Bluffing was important to the extent that I had to convince the listener that I understood the topics being discussed when I did not.
In general, I would discourage bluffing in a business like SE Daily. I'm on display for 250 minutes per week. It would be very easy to get caught in a lie.
A few of the topics I know well myself, like networking, can be a pain to listen to. But the overall quality is great, and I realize that you can't be an expert on all topics.
I listen to pretty much every episode and rarely skip one. Even the topics I think are of no interest to me often ends up with something useful and interesting.
Doing daily shows also allows for a lot of diversity in topics, letting some episodes go really deep or just have a subject covered broadly and intensely like the k8s.
I really recommend it to anyone who wants to keep tabs on what is going on.
This is one part of the truth, but not all of it. The remaining minutes of the the hour long podcast evidently provide enough value to the listeners for them to keep tuning in, despite the annoyance of ads. As long as his output has value and he charges what the market will bear (in terms of ad time), he should do well.
The point is, it's not a net "waste" of people's time, it enriches their lives in some way.
If you work in technology and are lucky enough to find yourself in a position where you can actually start a company you are on permanent vacation compared to most of the world.
Thank you! This makes perfect sense: "A huge percentage of online advertisements are never seen by humans. They are viewed by bots–automated scripts that are opening web pages in a browser and pretending to be a human. Advertising scammers set up web pages, embed advertisements on those pages, and then pay for bot traffic to come and view those advertisements."
we have those, the amount of invalid clicks in adwords does not mach the ones i see in my logs, there 20-40% difference where adwords shows less.
i cannot fix that from my site. i block ip ranges when i find them but they can just move.
So the bots are driving billions in trackable revenue for companies then? Branding advertisers aside (which search isn't always great for), direct response advertisers don't often care about some of these metrics between spend and sale other than directionally.
Sure you might have attribution questions, but a bot likely won't spend like a person would.
This is Jeff from SE Daily. Thank you so much for these comments.
I did try to address the downsides as best I could and I think they are even better addressed in the follow-up with Preethi.
Most of the downsides of leaving your job are not instability because for most people in tech, that instability can be stabilized with stuff like debt, contract work, living in super cheap housing etc.
The main reason people do not go out on their own is either:
-lack of recognizing there are alternatives to the corporate meatgrinder
-laziness and addiction to video games, drugs, or other consumptive behaviors
-shame/defeatist/nihilist attitude
The epidemic scale of all three of these in tech industry is pretty disgusting--all the more reason to jump ship.
I haven't been able to see the follow up yet, but I will! And by the way, I love your style. Excellent podcast!
I got that out of your podcast as well, the points you bring up here. And I agree 100%. Honestly, it is so sad and, as you say, disgusting, how many engineers use these excuses to stay in the position of a commodity. It's really self defeating to the engineers. When people occasionally bring up making a software engineers union or something of that fashion, it is to basically alleviate the commodity pain without addressing the causes, like the lack of recognition, laziness, and defeatist attitudes. Unfortunately, the only real way out is to break out on your own. Once you do, it becomes rather obvious that you had nothing to fear at all. Nothing of substance anyway.
I've struck out on my own twice now. I worked my butt off both times, and made no money either time. The first time, I burnt out after my business partner left, and the second time, we tried to make/sell a video plagiarism detection service.
These excursions did not just cost me the income I would have received from a corporation, but they also decimated my savings. I have friends who are my age who have worked at corporations consistently, and they have about 10x the savings I have now. Two of them are retired (just over 40 years old).
I don't regret my excursions, because I hated many aspects of the corporate life, and I am the kind of person who has to see for myself. But I won't be striking out on my own again. Money, like software, is hard to make reliably at scale. I would no more tell an engineer to strike out on their own in business, than I would tell an entrepreneur to start making an MMORPG.
I find this line of thinking rather strange. It seems... disembodied. Like it exists in a world where there's not much outside of software engineering and the software engineer. No fears, no doubts, no weaknesses, no problems, no other interests or concerns, no friends or loved ones.
Stabilize instability with "stuff like debt, contract work, living in super cheap housing"? Those are not minor things. Debt? I don't follow that one, but in the typical understanding debt has some non-trivial drawbacks. Contract work and cheap housing? That may drastically affect where and how you live on many levels. That may work great for certain adventurous individuals but not everyone has that kind of personality, and many people have families and other obligations and interests they may want to pursue that don't jive well with these options.
Instability is instability. It does not cease to be such because it can be mitigated, especially if one's mitigation options themselves come with drawbacks. We may assess how significant the instability truly is, and how available the mitigation options are. I think one can get pretty far with more grounded options, such as honing a skill set that is in demand, saving and investing one's money, keeping oneself healthy mentally and physically, and developing a network of contacts while watching for opportunities.
Your writing here is dangerously close to being able to paint anyone who disagrees with you with a rather judgmental and negative brush. Either ignorant, lazy/addicted/consumerist, or having a poor attitude. Terms so vague that pretty much every person will fall under them in one way or another, and any contrary statement can be warped to represent them. I tend to be extremely suspicious of people whose arguments are formed in this manner.
Yes, some of these are real problems that don't need to be there. Many people don't know about the other options or think they are more difficult than they are. Many people are scared. Many people do not think too highly of themselves and think they're not worth of a business or that they could never, ever make it work. I think empathy rather than judgment would go a long way here.
Some of these are major problems. Mental illnesses and drug (or other serious) addiction are not a walk in a park. I don't think the fact that they're working in a corporation is the major concern at this point...
And then, some of these... Laziness. Everyone's favorite catch-all blame tactic. Video games. Everyone's favorite catch-all blame hobby. [everyone who got into programming via video games please go under the ground now] Consumption. We're in a capitalist economy, we're going to consume things. Yes, some of us lay about, play, and consume too much, but people have a right to figure that out on their own terms. Media and marketing love to throw around these phrases to make people feel bad and short-circuit their decision making.
There are some very valid reasons for not going out doing things on your own that I haven't really seen discussed or addressed neither here nor in the video. You may disagree with them and assign vastly different value to the variables involved, but that doesn't make them invalid:
- many people are not interested in the sheer stress that comes with doing things on your own;
- many people are simply risk-averse and starting your own business is perceived as a fairly risky path;
- they're not interested in the associated or implied Spartan lifestyle of constant hard work, no consumerism, and no entertainment;
- they're interested in a field that doesn't really have much going on outside of corporations;
- they may just not like it, and/or they may not have the skillset - they are engineers, not businessmen, after all.
The message I would want to get to people is that they should try to do what they want. If they feel an inkling about starting a business, they should pursue it, with the necessary care applied. They shouldn't let mere fears and doubts hold them back. They shouldn't work for a company out of mere loyalty, but because it is what benefits them at the time. And they should be open to options and opportunities, and avoid thinking in the style of "this is not for me because people like me do not do things like this".
But all of that always has to be balanced with the rest of your life. And, sometimes, the rest of your life is just bigger and more important.
