I agree that hanging out with the Wall Street types, going to Wall Street bars, and living in Wall Street apartments probably skewed his perception of NYC's tech scene greatly.
But, hackers like myself who hang out with hacker types, go to hacker bars, and live in hacker nabes probably are probably equally skewed, albeit in the opposite direction. It's people like me who are shouting from the hilltops that NYC is the new SF, when in reality it's probably somewhere in between these two extremes.
I actually don't disagree with his central thesis that the NYC startup scene doesn't rival the Bay Area scene. What I disagree with is his bizarre characterization of NYC. It's like if I were to write a blog about D.C. and all I could talk about where the endless mile upon mile of endless monuments and golf courses with a KFC at every green.
Brooklyn reminds me a lot of Boston, tech-scene wise. There's a plenty of computer programmers around and a fair number of of young entrepreneurs, not to mention a startups located there. I know a few bars frequented by coders and there are coffeeshops galore. Not having spent time in SF I'd still say it's probably a more arts/entertainment oriented than tech oriented crowd, but the recently gentrified areas of Brooklyn are lightyears away from old-money Manhattan.
I'm going to offer a counter-point to your suggestion:
I don't believe changing the external environment, or income, or people who you are near, is going to do jack shit.
Here's why: I feel exactly like the OP. Failed weight loss. Failed relationships (in my case it's making good friends / co-worker relationships). A giant list of failed or incomplete side projects. Still can't pay off my loans.
The difference: I make 3 times as much as the OP. I work for (and have always worked for) exciting startups. I live in a trendy area of NYC (not SF, but the same health-minded social stuff).
The money, the atmosphere, the location: false hopes. They don't change you you are. You're not your salary. You're not your neighborhood. You're not your job.
YMMV, but as someone who's been-there-done-that and hoped that a better job, more money, and better location would somehow fundamentally change who I was, I think that line of hope is no different than someone who thinks a bigger TV, fancier car, or hotter wife is going to make them happy. It won't.
EDIT: Let me be a bit more specific. I don't like it when people do some hand-waving and claim that it's just The Way It Is.
The main issue is that your environment does effect you, it just doesn't change you.
Money: I've lived on ramen & water. I had friends who understood that drinking cheap beer at home was the best I could do. Once I started making more money, I certainly thought I could avoid spending more. And for a while, I did. But things start to add up. First, you network with people who make the same Good Money that you make. So you pretty much have to up your entertainment budget or else be a recluse. Like it or not, your old peers will envy your money. You'll stop getting invited to basement parties (age is certainly a factor too). You decide one day you deserve better than living in a slum with bars on your windows and doors and rats in your walls and upgrade to an OK apartment. You decide it's time to "grow up" and stop buying used clothes. You decide Natty Light isn't the best beer in the world. Your old $25k/year lifestyle is now a $75k/year lifestyle with only incremental changes. This leads me into...
Location: If you move to a yuppie place, you'll spend yuppie money. Coffeeshops cost more. Old dirty grocery stores give way to Whole Foods. There will be subtle, almost subconcious pressure to spend more and be even more critical on yourself than you already are. The "keeping up with the Jones'" cranks into high gear. If you feel like a fat loser in the midwest (or wherever), it's 10x worse when you're surrounded by wealthy in-shape people. Trust me. My smug sense of being better than most people when I lived in poor suburban/rural areas has given way to feeling like a worthless fat piece of crap every time I walk outside (this is a bit of an exaggeration, but with a BMI around 30 I'm easily the fattest guy I can see 95% of the time).
And finally, job: A job is a job. Some are better, some let you work in your boxers, but from 10,000 feet they're all just ways to give you more money to spend on shit that you hope makes you feel better but doesn't. You can try to derive happiness from a job and for some people it works, but it never worked for me because I don't really have much control over my job. At 25 years old I'm not yet in the position of actually making big changes. Sure I can decide on a framework or the language to use, but do I choose which direction the company goes? Do I make hiring decisions? Not yet. Certainly in 5 years this will change but at 3 years out of college, even in startups, you're not given the sort of responsibility, IMO, that gives significant job satisfaction.
Anyway this is all just IMO. There's certain to be folks with the exact opposite feeling on this, so I'm not claiming I'm right, just that this is my experience.
It's not the environment that matters, it's the change of environment. Switching things around gives you a reset button. Over a few years in a particular life circumstance, you usually learn a lot about what you want in life. But you also acquire a lot of inertia and old habits. A move, new job, and new social circle gives you a reset button that you can use to pick up a new set of habits.
Of course, it's up to you to actually press that reset button.
One of the best things I ever did with my life was to found my own company. The company failed - it just petered out and never went anywhere. But it got me off the "Java developer for a small financial firm" track, helped me learn a whole bunch of new skills, and those skills got me a job all the way across the company.
> It's not the environment that matters, it's the change of environment.
That's a good point. I think as long as a person doesn't put too much hope into the idea that the environment itself is going to force changes upon oneself, it's a good idea.
While I understand your opinion, I couldn't disagree more.
I've lived in Costa Rica and Honduras as a child. As an adult, I've also lived in Minnesota, Chicago, Rhode Island, LA, Fresno and now the Bay Area.
Depending on your personality type, the city where you live is going to have a dramatic effect on your outlook on life. For instance, if you're a foodie or an artist Providence Rhode Island is going to be phenomenal for you. If you love sports, microbrews and hanging out with fraternity buddies, Chicago is phenomenal town. If you love hunting, fishing and "Going to the lake" every weekend, Minnesota is really wonderful. If you're trying to get into the film industry, or visual effects industry, there's no other place to be other than LA.
But, if you're a young programer and want to live in a place where in an evening you can meet over a hundred other programmers doing cool assed shit with in functional programming, NoSQL, startups, iPhone programming, mobile, search, natural language processing, etc... Then, I would suggest avoiding Dubuque Iowa, and I'd suggest moving to the Bay Area: http://www.meetup.com/Hackers-and-Founders/calendar/13712630... </shameless plug>
No, location doesn't change who you area as a person, but it certainly does open up a lot of different options if you're interested in that.
No, making more money doesn't make you happier, but if you're seriously interested in debt reduction, and you commit to avoid "keeping up with the Joneses" and choose to live in a crap part of town for a year, while you pay down your credit cards, making $120k vs $60k is going to get you closer to your goal all other things being equal.
A job: Wow, I couldn't disagree with you more.
At 25 years old I'm not yet in the position of actually making big changes. Sure I can decide on a framework or the language to use, but do I choose which direction the company goes? Do I make hiring decisions? Not yet. Certainly in 5 years this will change but at 3 years out of college, even in startups, you're not given the sort of responsibility
Completely disagree. In the Silicon Valley startup scene, no one cares how old you are. They generally care about what you can do and how well you do it. I hang out with 23 year old founders that have raised millions in funding, have revenue, are close to profitable, and have hired a dozen people. I have a hunch the scene in NYC may be quite a bit different.
My motivation for posting my wall of text is that I just don't think his problem is external. Maybe external changes will prompt some introspective changes, maybe it won't, I just genuinely don't believe that latching on to meaning given to you by others (job, house, debt reduction) has inherent value when it comes to getting over an existentialist funk.
Leaving NYC for somewhere that isn't one of the world's biggest urban pressure cookers is actually pretty useful for re-adjusting your perspective. My blood pressure drops about 10 points every time I'm on vacation. Don't forget that this place is ranked dead last on the "happiest places in america" chart. Even when I think I'm happy here, my physical stress indicators tell me otherwise...
at least on the social front, I disagree strongly. Having lived both outside and inside the "silicon valley" area, god damn, It's a /whole lot/ easier for a nerd who best relates to other nerds to have a fulfilling social life here than other places. Hell, even compared to the east bay, I've lived in El Cerrito, near Berkeley, and silicon valley is dramatically better.
NYC rates, yep. I'd make significantly less elsewhere.
Three things:
NYC is expensive. A 6 pack of crummy beer is $14 across the street from my office, and a studio in Harlem is still $2,000/mo. Realistically, $100k/year in NYC is like $60k/year elsewhere. I know quite a few people making six figures that live 2 hours outside of the city because they can't afford it and I've read that you shouldn't even consider having kids in Manhattan until your household income is over $200k/yr.
Second, IME a lot of startups in NYC have deep pockets. I believe this is because most of the startups in NYC are funded by big companies with NYC HQs. Otherwise, they'd start up elsewhere because everything about running a biz is expensive in NYC (employee wages, taxes, rent, etc).
Third, there's a talent drought in NYC. If a tech savvy type of guy wants to be on the east coast, they usually end up Boston/Cambridge.
High cost of living + startups w/ lots of coin + talent shortage = $$$$ for devs.
Also, I made some broad generalizations. There are plenty of self-funded startups in NYC too.
You make it seem like that ~200k salary for a 25 year old developer is the norm in NYC. It is not. The only industry that comes close to that number in NYC is in finance (hedge fund, IB quants, algo trading).
I've working in NYC for 10 years in various industries. Here is my observation of pay rates from highest pay to lower:
Finance line of biz (eg. quant model programmer)
Finance IT
megacorp software corps (Google, M$)
startups no equity
startups w/ equity
other industry IT (publishing, media)
My observation is that nyc startups pay slightly more than your run-of the mill fortune 500 but less than megacorp software shops and finance. Even less of a base salary if they offer equity. Granted I may be talking to the wrong startups and anomalies exists but your characterization is off.
Yes, NY is expensive but your limiting your scope to Manhattan. The average salary for people living in NYC is 50k, most of whom work in Manhattan. They somehow manage to "get-by". Also, high cost of living doesn't automatically equate to every company doling out high base pay.
> we prompt them to share their new page with friends immediately after signup
Does this actually work? I've seen a few places that do this but I've always assumed it's probably a poor performer (and makes your site looks spammy) because people haven't had a chance to evaluate if they want to tell their friends about your site.
Yeah, there was actually an article on this - I'll see if I can dig it up later.
It evaluated the performance between asking them to refer right after sign-up vs. after they have tried the product for a while.
The message we currently use is something along the lines of "Now that you have a brand new link blog, it's time to get an audience", or something like that.
> Second, and this is the most important point, because it's come up again and again in the comments, he is consistently missing deadlines and has failed to be very productive.
So I wrote a pretty harsh post previously before this little bit of -very important- info was added. Not getting things done while not working full hours is WAY different than getting things done on an unusual schedule.
I think the OP should be thankful his dev doesn't walk. If I partnered up with some biz guy who demanded I show up early for no other reason than appearance I'd assume he's an empty suit and leave. (9am is early in this industry, I've never had a job that demanded I show up before 10:00).
OP: You're a 2.5 man closet startup and you're asking your other half to be less productive for the sake of appearance. Are you sure he's the one with the problem?
All this talk of being "unprofessional" is a joke when it's two guys who just scrounged up enough capital to rent a cheap office trying to impress a fucking intern. Jesus Christ.
On second thought, I'm certain I'd bail if the OP was my "partner." The lack of thought put into this, the fact that you've considered trying to oust him instead of confronting him, the fact that you seem to lack the ability to look at your company critically (again: 2 dudes and some interns == 9-5 IS NOT A BIG DEAL) all shows a severe lack of biz sense or even common sense. You're obviously insecure (cares too much about appearance to some teenagers), ill-informed (does not understand developers or managing developers) and not equipped for a leadership position (talking to HN instead of the one person in the company who he should be talking to).
I hope the "partner" you're treating like an employee reads this thread and bails. You reached out to a forum instead of talking to someone who's your other half. I can't imagine how you'd run an actual company.
I "work" from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m, but in fact I'm very unproductive, especially in the morning, and I get only a few blocks of 2-3 hrs where I am productive (maybe 5 out of the 10 hours total in a good day).
I was a lot more productive with other time arrangements (and space, I'm in an open office with 7 other developers, which kills my chances of being "in the zone" unless I wear headphones).
I know it's just a GIMP script but I was pretty impressed at how well the returned image was.
My only advice is to make the instructions clearer. It's quite a simple idea "send a whiteboard photo to XYZ, get a clean version back" but I had to go to a second page, scroll down quite a bit, then click a few other pages to find out exactly what happens when I send a photo. I might be dimmer than the average customer though.
Customers don't need to know how easy (or hard) something is... some classmates of mine are now enjoying a trip to South Africa (to see the World Cup alongside head coach Óscar Tabárez) thanks to some clever marketing... they made a video indexing software (the indexing is totally manual) and marketed it as a solution for soccer trainers.
The actual code was much easier than our own project, but it was visually nice and it was brilliantly marketed. I'm probably going to blog about this if some of you are interested :)
> I have no hard data to back this up, but I strongly suspect that your average woman in her 20s is FAR more likely to be at least partially dependent on a husband or parents than a man of the same age.
Careful with your selection bias, though.
My experience mirrors yours (all my male friends are completely independent, many female friends are dependent on boyfriend or parents), but almost all my male peers are software developers, engineers, some PhDs, etc. My female peers, on the other hand, are from a more diverse pool of people.
Depends a lot on cost of living. For example, I'd never work for as low as $50/hr unless I was very desperate, but I also live in NYC. Typical contractor wages seem to be about $100/hr depending on YOE and type of work.
CS isn't a degree that teaches you how to program. For me it was much more like a discrete mathematics degree. I learned probably hundreds of algorithms (compression, cryptography, 3D rendering, AI), how to analyze and create new algorithms, but not how to program (except in the typical CS101 courses).
It was always assumed that any student could learn the language of their choice from an off-the-shelf book. I myself knew about half a dozen languages and mastered a couple before I graduated, but that was all extra-curricular work. In many ways I'd probably be a better developer if I obtained a Software Engineering degree instead, but CS gave me the foundation to tackle the interesting computational problems.
The professors knew they would be much more valuable explaining how RSA worked than how to debug a syntax error or learn the language of the month.
Programming requires a lot more than learning the syntax and semantics of a programming language.
Most CS profs don't teach programming because they don't have anything interesting to say and would rather teach something else. They are not programmers.
Most CS profs don't teach programming because they don't have anything interesting to say and would rather teach something else. They are not programmers.
I feel this is slightly hyperbolic. CS often isn't a productless field, even in academia. While many fields in CS can get away with simply publishing algorithms and other codeless papers there are many subsections where implementation is a vital part of the project. For example, the Xen project was originally an open source academic project.
I think the biggest problem in academia is the tight schedule. Unfortunately, many of the problems you encounter in industry take too long to be properly implemented in the structure of a semester course. For example, long-term maintenance and technical documentation are at the core of any significant software project but by the time most of that stuff would come up the semester is already over.
But, hackers like myself who hang out with hacker types, go to hacker bars, and live in hacker nabes probably are probably equally skewed, albeit in the opposite direction. It's people like me who are shouting from the hilltops that NYC is the new SF, when in reality it's probably somewhere in between these two extremes.