe isn't right for them.

At the very least try to intern early on and or successfully help a popular open source project before graduate school.

<comment><USER33>
      > The thing is, more education will enable a good developer to be even better. It's doesn't seem to help a struggling developer in any shape or form.

In my (limited) experience, the people who struggled in undergrad run screaming away from any possibility of doing grad school (my experience here is consistent across econ and CS). The people who were good at the field consider grad school because the psychic costs of learning more are low.

If you find a person with an MS who can't pass a simple programming test, then (and this is very general, I'm sure there are exceptions) take a look at the school her or she attended and stop interviewing people from that school, problem solved.

<comment><USER34> > take a look at the school her or she attended and stop interviewing people > from that school, problem solved.

This is really bad advice, because much about learning programming is about an individual effort. It has little if anything to do with the school.

> If you find a person with an MS who can't pass a simple programming test

You actually need more than a simple programming test that solves a single problem. You need to see enough code to have some architecture, designed by the candidate. Interviews are too short for this so experience whether at some other company or open source, or just if skilled people can vouch for you goes a long way.

<comment><USER35> I also agree in doing a black mark against the school however it helps to have a look at (in terms of Masters, PhD) the quality of work within that department / within the graduating year. It's a way to go beyond the marketing fluff in non top-tier schools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I said this long time ago on my blog: [http://julesjaypaulynice.com/good- software-engineers/](http://julesjaypaulynice.com/good-software-engineers/)

<comment><USER19> agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Basically companies have to either pay/accommodate people or train them, but instead they'd rather whine. Know it all too well, as someone who has tried to avoid living in California for lifestyle reasons, which limits a lot of options.

</comment><comment><USER38> Speaking from personal experience, it _is_ hard to find engineers who can truly take a project and run with it.

For any given job posting, there are typically hundreds of applicants. Yet often, not a single one of the applicants could build a non-trivial application without intensive mentoring. Many of them couldn't do it even _with_ mentoring.

I don't know what this says about our economy. Maybe nothing--maybe it just says something about the nature of engineering. I can offer only my anecdotes. I'm not in a position to draw from those anecdotes a conclusion about what our economy needs.

</comment><comment><USER39> The author is forgetting one thing: under qualified devs (at the time of a FB interview) can also be lucky and learn the job while building and scaling a product which has gotten traction.

Given the numerous applicants they deny, what are the chances that a few of them get lucky? I'm estimating, with my limited math knowledge, that this will be closer to 1 than one may think beforehand.

</comment><comment><USER40> Sounds like Facebook et al should be investing some of this money into university CS/CE/CIS programs along with internal training programs if they are truly concerned about the lack of qualified personnel. A billion dollars goes a long way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can we talk about the other elephant in the room: that Facebook can afford the inflation-adjusted equivalent of the Manhattan project budget with a product that it does not charge its users to use?

<comment><USER41> Google can afford even more than that. Times have changed, and these tech juggernauts are essentially printing their own money with how invested the general public is into their products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Idea I had a while back: Monster.com for anonymous interviews. Purge race, age and gender information from the interview process. Getting a broader range of candidates to the final interview would already be a huge step.

I'm not even sure in-person or phone interviews are necessary or beneficial. I'm aware of a top philosophy dept. that does professor hiring completely be application materials. Why? They found application materials were a better predictor of success than in-person judgements.

<comment><USER41> Yeah but you can't have diverse teams if you hire from the same mold

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I don't know that rockstar companies really say that much about the industry as a whole. I also don't put much stock in that Zuckerberg quote about "hiring as many talented engineers as we can find", unless they define talented as a very high bar, in which case the statement is meaningless. Who wouldn't want to hire as many crazy good programmers as they can?

<comment><USER16> Someone with a finite budget for software development, perhaps?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One thing not talked about is potentially superior EU education relative to US. Who would make a better impact for you?

</comment><comment><USER44> Facebook can't hire good engineers because good engineers don't want to work there.

</comment><comment><USER45> Acq-hires are proof of dysfunction. Companies like Yahoo _have_ talent, but can't recognize it at the bottom because the middle-management filter is so defective. So they buy market-verified talent at a panic price. That's shitty for the individual (well, great for 0.05% of them and shitty for 99.95%) because there's so much noise.

The problem is that the VC-funded world is full of soft-skulls who never grew up (some are old, but not mature; those tend to be investors). They make workplaces that are culturally defective and mean-spirited but have the superficial trappings of college because they're _halfway houses_ for frat boys. "Culture fit" is about wanting to work with the same people you'd go drinking with or (for most non-tech roles) have sex with. I ask: _Why?_ You should hire the people who'll do awesome work and lead, and some of those are 65-year-old women. If you don't, your halfway-house/I-could-live-here "utopia" will underperform and forever be beholden to the VCs.

Reality: if you make one real friend per job, call yourself lucky. My experience is that it's Poisson(0.75). That "culture fit" camaraderie is bullshit. Don't take seriously or trust anyone who wouldn't have your back (and give you a reference, even if you needed him to lie) if you got fired on bad terms.

Another lesson from the old (30): your life should be diversified outside of your job, because you can lose the latter at any time for any reason. Losing a job is bad enough as it is, but if you have nothing outside of it, it's catastrophic. The "culture fit" workplace is bullshit. Just build something awesome worth giving a shit about.

<comment><USER46> I'll agree with that, but it's dysfunction both in the hiring process and also in the R&D process. It's the middle management filter in both cases. Corporate culture is a big part of this. I worked for a major airline in the '90s and during that time, we had at least 5 initiatives to build online travel sites. Wasteful? Sure, but the winner of that process is a well-known travel site that's thriving today. That particular company had a highly entrepreneurial and competitive structure internally, which had definite downsides, but on the flip side, caused the company to produce some good innovations from within. I went to work for a competitor a few years later and things were completely different there and acqui-hire was the name of the game for that organization.

<comment><USER45> _I 'll agree with that, but it's dysfunction both in the hiring process and also in the R&D process._

M&A has replaced R&D, but it's an extremely wasteful and inefficient replacement. The silly social media apps are actually pretty rare; more common are firms that look like real companies but have junk technology that starts falling apart the minute it's sold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Where is the problem? The risk was outsourced, so were the investments. When it looks like a worthwhile project, the knowledge get's in-sourced. Don't see the recruitment fail in this particular happening of things.

<comment><USER6> Is this satire? We're talking about $19 billion here.

In either case, your statement is almost completely incorrect.

The WhatsApp founders were turned down before WhatsApp even existed. Therefore, it was not some bold tactical decision on the part of FB. Their technical acumen was up to snuff, so they were rejected based on some other criteria (not necessarily age).

<comment><USER48> The funny part is that if Facebook had hired them when they had the chance, they probably wouldn't have built anything resembling WhatsApp or whatever Facebook was trying to achieve by acquiring WhatsApp.</comment></comment></comment>