

Are You Perceived as a Low Status Techie? - barce
http://www.codebelay.com/blog/2011/08/14/low-status-and-high-status-technologists/

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true_religion
> In San Francisco, it’s very different. You can be a techie like Marissa
> Mayer, and on the red carpet and have people comment on your awesome date or
> outfit.

Er... I think if you're the vice president of a company, _any_ company, with
nearly $60 billion dollars worth of assets then you'll be invited to a red
carpet event.

You're even more likely to be invited if that same company is always in the
news under such hot topics as "pulls out of china due to foreign hacking",
"driverless cars" and "did Do No Evil Inc., do evil?".

Honestly, you could do better than pick a Google VP as an example of a techie
being treated as high status, only because they're in San Fran.

~~~
anthonyb
I think the point behind that was not about her per se, but that she (as a
"techie") was on the red carpet in the first place. In a city like LA I
imagine you'd see movie stars or rock stars, and _zero_ techies, whether
they're VP of a $60BN company or not.

~~~
bugsy
The actual event referenced by the article was the opening of the Symphony
season, which is an event available to anyone who wishes to purchase a ticket.
No actual red carpet was in evidence in the photos. Those who attend and wear
clothes by top designers are more likely than others to get their photo in the
society page. It's not really about tech people being respected in the bay
area in this example, it's about tech people who happen to be interested in
the arts and who also wear clothes that cost a few thousands of dollars.

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coryl
I feel like this blog post gets a lot of things wrong, but it doesn't really
have a conclusion or coherent argument. So I'll just point out what I feel is
wrong:

• I don't see how social capital or track record is zero sum. When you build
something awesome that gives you a reputation, that doesn't take away from
other people's achievements.

• Techies are low status people except for a few elite (kind of like 99% of
regular people as well?). I'm not sure I understand what it means to be low
status and its implications on a person.

• "Manipulating people is hard". I think you mean "managing people is hard". I
understand your bias against non-engineers being responsible for product
development, however just because someone isn't a programmer does not make
them bourgeois to proletariat. The truth is 100% of people who get paid to
work are also told what to work on.

~~~
analyst74
social status definitely a zero-sum game, you cannot "create" status out of
thin air.

The highly respected member of society is always a small percentage of the
populace.

~~~
danenania
It may be difficult to acquire, but that doesn't make it zero sum. If you gain
status by creating a billion dollar company or writing a bestseller, it
doesn't take away from anyone else's.

That said, who gives a shit? People focused on status tend to be incredibly
lame.

~~~
protomyth
It is pretty close to a zero-sum-game because time is finite and status
requires people's time to pay attention. If you gain status by writing a
bestseller, some other author is not being talked about now and loses status.
Time is a limiter.

Who cares? Well, status is a currency in many professions. The most obvious
are performers. Status allows options which allows better pay or more personal
projects. Status allows a programmer to talk to graphic card companies and
have a hope of changing their minds. As much as I wish it were so, pure
competence or brilliance doesn't buy that. You have to use the skills to
acquire the status. The guy in the back room churning out just as good of code
doesn't have the influence (probably some exec does in that case).

------
daimyoyo
I don't understand why anyone would settle for a job where they're considered
"low status". Especially in an industry like ours where even fair to decent
coders can essentially write their own ticket.

~~~
barce
The "write their own ticket" idea is both a myth and a misunderstanding. Even
if you're say a coder in NYC making 200k at an ad agency, your status isn't as
high as the coder at FourSquare making half as much. By status, the zero sum
part of social capital ways in more. For the amount of capital generated in
Silicon Valley, coders at 6 figures are underpaid. 7 figures is the ticket
they should be writing.

~~~
mahyarm
A startup with 42 million (which is a lot for most 1-3 year startups) in
capital and 40 programmers would eat up their run way in less than a year, not
that practical.

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dotBen
_"You can be a techie like Marissa Mayer, and on the red carpet and have
people comment on your awesome date or outfit."_

I stopped reading. The emphasis of the article was on "coders" (fair enough)
and then Marissa Mayer was bought into the equation.

No one considers Marissa Mayer a 'techie' - she's a business executive at a
technology company. Two different things.

~~~
wallflower
Mayer is definitely a techie. However, she is aiming to conquer the world of
social status (which has its own rules which cannot be broken)[1].

> But then, one Friday night in mid-April, Mayer was eating a bowl of pasta in
> her dorm room and scanning her email when she spotted a message slugged,
> “Work at Google?” Just as she was about to hit delete—her reflexive response
> to new recruiting pitches—she leaned over and inadvertently hit the space
> bar key, opening the email. As she read, she remembered a conversation she’d
> had in the fall with her mentor, computer science teacher Eric Roberts.

She had just returned from nine months in Zurich, Switzerland, where she was
working with 30 other researchers to build a recommender system for the web,
similar to the one Amazon uses to suggest books based on a customer’s previous
purchases. As Mayer talked to Roberts in his office, he nodded and pointed
upward. “There are two guys on the fourth floor who are building what you
built,” he said. He apologized for not being able to remember specifics about
the company they were forming, except that it had a funny name, but he thought
maybe she should get in touch.

...

> The following afternoon, Mayer was interviewed first by Amit Patel, the
> company’s eighth employee. His opening words to her were, “I’m not sure I’m
> able to interview you, as I started this morning and I don’t know what we do
> yet.” He eventually posed a number of general computer science questions
> about the way memory is allocated in different programs.

<http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/adventures-marissa>

[1] "Glamour at Google"
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120881523314732607.html>

~~~
bugsy
I do agree with everyone she is a techie.

What did people think of the article's use of opening night at the opera and
symphony as examples of attaining insider social event status in the bay area?
I am a bit skeptical of this since opening night is not by invitation only,
seats are available to whoever wants to buy a ticket. On the other hand, most
charity galas and such that end up on the social register page are also
available to whoever has the money to buy a ticket as well.

~~~
wallflower
The thing is, if you have enough money (e.g. work is an option) and are bored,
you will want for challenge and diversion. Money doesn't cure the human need
to be recognized and to be connected and to be relevant. If anything, it makes
it more of an isolated and pure drive.

I know someone who used to be a very successful fundraiser for a museum. The
unwritten subtext is if you want to be 'Chair of the ball' is that it is a
sizable donation ($25-$50k to start).

Money is the price to entry but navigating the social hierarchy (e.g.
socialite) is something that requires acumen, not just money.

I am reminded of a Brasilian girl who moved to our neighborhood/school
district in middle school (most of us had known each other since early
grades). She invited literally everyone to a big party (not extravagant by any
means). Quickly become integrated into the social circles. But her ongoing
popularity was more due to her acumen and personality.

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bane
Depends on the company. At most tech companies, the financial department isn't
a big deal, at a large accounting firm they rule.

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lcargill99
So who _really_ cares about status? Really? In your heart of hearts... it does
afford the opportunity to "make a difference", but at a price. I've seen good
men go bad that way. It's really dark in Plato's Republic, and the Massive
Sorting Machine is an very good sausage grinder.

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olliesaunders
I don’t believe social capital or track record capital—more sensibly known as
_achievements_—are zero-sum games. If I create a new product (an achievement)
what does that take away from anyone else? And, if social capital was really
zero-sum you wouldn’t suffer by never socializing.

~~~
argv_empty
_If I create a new product (an achievement) what does that take away from
anyone else?_

Attention.

~~~
coryl
Attention doesn't automatically default to the next product should a superior
product not exist.

Any product worth seeing/writing about/using has to be attention worthy enough
in the first place, and then competes with other products for attention. Just
like if two hot dog stands compete on the same street and one leaves. If the
remaining hot dog vendor produces the ugliest nastiest worst tasting hot dogs,
he does not capture the rest of the market afforded by the absence of a
competitor. But if they were the two best hot dogs stands in the city, people
flock to them and their market size actually grows.

~~~
argv_empty
_Attention doesn't automatically default to the next product should a superior
product not exist._

It doesn't have to. Yes, an endeavor may fail to capture any attention, but in
that case, it hasn't gained the person any social/track record capital.

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jgfoot
I like this part:

>It’s kind of insulting when I hear the phrase "translate things into
English." It puts the blame on the person on the team most equipped to solve
the problem. The person, who wants "things translated into English," is the
problem, not the coder.

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maeon3
It is true that programming computers can be simpler than programming people.
The high status career paths are the ones where the individuals who make up
that career path demand respect. Techies don't demand respect because we don't
spend our time mastering social situations pecking order and people
manipulation.

If all us coders get together and decide to walk out if we don't get respect
like the highest status careers, then we will get it. Usually techies are not
concerned with being seen as baseball stars or heros, we care about
contributing to society and making as much money as possible. It's supply and
demand.

~~~
duggan
In other times and industries, this would be called unionization.

In any case, one shouldn't need to _demand_ respect, one should _command_ it.
The difference is that the former is impossible unless you equate fear with
respect, the latter is a natural result of the transferability (or other
relative metric) of your talent/skill/ability.

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walexander
This article comes off as just being pompous about being an engineer.

As a coder, I'm sure you understand separation of concerns. Well, it works the
same way in a sufficiently large company. Coders can't and shouldn't be doing
everything. Let's say a build vs buy decision needs to happen. Someone needs
to be mindful of the budget and time to market. Sometimes you want a feature
that might step on the toes of a partner. Someone needs to keep up with those
relationships. If you left it up to coders, they might spend all their time
coding things that interested them.

The problem arises when the people making decisions don't listen to the
recommendations of the technical people. But that does not mean that technical
people necessarily need to run everything.

