That's really sad. Why would you even want to work in Silicon Valley if they treat people like that? There are plenty of jobs elsewhere that are less inclined to discriminate.
That recruiter you were speaking of probably meant that they were looking to hire a diverse set of people, as opposed to primarily just 65-year old white guys (which she probably believes to be the majority demographic that you'll see in a stuffy corporate environment).
She should not have said "65-year old", as that is blatant age discrimination. And she should not have brought in the terms "white guy", as it is racist stereotyping. It seems like that recruiter is really out of touch with what promoting diversity in the workplace is about.
However, despite this, you cannot deny that the majority of people working in the tech sector are white or asian and male. That's just a fact. I feel like you are demonizing diversification efforts in the work place just because of one experience you had.
That old white guy you worked with will not have a problem getting a job in the future, eventually, unless he has some sort of character flaw that renders him absolutely unemployable. Hell, he already has a job right now, though on contract basis. Even just getting your foot in the door is much harder if he was not white and male. You just proved so yourself by saying you would have a job lined up for him and people of his demographic. You are acting like old white men are the victims here. They are victims, but only because of their age. Now you know what discrimination looks and feels like. This is why diversification is important. It's simply a protection measure to help ensure equality and fairness.
Author: Andrew Yang, Founder/CEO of Venture for America
TL;DR
Smart people in the world such as Stephen Hawking, Sam Hinkie and Sam Altman, are saying jobs will be obliterated due to automation. Even the White House has published reports that have said 83% of jobs with wages less than $20/hour will be automated or replaced, between 9 and 47% of jobs are in danger of becoming obsolete, between 2.2 and 3.1 million car/bus/truck-driving jobs will be eliminated due to self-driving vehicles.
Graph: https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/jobs.jpeg?quality...
"Each 1% decline equates to about 2.5 million Americans dropping out. Number of working-age Americans who aren't in the workforce surged to a record 95 million up almost 500,000 in the last month alone, many being factory workers."
Venture for America's mission is to help create 100,000 U.S. jobs by 2025 by helping growth companies access talent and training the next generation of entrepreneurs. They claim their clients have built multi-million dollar businesses that have hired dozens or hundreds of people, even low-skilled manufacturing workers. Having trained over 500 aspiring entrepreneurs to work in 18 cities around the U.S., they are now recruiting executives from Silicon Valley companies who want to help. Most start-ups require the best talent, usually requiring a college degree. This excludes 68% of the population. And they are constantly trying to weed out inefficient people.
TL;DR: Automation is happening right now and causing job losses. Venture for America is trying to somehow stop it but does not explain the details in the article.
----
Personal thoughts:
This article seemed like a self-promotional ad for the author's company, "Venture for America" (which I will refer to as VFA). The article uses quotes from famous tech giants and scientists about automation and job loss to paint "Venture for America" as a charitable endeavor, but not explaining much about what it has done. It bothered me that he would use Sam Altman's charitable act of giving $20,000 of basic income to people living in Oakland to try to shine light on himself. All in all, it sounded very scammy and self-serving, not really saying much that wasn't already known to people who have been paying any attention to the tech sector.
It wouldn't have sounded so underhanded if the article did not cite examples of American factory workers being down, out-of-luck and jobless. If VFA cared so much about America's displaced citizens, they would be trying to help those citizens directly, not trying to poach away top executives from other big tech companies. I agree with jdhopeunique when he points out they are only looking for young, cheap graduates. Everyone wants the young bright graduates, so why should they join VFA when there are many other companies who are looking for these kinds of candidates.
VFA looks like a legitamate company that might have done some good (I don't know whether their net impact has been good or bad), but based on the article alone and without doing any further research, VFA appears to be charading altruism. This would make me reluctant to trust this organization.
I was kind of disappointed because I was looking for more substance given the headline.
Try getting a new psychiatrist if the one you currently see is ineffective. Sometimes people say you just have to find the right therapist to really see progress.
Also, if you hate programming, you will always be mediocre and unenthusiastic. Nobody likes working with unexcited people. So break away from what you hate. I studied finance and had trouble finding a job. I didn't realize how much I hated it until I stopped forcing myself to keep trying. I found that I really liked programming and now I have a job in the technology field (though it is not cutting edge. I'm still only just beginning though!)
Your girlfriend is still with you. If you sense that your girlfriend hates you, you still have a chance to turn things around. Why don't you compensate in other ways? Finding a job takes time. In the mean time, do things to make her happy or clean up around the house, cook, etc.
While I do not agree that the U.S. is worse than China, I think wil421 meant that we look worse to other countries, not necessarily that we are. There are countries outside of the U.S. that do not look favorably upon what the U.S. does regarding our military tactics, etc. Residents of other countries will form their opinions based on how the U.S. treats them and their country and what they read/hear about.
I would love to have a mentor. I stumbled upon Hacker News about a year and a half ago. I was not into programming before. One day, I got interested in programming and stories about computer hackers and so naturally I stumbled upon this website.
I am still a newbie. Right now, I am interested in learning Ruby and Javascript. I dabbled around with Java for a few months a while ago, but I became more interested in HTML5. I taught myself nearly everything I know about programming. I am probably not at the level to have a mentor, but I would really love to chat with someone about programming or meet up and code together. Maybe get some tips and advice on how to accelerate learning.
I do not know how distance mentoring would feel, but I am open to it.
>I find this assertion to be very surprising. In my experience college, unlike high school, the entire point was to get >students thinking for themselves, rather than accepting that there was a single correct answer. In my freshman year, and >in the freahman year of each of my three daughters, there was always a required class which included a "colloquium" or >"discussion" component. These classes were designed to break students of the habit of treating what was said, or read, as >'the answer' and to instead think critically about the facts being tossed about.
What is considered "thinking critically." How do you pass this class? Well, the nature of classes is that someone decides if you pass or not.
>Again, my experience differs. Were I or my kids to discover that the University they were attending felt that way I >would immediately withdraw into a more traditional institution of higher learning, which starts with the premise >"everything we know may be false, here are the tools we use to understand truth in the world around us."
This isn't actually a fact. Just your reaction. But it does not disprove anything. It is what you say you would do. And also, you seem to be exerting authority over your kids... I am being a bit pedantic, but you say if your kids discovered [...]then you would withdraw [...]
>Again, I would disagree. As an employer I value employees who think over those to simply follow orders. One of the >things I try to ascertain in interviewing folks is whether or they do think. Can they reason to their opinion on a >topic or do they hold it simply because someone else shared it with them? My experience in high school was that many >people held opinions because they were "cool" or "expected" rather than holding them because they believed in them. >It was one of the most depressing parts of that period of my life and I was so relieved when I got to college that >people weren't like that really.
You seem personally offended, if I am not mistaken. I meant that managers in giant corporations generally (not always) expect obedience from their subordinates. I know because I work at a big company. I have read stories and I see it being satirized all the time. Satire is funny because there is truth in it (even if it is just a hint of it).
>One of the interesting statistics is we passed 30% of the US having a college degree in early 2012 [1]. So if 70% of >the people in a group don't have college degrees, it is difficult to reason about whether or not 'society' would be >better off or not. You could ask the 30% of degree holders how they evaluate creating value in society, you could ask >the 70% the same question, and then you could ask which of those two groups has a better idea of what kinds of things >make the world a better place.
>But a different approach might give better answer. Ask those two groups this question, "How would you go about >figuring out if what you were doing was helping the world be a better place?"
>College prepares people to answer questions of that form, ones that require the student to not only come up with an >answer, but to construct a process for arriving at the answer that gives them confidence in the result. No pre-made >formula, no quick peek at Wikipedia, but basic reasoning from first principles.
>I know several people who have that skill and did not go to college, but pretty much everyone who graduated from >college had that skill tested many times and had to pass that test in order to graduate.
If 30% of the population had college degrees, then maybe that just means that 30% of the population is just better than the other 70% at passing standardized tests. Does it mean that they made more value in the world? To say that you need college to answer the question "what would make the world a better place" may have been true 30 years ago. But now you have the internet. You can see what is happening around the world. You can venture out and look for problems to solve.
Again, with the passing of tests. Someone decides.
I am not hating against all colleges. I think MIT is great, because they let students build stuff. I chose to go to a above average college (it's not ivy league, but it is more or less well-regarded. I am not trying to be stuck up. I did not even want to go to college. I forced myself. I was lazy and did not want to study SAT. But I definitely am a lot smarter than I was without, but I can't say what I would have turned out to be if I had not gone. I liked reading about business so I may have stumbled upon YCombinator earlier if I weren't so busy studying textbooks).
There is a difference between giving a verbal answer about how to change the world and actually implementing it. The latter is far, far more difficult. College teaches you how to say the right answer, how to think about what could be the right answer. To actually build the solution with your hands comes from internal motivation.
I think that college is great. But also, I think it can also be somewhat dangerous to one's ability to think for oneself. There is always one and only correct answer, and there is an authority figure who knows what it is. University culture promotes reading and learning without taking action and making real impact. It also encourages that you seek to be told what is right and what is wrong, instead of endeavoring to figure it out for yourself.
But I guess being a good employee requires a lot of those qualities that I mentioned above. You have to be a good follower.
No one is telling you college isn't important. The majority of the population actually thinks the opposite.
I don't think education is (or should be) about finishing and getting that degree. It should not even be about employability. Why does success equate to employability?
College is valuable, but I think society would be better off if we did not focus so much on jobs, status, success, failure, etc. Why not focus on how to create value or make the world a better place? These are things that a college education alone cannot teach you how to do.
She probably should not have gone to college in the first place if she had to take out a large amount of debt.
She doesn't sound like a Gates or a Zuckerberg. They voluntarily dropped out of college because they knew there was something better they could pursue. Did she drop out because she had a business idea or did she burn out? There is a difference.
I think that Paul Graham has great powers of observation. He seems to know what makes businesses successful and what problems in the world need to be solved. I am sure he spends a lot of time thinking and analyzing (whether consciously or unconsciously, I do not know). It is apparent in his essays that he is a brilliant person who enjoys making observations (and he is an artist, which involves like 99% observation).
Paul Graham is really great at what he does. I am sure that you have personal qualities that are great as well. You should try to leverage those. It is good to admire others, but you must forge your own path to success. Words of wisdom can only do so much. In the end, it is the effort and strengths of the individual that matters.
I don't think that you should care so much about helping people. Before you label me as a bad person, I think that if you think too much about helping people, if you believe that you have a social obligation to do so, it can be very exhausting to the heart. Doctors sometimes face "compassion exhaustion." You should strive to be a good person, give when you can, but to over-exert yourself by making yourself feel guilty for not having helped people or improved the world is counter-productive. I say this because I went through the same thing. There are many small ways you can help people and have a big impact on their lives.
I strive to make myself into a person that I would admire.
Did you find yourself enjoying the Ivy League environment (being around other high achievers) more? Has being at an Ivy League changed your world view? Which one did you like more?
I don't know if MOOCs will take off (in terms of being reliable for hiring). Just an unjustified gut feeling. Maybe they already have. I know they offer "certificates" that you can pay for.
Wow, that teacher to student ratio sounds seems like it would make for a great educational utopia! That's crazy and I have never heard of such a thing! :)
I asked this question more so for potential-start-up research purposes. I have already graduated from college, though I did think about getting a graduate degree, but I am not so sure I want to do that anymore. I concluded that it would be more effective for me personally to study on my own (if I were to pursue computer science). Classes sort of make me lose motivation. It feels so forced much of the time.
I really enjoyed reading all of the replies! Thank you all for the input.
To be a little more specific, I want to know if the classes themselves were significantly more effective in transferring knowledge to students. Do the classes at Ivy Leagues have a measurable superiority to classes of other colleges (as in, do the students learn more because the classes are way better, or do the students learn more simply because they are smarter, more hard-working, more interested and engaged than the average student)? Why do the Ivy Leagues have classes if it does not seem to be the main value added? It looks to me that Ivy Leagues are great because they figured out a way to attract all the smartest people to a central place. Is it really the Ivy League that transforms people, or would highly motivated people turn out the way they are regardless of the formal classes that seem to go hand-in-hand with the concept of "education?"
After playing MineCraft, I got interested in Java. I started reading a Java textbook. My curiosity for programming grew, and I was curious to read about all the different kinds of programmers (including the mischievous and law-breaking ones). Googled "hacker." Stumbled upon hacker news.
That sounds heart-warming! Do you have a blog or something that you track your progress with? I understand that hardware is difficult because you have to keep a lot of things secret. I am pretty curious now. Do you live in the states? There are lots of accelerators other than YCombinator (if you have not applied there yet).
I am fresh out of college. I am working, too. My job isn't my life, it should not define who you are, but it really took a long time to realize that.
1. In the evenings and weekends, I make art and games. I eventually want to move to Silicon Valley one day. I want to meet my heroes. That keeps me going through the obstacles and roadblocks.
2. I was really burnt out during college. Should I be a doctor? Psychologist? Investment banker? Engineer? These thoughts would weigh me down so much I actually ended up getting so burnt out (studying so hard towards something I could not even see), that I slowly started to sabotage myself and ended up doing none of that. I graduated, got a regular job, and now I pursue blogging and game-making in my free time. It sounds like a sad story, but I am actually a lot happier than I was before. I still struggle because what I do now is not what I dreamt that I would be doing. I did not study programming extensively in school, but I became really interested in it after being inspired by MineCraft, Paul Graham, stories about all kinds of hackers (good and bad), Steve Jobs, etc. I used to lack motivation, but I became really motivated once I became truly and thoroughly inspired. Look for that inspiration.
Is it a loneliness issue for you? That's something I still struggle with, because the friends I made in college felt like acquaintances to me. I think it is because I was trying to push myself to be something that I was not (I did things that I thought would increase my "employability" and salary potential while sacrificing being true to myself, which was a huge mistake. If I was true to myself, I would have met people with similar interests). So now I am striving to go to places where there are people who share my interests and have the same ideals/values.
If you were to sit down and seriously think, what would you do if you had no obligations whatsoever?
Sounds like you have a great life. I would not take it for granted.
I think that you have to be careful about the start-up dream stories. They are like chocolate cake. Eating it makes you feel good, and you want to eat a lot of it, but it is not good for your long-term health or happiness. Time spent reading a start-up book or story is time you will never get back.
If you are serious about starting a start-up, you have to be working tirelessly on the product. This is what I have gathered from watching start-up school videos. It seems that people who are successful focus on building the product (and catering to their user base) for much of their waking hours.
I am being sort of a hypocrite though, because I peruse Hacker News almost daily! Haha, but I do spend a good amount of time trying to build a product, too. I feel less guilty about reading so much by taking action to try and counteract the lost time. At least, it works that way in my mind.
Enron's motto was "Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence." As we all know... it wasn't enough. Read their Code of Ethics, too. It's so ironic.
Perhaps an essay about why ethics are important to the long-term success of a start-up would be much more effective. Why not talk about the start-ups that encountered ethical dilemmas, the thought-processes and the outcomes? That would be super entertaining as well as enlightening. I love the essays by Paul Graham. He inspired me to pursue what I love and to think about problems in the world. To simply be told to do so would not be as motivating.
I think that as a technology start-up accelerator, there should be a greater purpose that is communicated. . . like improving the world with technology.
