
My life with 12 programmers, 2 rooms and one 21st-century dream (2016) - testb
https://www.salon.com/2016/09/17/hacker-house-blues-my-life-with-12-programmers-2-rooms-and-one-21st-century-dream/
======
themoat
I know the author wised up and moved on, but I would rather work construction
for the rest of my life than be a programmer and live like this.

I worked for a startup for a couple of years that really got it right. The CTO
really wanted a certain lead developer as his first hire (they had previously
worked together) and the lead dev said (paraphrased, of course) "Nope. Not
interested in working more than 40 hours per week. Not interested in startup
culture. Not interested in grueling deadlines. I like taking long breaks in
the middle of the day to go for a run. I come in early, and I get home to my
family early."

They gave in to every one of his demands and from my understanding, in the 3
or 4 years since he took the job, devs have only worked longer than a 40 hour
week maybe 5 times total.

That dev team has consistently deployed great feature after another at an
incredible rate. I have since moved on but I don't think I'll ever find a
place that respected their workers like they did.

I don't have a point to that story, no takeaways, no morals, no snappy advice
or anything. But paired with my current not as good job, and this article from
my worst nightmares, it's made me a bit nostalgic for that wonderful time in
my life where I worked for a great place that trusted that happy employees are
good employees.

~~~
a_imho
What is so hard about saying no to overtime? Just turn off the computer and go
home.

~~~
AndyNemmity
If you are the sole person responsible for the main feature of a startup, and
it isn't completed, you know that the only thing you can do is put every hour
you have into it to try and make it work.

That is what is so hard.

~~~
mmt
> you know that the only thing you can do is put every hour you have into it
> to try and make it work

This, of course, illustrates, why it's difficult: when one _knows_ something
that happens to be false.

That's why it's important to have these kinds of discussions here, even they
appear to surface concepts that may seem obvious to some people. To other
people, it's important to read/hear that perspective, lest "tunnel vision" or
an "echo chamber" takes hold.

------
physcab
This really is only one small segment of the programming population. I really
hate superficial shit like this that paints tech workers in a bad light bc
most have ordinary jobs and live ordinary lives and aren’t social recluses.

I work typical 9-5, wife and kids. We go grocery shopping and make dinner
every night together. We live very modestly and we have lots of non-tech
friends and family. It’s literaly nothing special.

~~~
jypepin
This requires more upvotes. I can't believe so many people in this thread are
agreeing with the view that is painted in this article as the majority.

I went to SF without money for a bootcamp, I did not experience this. The
author seems to just have done it without preparing or thinking much.

First, if you are joining a bootcamp, there are other people in your cohort
with whom you can find support, roommates, etc (that's what I did).

2nd, even if you end up in such a bad situation, you KNOW it's for only 12
weeks. And very intense 12 weeks anyway, so really, all you need your room for
is sleeping.

3rd, you socialise with other students and teachers in that bootcamp. Can't
you see that most of them are NOT like the nerdy roommates he describes?

4th I have a few friends who work at Pinterest... yes _that_ Pinterest. They
can afford their own place in SF, thank you.

5th, the OP wanted to do a 12weeks bootcamp to then work remotely and be a ski
bum? That's nice, but he obviously didn't really research what a bootcamp
really offers. I've done a bootcamp - I'm now working for myself, but that's 5
years later. I would have NOT been able to work remotely my first year, I
needed way too much mentoring and help to continue learning. Bootcamps don't
promise to make your a senior engineer in 12 weeks, they promise to teach you
how to learn, so can get a cheap entry level job and _continue_ learning on
the job, with _mentoring_.

Sorry this sounds like a rant, but I've seen too many people giving a bad
image of what bootcamps have to offer. I've had a great experience doing mine
and this is true for most people I know who did one too. It just has to be
taken how it is.

~~~
ghaff
>I would have NOT been able to work remotely my first year, I needed way too
much mentoring and help to continue learning.

I work mostly remote these days--in tech but not a developer at a company with
a lot of people who are remote to greater or lesser degrees.

I can't imagine having started out that way though. Communications mechanisms
and so forth were different at the time but I can't imagine starting out
without physical proximity to co-workers.

~~~
canhascodez
> Communications mechanisms and so forth were different at the time but I
> can't imagine starting out without physical proximity to co-workers.

I started programming without co-workers, or instruction, or related
experience. I did get a lot of use out of IRC for a while, but I don't really
see what difference having someone physically proximate might have made.

------
gumby
This part struck me as so sad:

> Programming for me was never supposed to be more than a means to an end

Programming is one of my favorite things to do and I do it even when my job is
something else. Why do it if you don't like it? No wonder it seemed hopeless.

~~~
indecisive_user
>Why do it if you don't like it?

Uhh, because it pays well, has good job security and benefits, doesn't require
multiple degrees, is respected socially, isn't physically intensive, etc. etc.

Most all of my non-programmer friends don't really _like_ their jobs all that
much, so if you're not passionate about anything else, my question is why
_not_ go into software development?

~~~
gumby
Then go write back end code for Allstate. (I don't mean any insult to Allstate
nor their staff; simply that it'll be a reliable, well paying 9-5).

The things the author complains about (low pay, long hours, uncertain future)
are positive things for me, which is why I chose the path I did. It usually
includes working with really interesting people.

I'm glad he abandoned it as it sounds like he would not enjoy it. There's no
evidence from his article that, say, the Pinterest fellow or the people who'd
come home and open their laptops are actually unhappy, except the author
himself and the "mid-30s" person in the bunk above him.

~~~
gehsty
“Low pay long hours uncertain future are positives for me”

I think you mean you’ll accept them to work somewhere you want to work, if the
exact same job came up but with higher pay, a guarantee that you’d only work
35hrs a week and a clear future you’d prefer the low paying hard hrs job?

I work in a none programming job in an unrelated industry and I find start up
culture really weird, you have seemingly smart people willing to sacrifice
their lives to build something like Pinterest (no disrespect to Pinterest but
it is what it is, a social network, not putting men on the moon)... your years
20-30 should be be some of your best years, don’t waste them living in a
closet.

~~~
gumby
The point is the exact same job _won 't_ come up with higher pay and shorter
hours; the jobs I like and have been doing for 30 hours really do involve
passion+ and a huge lever arm. Crazy, sure, but I've been doing it for 30
years.

> I find start up culture really weird, you have seemingly smart people
> willing to sacrifice their lives to build something like Pinterest (no
> disrespect to Pinterest but it is what it is, a social network, not putting
> men on the moon)... your years 20-30 should be be some of your best years,
> don’t waste them living in a closet.

I also find it weird -- building Pinterest doesn't seem interesting, and these
days (last 15 years) most of the startups are just retail shops that happen to
be online. Yawn. The companies I've enjoyed starting and working for have been
deeply tech oriented and actually have tried to, or managed to, have
significant visible, technical effect on the world. But really, working at
Apple in the late 70s/early 80s++ would have been fun, crazy, long hours, huge
esprit de corps, and yes, shared housing. But don't you think it would have
been worth it?

The dot com boom brought all sorts of carpetbaggers who merely wanted the
money, and they changed things for the worse. Though most of them ended up in
SF (used to be you lived in SF and worked in Silicon Valley, so the morning
traffic jam was _leaving_ the city, not entering it). Though we do have plenty
of douchebags down here, the great thing is the SF is like a douchebag magnet.
It's paved over most of the craziness of SF replacing it with blandness, but
at least it acts as a honeypot for the benefit of the rest of us. This poor
kid is simply one of the victims.

\+ the real kind, not the "let's make a corporate mission" kind. When you
actually want to live in the world where your product is ubiquitous and you
only work with people who like their jobs. Crazy to work with people who _don
't_ like their jobs, and no amount of money would make that kind of life
(working with people who don't like what they do) worth living for me.

++ this example is well before my time; I just picked it because everybody
would know it

------
ajmurmann
This is of course in no way representative. If you are a software developer in
SF you get very quickly to $140k+. That guy in the closet was probably
stashing way North of $60k annually, not counting equity. Do this for 7-10
years and you can retire silver else and are probably in your early 30s. If
you work at FAANG you can easily take home way North of $200k. No reason to
rent a illegal closet at that point unless you want to be super prudent.

As for the author's situation. There are not camps in other cities. He could
have attended one elsewhere and then relocate if he wanted. It's also only 3
months. You'll survive. I rented a tiny room between kitchen and living room
that saw lots of threw traffic in a shitty old house in Munich when I was a
student so that I could do a internship at big Corp. It was less than ideal,
but when you are young you can live shitty for a while. It will make you
appreciate what you have later.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>That guy in the closet was probably stashing way North of $60k annually, not
counting equity. Do this for 7-10 years and you can retire silver else and are
probably in your early 30s.

Retire with $750k (assuming stock market gains over that 10 years)? Man, I
don’t know many people who can do that, at least not in the US.

Don’t get me wrong, it gets you out of the “work or starve” level, but it’s
also not exactly “I don’t have to work a day the rest of my life” money.

~~~
jen729w
...and now you're a 30-year-old rich guy with no mates who knew nothing of his
20s. No thanks.

~~~
nikanj
There's mountains of broke 30-year olds with no mates who did nothing in their
20s.

We try to maintain a false dichotomy where the alternative to working
extremely hard is partying, travelling the world, and of course tons of sex.

Most people don't do either.

~~~
sleepychu
If you're not going to do something awesome why not work hard?

~~~
sokoloff
I don’t think you wanted two “not”s in that comment (or else I don’t
understand; please expound).

~~~
kevinstubbs
_If you 're not going to do something awesome why not work hard?_

Broken down:

If you aren't going to do something awesome _(like travel a lot)_ , [then] why
not work hard [instead]?

~~~
sokoloff
Ah thank you. I was stuck on a tight linkage between awesomeness and work:

If you're going to do something awesome, why not work hard [to achieve great
things]?

or

If you're not going to something awesome, why work hard [because what's the
point if it's not awesome]?

------
DoritoChef
Posts like these really continue drive home the message of "Silicon Valley is
just a shell of what it used to be. Only go there for the sake of relocation
or with a job offer in hand." There's nothing left for the dreamers or
hopefuls in SV who have nothing to run on but just that--hopes and dreams. It
just makes so much more sense to take a pay cut and swing for the fences in
Atlanta, Houston, Austin, or Phoenix. Hell, I'll still throw in Boston and
Seattle because they're still THAT much cheaper than anywhere in SV.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
The weather in Atlanta, Houston, Austin, and Phoenix is brutally hot and/or
humid and shows no sign of getting a cooler average.

It's difficult to do stuff outside when it's that hot, especially as you get
older.

~~~
mmt
(True also for Los Angeles, though at least that has the Pacific Ocean)

This is the (not so?) subtle quality-of-life aspect that people seem to forget
when mentioning other cities as alternatives.

The Bay Area isn't popular/expensive solely due to network effects. Climate
and geography (nearness to ocean, mountains) make it comparitively more
appealing than the alternatives, for a variety of ages and lifestyles.

------
sgammon
I came up the same way as the author of this article. If you don’t go to
Stanford or otherwise earn yourself a CS degree, you’ve got to rightly, and
almost by definition, build experience and connections from the barest of
circumstances.

Nobody said a nice, well-paid coder job, let alone a successful startup and
early position there, would be easy.

Besides, he misses the point. There _are_ brilliant men and women in the SF
Bay, doing magical things. Maybe they spent time on the Sisyphean path he and
I did, maybe not.

But don’t go bashing everyone here because you _chose_ the riskiest route and
then _lived_ it. He’s right that this place remains a beacon of hope and
opportunity all over the world.

That’s a good thing dammit

------
VectorLock
I got out when this kind of situation became pervasive in SF. The old
enthusiasm and love for tech were ground out into this kind of boring dystopia
that resides there now. Its immensely sad, SF used to be such a vibrant and
energetic place.

------
dhnsmakala
I call bushit on this story. This article is greatly exaggerated to grab your
attention.

$1.4k for a closet in an Airbnb with 13 people, where you don't get a key and
have to sneak in? Heh.

I have found a large room in a newer complex through a company pairing
roommates in just a few days. It was $1800. Heck, you could pay $1k for a room
in Berkely or Oakland and commute in by Bart.

~~~
Apocryphon
There are $1k rooms in Berkeley?

~~~
QML
Yeah you can find singles for 1k, just make sure you get housemates to share
the cost of living space and kitchen.

------
jiveturkey
are you kidding me? it’s written as if it took place over years and decades.
“the longer i stayed in the hostel, the more my life slipped away”.

it was weeks. i wouldn’t be surprised if the guy living in the closet was the
owner of the unit. (or lessee)

the author thinks he’s going to graduate from boot camp and “make it”? please.

this article and the fact of its (self) publication tells us a lot about the
author, and almost nothing about startup life. if you understand that, it is
interesting in its own way.

~~~
ghaff
While one suspects that many of these coding bootcamp stories don't have happy
endings, I'm not sure there's anything particularly extraordinary about
enduring far less than ideal living conditions for some closed-ended period.
Out of school I spent a fair bit of time in shipyards and on offshore drilling
rigs which had minimal dorm-style accommodations. Which was fine at the time
but certainly not something I would have wanted to do indefinitely.

------
zahrc
It's a weird story for me and I have absolutely no understanding for it. (no,
I don't mean tolerance) I'm not from the US and am far from any startup
experience, but I am a young programmer myself, without either good budget nor
education.

Programming is the love my life but I would never bear this situation at any
cost for it.

He states himself that programming was just "means to an end" for him. So why
even bother? I just can't comprehend? Sorry for being ignorant or something
... I'd really like to understand

~~~
ajmurmann
>He states himself that programming was just "means to an end" for him. So why
even bother?

Because you gotta pay the bills somehow. This is something you only ever hear
from people in our profession and I think it sometimes leads to self-
exploitation.

Nobody would ever say "He states himself that driving the garbage truck was
just "means to an end" for him. So why even bother?"

~~~
zahrc
But, hopefully, and rarely nobody has to live in that conditions to drive a
garbage truck.

There is so many stuff out there he he could've paid the bills with, why did
it had to be programming in this kind of experience?

~~~
ajmurmann
Programming had much better pay and benefits than most jobs. There is plenty
of people who work multiple jobs and still are in awful living conditions. You
should check out the book "nickel and dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich

Also keep in mind that the author of the article is going to a boot camp. He
is not getting paid, but paying. Once he is done he will likely earn ~$100k
and can move into better conditions. It's very unfortunate that the author
never was able to talk to the people he lived with who already had a job and
find out why they still live there. Maybe they were just saving a ton of
money. I knew someone who was earning a good tech salary, but chose to commute
every day from Dublin for hours. That guy chose to safe the money and bought a
gold coin every month.

------
eaenki
I think this article represents a small segment of people that can’t manage
their finances and/or strive for better living conditions .

Even at with the base rate of $100k/year - which is cheap, you can rent a
beautiful $5k/m apartment and split it with a friend. Heck, you can even cook
and eat organic only. Use Uber to move around. Even then, at “maximum living
conditions” you should be able to save north of $50k/y. There’s countless
beautiful Airbnbs at the same price in case you can only rent short-term.
Also, you either choose a corporate job or something you love. You can’t work
15h/day on something you don’t love.

All in all, this article it’s halfway BS, halfway poor management of one’s own
living conditions and financials

~~~
dan-robertson
This does not add up. At 100k pa in San Francisco you would get something like
67k after tax, minus 30k for rent, minus (let’s be generous) 15k for other
expenses leaves 22k, not “north of 50k”

~~~
enraged_camel
Yeah, it is always deeply ironic when someone complains about people who can’t
manage their finances well, then asserts that it is possible to save north of
$50k with a salary of $100k in SF.

~~~
eaenki
I considered that amount to be net income. Obviously.

------
floren
Sounds like a New York tenement circa 1900 except at least those were cheap.

------
mothsonasloth
I will be trying remote working soon, this whole culture of co-location is the
reason you have SF, London, NY etc.

I moved away from London because its economically and socially tough.

With a remote job I will be able to make a London salary but live wherever I
like, enjoy the outdoors and live life how I see fit.

SF, Madrid, Berlin, NY are sparkly places where a lot of people (bar the lucky
few) end up trapped.

~~~
sleepychu
Have you lined this up already? Do you have examples of places paying London
salaries to remote employees?

~~~
sokoloff
London salaries are surprisingly low to this US-based employer with employees
in a handful of cities around the world.

I was expecting “NYC salaries” and instead found more like “Atlanta salaries”
which I can’t figure out how the economics works for London-based employees.

Given that, lots of US employers with remote work available will be able to
hit London salary level I think.

~~~
fastball
London is an amazing city.

I don't think there is much more to it than that. People just enjoy living
there even if it doesn't make as much sense economically.

~~~
mothsonasloth
I disagree.

The pollution, increase in knife and gang crime, work yourself to death
culture and overcrowding due to immigration.

This makes London not feasible for the long term. If you look at statistics of
immigration / emigration from London by age. Anyone below 30 is net migration,
whilst above 30 its the opposite.

~~~
fastball
Ok, well you are in the minority of people who don't think London is an
amazing city then. Not really sure what your point is. It's still a place
people want to live, even if quality of life is lower than other places. It's
just that desirable in many people's minds.

------
phantom784
Seems crazy to live like that for $1200/month when you could find a few
roommates and get 4 people in a 2 bedroom for about the same. Still tight, but
it beats 12 people in a 2 bedroom for sure!

~~~
jurassic
Folks doing bootcamps often are doing it on a shoestring budget. They can't
scrape together significant deposits and proof of income needed to rent a more
legit place.

~~~
Scoundreller
And a bootcamper might need a place for 14 weeks. Hard to get a lease for that
length of time.

Though I don't know why people need to live in an expensive city for a
bootcamp.

~~~
indecisive_user
I imagine the best boot camps are in tech hubs, which are usually expensive
cities to live in.

------
l33tbro
Probably worth mentioning that this article is from 2016, but I'm sure not
much has changed.

In fact, this article may have been inspired by a much longer piece from the
previous year (1) which focuses on the kinds of dropout teens that Peter Thiel
would later come to encourage to head west. Fascinating read.

(1) [https://stories.californiasunday.com/2015-06-07/real-
teenage...](https://stories.californiasunday.com/2015-06-07/real-teenagers-
silicon-valley/)

~~~
the_rosentotter
> "Hackathons are technological Woodstock"

This sentence embodies what repulses me about current Silicon Valley culture:
The self-satisfied claim to San Francisco 60's heritage, only, you know, with
peace and love being replaced by greed and egotism.

------
Kagerjay
Unrelated, but my first thought process was a video I've seen of a semi-
homeless guy living in an A/C storage locker. He had to sneak in everynight
and do some tech macgyver solutions.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPVCTLPNUzo&t=0s&list=LLI462...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPVCTLPNUzo&t=0s&list=LLI462thar4CFee8GIqXwEPQ&index=457)

------
dman
Is this fairly common in the valley?

~~~
akavi
...I don't think so? Or at least, it's totally alien to me as someone who's
spent ~6 years in SF tech.

1,200 $/mo is more than enough to get a room to yourself in the nice
neighborhoods; admittedly, you'll need to put in the time on craigslist to
find sublets, "interview" with potential roommates, etc. I can see if you're
desperate to find a place in a hurry, an airBnB like this might make sense for
a month, but more than that seems insane.

Getting scammed by false promises of equity riches is definitely a thing that
happens to people, but it's far from the norm. Again, take a job like that if
you need something right away, but spend your time hunting for something
better, because the _vast_ majority of programming jobs in SF are nothing like
this.

~~~
mmt
> 1,200 $/mo is more than enough to get a room to yourself in the nice
> neighborhoods

One of the difficulties potential renters can run into, especially ones from
out of town, is that no matter how nice the neighborhood is from a residential
standpoint, it might be much less nice from a commuting standpoint (be it work
or the coding bootcamp).

Whenever I try it, I find public transit within SF to be remarkably time-
consuming, even to travel short distances. That means living outside the city
can be both cheaper and result in a shorter (time, not distance) commute,
which might seem counter-intuitive.

~~~
ashtonbaker
I know this isn't for everyone, but I'm just curious - what about cycling? Are
the distances large or is it simply a congestion or street layout issue for
driving and public transit?

~~~
mmt
SF is also famous for its hills, especially the steepness of some, which
creates an additional barrier to cycling beyond the usual "not for everyone".

------
madrox
Based on the description I’m 99% sure I live in the apartment complex
described in the article. I can confirm there are a few illegal Airbnbs
operating here. The complex has even been trying to combat it by putting out a
program where that’s ok as long as you follow certain rules. The rent here is
nuts, but if 14 people are living in a 2 bedroom apartment here then the
operator has a very profitable scam going.

I mean, the real problem is that it's impossible to break into SF if you don't
already know a lot or make a lot. As long as a 1br costs $2,000 or more you'll
find operations like this.

------
ohiovr
I would rather try to civilize some other area than put up with that.

------
xivzgrev
If you are paying 1200 per month to be in soma with 12 other people that is
batshit crazy. And someone is making batshit crazy money off you.

There are plenty of places you could get with a few friends for less even in
soma. After the first week I would've been talking with others in there about
moving out together. Seriously you work at mother f'ing Pinterest and you are
ok living like this?

------
garganzol
Nice write-up. Honestly speaking I'm pretty glad the system works that way. It
puts a good filter on people who want to enter the tech without the real
interest in tech. Money is just one part of scheme. Another part is value. If
you want get a lot of money but not ready to bring a whole lot of value then
the writing is on the wall.

------
j7ake
Is this monthly rent what is expected or is this an outlier case?

~~~
gm-conspiracy
From multiple recent cursory craigslist searches, it seems you can find a
bedroom of your own in a shared apartment/house for $1200, but you would share
a bathroom.

For around $2000, you would share an apartment, but have your own bedroom and
your own bathroom.

For $3000 to $4000, you can have your own space and bathroom, but that would
unlikely be more than 500sqft.

All seem to want a security deposit equivalent to one month's rent.

~~~
mmt
> All seem to want a security deposit equivalent to one month's rent.

Also, the California statutory limit on deposits is two months of rent, so,
with a law-abiding landlord, that's an upper bound.

------
s_m_t
Hmm, strange way to live...

------
maitredusoi
is REMOTE a strong word ?

------
aviv
The only time you should be working 80 hour weeks is to build your own
business, not someone else's.

That brings me to the second point, the only time you should be working is to
build your own business, not someone else's.

A lot of people fail at both.

~~~
sockgrant
Agree on first, disagree on second. There’s a lot of reasons to work a well
paying corporate job.

But here-here on the first point: never take stock at startups, kids. It’s
never gonna work out well. Wanna work at a startup? Make one.

