
Ask HN: Where do you see yourself in 5 years? - nodivbyzero
Wondering where do you see yourself in 5 years?
What are your IT predictions for next 5 years?
======
toomuchtodo
> Wondering where do you see yourself in 5 years?

No longer in tech (34 now). Sailing around the world with my family. Semi-
retired.

> What are your IT predictions for next 5 years?

Message bots will turn out to be overrated. "AI"/machine learning won't
implode, but it'll continue on in the sort of discipline as data scientists.
New tools built, replacing old tools, bought out or closed down, the cycle
continues. Be wary of the hype train. Life is too short to burn yourself up on
things that don't matter.

Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple still around, but not taking over the world.
Walmart might give Amazon a run for its money if they learn to ship to
customers instead of having them come to stores (postal service JV?). There's
still a lot of low hanging fruit for tech companies to scoop up, but the work
won't be exciting (it'll be profitable though).

Learn history, so you don't repeat it. Tech is cyclic in nature, like most
things in life. The key is to make hay when the sun is shining, and save for a
rainy day. Or that day you decide, "I'm out".

~~~
tostitos1979
Did you make FU money during the last boom? I missed it. 38 now ... don't
really see a path out of the rat race.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Nope, just lived below my means and invested the surplus in equities and real
estate. Didn't move to SF/BA (too expensive), didn't buy new cars, don't eat
out all of the time, don't buy a new iPhone every time a new version is
released, no cable, no Starbucks, etc.

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-
from-...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-
hero-in-one-blog-post/)

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-
sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-
behind-early-retirement/)

With ~$600k in investment assets, you'll generate ~$24k/year in dividends. A
family of three traveling the world via sailboat can comfortably live on that
(note I mentioned "semi-retired"; I still plan on doing consulting
occasionally when I require topping up the freedom chips account).

~~~
kcorbitt
I wish everyone in the developed world understood and internalized this
perspective. That goes double for software engineers, who are well-paid
relative to the median wage almost anywhere in the world.

The rat race is totally opt-in. If you're getting paid as a software engineer
in the USA[1] and you're making market rate for where you live, you can easily
save >>50% of your salary and retire in 10 years. And really, what you're
buying with those savings are options. If you love what you're doing, no one
will force you to quit once you've accumulated FU money. For me personally,
even money says I keep on working in my same career with little change. But
the point is that it then becomes _my_ decision, not something imposed on me.
It changes your perspective (and stress level).

[1]: The US is an unusually good place for software engineers from this
perspective: by moving from London back to Seattle I was able to nearly double
my market rate while modestly lowering my cost of living. But even in London,
it was possible to save a substantial fraction of each paycheck.

~~~
nunez
I say the same thing every time this comes up: I don't want to live like that,
and neither do many, many people.

I like driving nice, new-ish cars, eating out, using the latest technology,
drinking Starbucks or whatever coffee I want and having fun, even if it isn't
cheap (when I can afford it). I'm not alone here.

I'm glad you've found a way to enjoy life on little means, but trying to say
that it's the best way to live is disingenuous.

$600k in savings and investments means nothing if I'm not doing things I don't
like. Money is made to be spent.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It's entirely true money is made to be spent. I'd just rather buy my own time
back instead of spending it on unnecessary luxury items.

But then, I don't feel sorry when someone has to work their entire life to
retire; that's their choice too.

------
hkmurakami
In my younger years, I had a neatly mapped out plan of what I'd be doing in 5,
10, 15 years.

I'm in my 30's now and I've come to realize that it's nice to have a plan so
you can test out the waters, but just as important is to adjust to the new
information you acquire every year about both yourself and the world (I didn't
do this well at all in my 20's).

So I really have no idea what I'll be doing in 5 years. It'll likely have
something to do with technology, and it'll be something that interests me and
find to be worthwhile (for me personally, that means Snapchat-like things are
a nonstarter), with smart and pleasant colleagues.

------
thebiglebrewski
This is a good chance for some self-reflection!

I'd like to be living somewhere with better weather than New York City. Also
with more outdoor and recreational opportunities. I get really, really
depressed every year between like December and April except for skiing and 1
or 2 other winter activities that keep me going. But the dreariness and
hibernating bother the f*ck out of me. Yes, I know it's all about what you
wear out and not the weather but really...it's not, at least for me.

I'd imagine that I'll be married to my current girlfriend. I love her deeply
and it seems like that's the path I'm going to take at this time <3.

As far as work - it would be really cool if it was cyclical. Spend 2 or 3
months on, 2 or 3 months off. Working on writing code and making things happen
for myself or other people. Have enough in the bank to work only when I have
to only on projects I care about but still own the house I've always wanted
to.

Speaking of that, I'd also either like to have bought the land and started
envisioning or to have actually built by dream home, a modern house that's
kind of like the one from Ex Machina, in nature and completely automated!
Cliche, I know.

In an ideal world, I'd be working in some capacity to get us off this rock.
Kind of hard to transition from web dev to space though, I think? Haven't
tried it yet, might be time to soon.

All of the above is said knowing that I already have a much better life than
most and I'm not really entitled to more, but I'll work for it and try to get
it like any other human.

As far as IT - I agree with a commenter below. It's cyclical and not too much
will be new. I do think something will have begun taking more of a foothold
that will replace mobile phones, either AR or VR based. Otherwise probably not
too much will change. Which is sad because progress is just too slow for me.

~~~
nunez
Hey! I was you last year. Hated NYC for a long time but feared getting out. I
eventually cracked and just started looking for jobs in the DFW area. Took me
about three months, but we made it and are getting married next year!

It's possible!

~~~
thebiglebrewski
Thanks for the reply!

What made you choose Dallas Fort Worth? Where are you and your wife from?
Congrats on the move!

~~~
nunez
Sure!

Much warmer weather. Very very VERY little snow. Amazing roads (I love to
drive). More value for my rent money. "No state income tax." (This benefit
will go away once I start paying property taxes if we ever buy a home here.)
Lots of opportunity for learning how to start a business. (Lots of businesses
here; many are non-tech, which I am fine with since tech companies are kind of
overrated and there are plenty of big markets to tackle outside of tech.) Wife
is from nearby and some of her family is here.

~~~
thebiglebrewski
Very interesting. Sounds like the main reason is that your wife is from nearby
though with tangential benefits?

~~~
nunez
Actually, no! That was icing on the cake for me. (I didn't need to "sell" the
move to Dallas!)

I love uncomfortably hot weather, and Dallas has plenty of it during the
summer months. I also hate winter, which Dallas has very little of. (We had a
proper winter between November and early February, approximately, with one
episode of snow that shut everything down.)

I also wanted to take advantage of Dallas's better, cheaper real estate,
especially since I knew I could find a job in tech that would pay more than
jobs in NYC. (My hypothesis proved to be correct --- my current salary is $10k
more than what I made in NYC.) When I eventually start my business, I intend
on starting it here. I have no desire to be in the Valley. I want to try as
hard as I can to make something that will have investors coming to me, not the
other way around. (i.e. get access to capital for essentially nothing)

Since "better" is relative, I always valued space and privacy over proximity
and location. It is much easier and cheaper to get a home with a nice amount
of land than it is in the NYC Metro. I would have closed already if it weren't
for the amount of debt I have outstanding, but it is what it is. I love our
current apartment but am afraid that we are going to be unable to afford a
house when I'm ready to close and I generally hate maintaining anything myself
and the complexity of real estate and taxes therein.

I've been planning a move to Texas since 2012. I could have done it in 2010,
but I decided to stay for an awesome job opp in NYC (which proved to be the
right choice at the time; I am extremely thankful for my time there). The
opportunity rose again in 2013, but I stayed for a girl. (We're getting
married --- in Dallas --- next year.) I had false starts in 2014 and 2015, but
I finally decided to "just do it" in 2016.

Took me three months to find a job with the same take home pay; it is
surprisingly difficult to find a job 1300 miles away from you! I felt pretty
worthless during that time, lol. But I did it!

------
dejv
It will be more or less the same. New frameworks, languages and what not will
show up with huge hype and then disappear in next few months or few years.
Vast majority of black matter developers will continue with writing enterprise
CRUD apps in Java or C#.

For myself, application that I am maintaining will turn 30 years old (Delphi 5
app) and I will probably continue working on supporting few more Rails apps as
well. Oh and vineyard I planted this week, will finally give me first harvest.

------
comboy
Looks like many people are hoping for the FU money.

If you are living in SF, you have FU money already. It's just a matter of the
choice of your lifestyle. And you only need to consider those comfortable
ones.

I'd say if you don't enjoy coding, stop right away. If you're smart (and
there's a good chance you are if you're coding), you will easily make a
living. Possibly doing something that brings you pleasure. If you do enjoy it,
why would you plan to stop.

------
mathperson
Graduating grad school hopefully. Hopefully will have sweet abs and a bunch of
publications and a post doc lined up.

------
mindcrime
If all goes well, within 5 years Fogbeam Labs will be generating revenue, to a
point that I can quit my current job and work on running Fogbeam full time.

~~~
benburleson
I was curious enough to google it, and my unsolicited feedback: After skimming
your site for 2 minutes I have no idea what you're trying to sell. I assume
I'm not the audience you're targeting.

~~~
mindcrime
Yeah, the site needs some work. It hasn't been a top priority for us lately
because the products themselves are still pretty far from where we want them.
That said, I have a TODO on my list to rewrite a lot of the verbiage on the
webpage, create explainer videos, etc. It's just a question of time and
resources.

That said, it may also be that you just aren't in the target market. The
products we sell are all tools for enterprise knowledge management, search and
collaboration. Think "alternative to Jive Sofware products" or "alternative to
Yammer", etc. If those terms mean nothing to you, then you're definitely not
in the target market.

~~~
jetti
Just FYI, your site is down now. I'm getting a 404 when I try to navigate to
[http://www.fogbeam.com/](http://www.fogbeam.com/)

~~~
mindcrime
Aarggh... Linode rebooted the VPS and Apache didn't auto-start for some
reason. It's back up now, FWIW.

------
philippz
I will be preparing STOMT for IPO.

AR/VR will be on the hype and it's getting easier to develop AR layers.
Advertising has founds its way into it.

------
mod
I see myself living in a new home that I built myself.

I see myself living on primarily 'passive' income from past investments--an
established B&M business, mostly (it's 7 years old now), and hopefully a side-
project will be generating some 'lifestyle' revenue by then.

I see myself building out a more self-sustainable lifestyle where I live, with
some things like a greenhouse, small livestock (rabbits and chickens). I see
myself building systems to make these also as passive as possible.

I see myself with a young child, easily the most exciting prospect.

All of these things are already on course, so I'm not just daydreaming!

Tech predictions: Who knows? In 5 years I don't expect a major shift. Mostly
just a massive pile of javascript libraries. I think FB will start a downward
descent which ends in them being dethroned. The current ecosystem of FB &
Google knowing every intimate detail about us is not sustainable.

------
TheAdamAndChe
> Wondering where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Some sort of low-level healthcare job. I'm in school for IT and almost have my
bachelor's degree, but I don't live in a tech city and am unable to move.
Centralization of remaining jobs combined with outsourcing of lower-level jobs
means I'm having a really tough time even starting my career. I'm going to
complete my degree, but I'm not hopeful of my prospects.

> What are your IT predictions for next 5 years?

I'd bet centralization of remaining jobs and further outsourcing may drop
wages for the workers, and corporations alone will be the ones to benefit from
this streamlining. Many industries on the web are winner-take-all(see youtube,
facebook, reddit), and I see no indication that this trend will continue.

------
Boothroid
I won't be in a position to say FU but will hopefully have the flexibility to
spend a little more time staring at the sky rather than at pixels.

In contrast to other posters that expect more of the same in IT, I think we
could see the start of a drastic change in hardware towards heterogeneous
processing e.g. merging of processors and memory, more integration of
specialised components e.g. DSP, FPGA, with CPU as coordinator rather than
main focus. It's already starting to happen.

------
kzisme
I'd be interested to see where my current company is at in five years. The
growth has been pretty impressive - but I'm wondering which employees will
still be around (if they take care of their employees enough to keep them
around)

Aside from that I'd like to be working in/on a different stack so I'm still
learning. Ideally I'll find an OSS project to work on when I can, or start an
interesting side project of my own.

------
baccredited
Financial Independence (FI) achieved and DONE working for other people by end
of 2021. Pursuing my own projects and making a bigger dent in the universe.

------
BlackjackCF
Hopefully still in software. Maybe working and expanding my side project and
turning it into a viable business.

I won't be upset whatever happens.

------
franze
In the mirror.

------
nunez
i'm currently 29.

34\. tech sales. still in dfw. larger network of interesting, influential
people. >$215k base, more total. (still) happily married while giving my wife
the option of not working or pursuing whatever she wants while i run the cash
flow (hence that number as i am unwilling to compromise our current
lifestyle).

done with student loans and car loans, though i plan on leasing one and
opening another loan on another. i like cars. maybe a house. real estate is
confusing and sounds like way more work than i want to do. reits seem easier.

unsure about kids. we are leaning on no.

of course all of this is subject to change, and I have approximate models of
what these scenarios look like financially. but that's the vision for now

\---

five year predictions:

ar will be everywhere and on everything, especially clothes and on your face.
i see apple pioneering this space. google has the brain power but lacks the
focus and ability to execute.

AR ads will be nascent but a HUGE untapped market; this is what will finally
make facebook usurp google. it's all about execution and google is just too
neurotic with their go to markets. hopefully they will correct this.

VR headsets will get smaller and cheaper as hardware always does. VR movies
will follow suit shortly since it adds so much more depth for telling stories
with.

iOS + vdi = end of the laptop, hence why apple is super bullish on ipad Pro
and slightly bearish on their mb's and desktop lines. the future is mobile,
100%

ford and gm will beat tesla at self driving by miles; they are slower but have
super tight manufacturing and product workflows that tesla will have trouble
matching at cost. which is still fine for them because they will provide the
shovels (batteries) and will make tons doing it

somebody will figure out unikernels. they will become huge. linux in a binary.
what a time to be alive. i can't wait; think of the absolutely insane density
this can provide.

brick and mortar retail will continue to transition into real estate and
amazon will continue to pick up the scraps. the writing was on the wall for a
LOOOOOOONG time (barnes and noble/borders, anyone?) and the big retailers did
nothing. too little too late for most.

------
taway_1212
My saving will be at (or near) FU money level, so I'll either work less or
work on stuff that pays less but is more interesting (robotics maybe?).

------
tmaly
I see myself creating something of value or trying.

I missed out on the last boom, but I still think there is plenty of
opportunity still here.

------
milquetoastaf
i'm going to be so high because a) my state just legalized and b) my partner
is in the process of starting a farm :)

------
PrimalPlasma
Big jump in AI software development. I can't wait.

