I believe the same tree was used for manufacturing golf balls for a time. Before that golf balls were originally made with leather stuffed with feathers but transitioned to be the "gutty ball" for 50 years or so until they transitioned to rubber and more modern materials.
I think if you are including coffee shops, dry cleaners, and the rest of small businesses that are self-funded, I agree. If you look at VC backed high tech startups, I don't think that is the norm:
What about non-vc backed high tech startups, which are the by far the majority of tech jobs? (my company, fwiw) We have investors sure, but the two founders retain the control. All of the companies we have acquired were in similar situations. In fact it is precisely not until you get to VC-backed startups where this becomes surprising, such as in the GP comment I was referring to.
If you actually make money, have positive cash flow, and have a sustainable business model, you don't have to give up control. The investors will come to you -- foreign concept to the SV-SF "high tech" bubble, I know.
Startups is such a loosely qualified term these days that it practically means any business that has "recently started", so no you don't need a citation because the word in of itself is subjective.
WeWork presents itself as tech startup and is often presented that way. They are really more a real estate business, but in this context their self perception is the only relevant view
Coffee Meets Bagel is a dating app to help people make meaningful connections that inspire growth. We're looking for sr android and backend python engineers that have built things at scale to help us with our growth towards profitability.
We offer competitive salary, benefits, and perks. If you are looking for a company where you can make an impact, that has diverse collaborative culture that is female founded and female led, and where you can help us disrupt the dating industry through innovation, you should check us out.
Having worked for a competitor that was later acquired by GoFundMe, the reality we faced was that we could determine pretty quickly whether a fundraiser was going to be successful within 48hrs or so. While we spent a lot of time developing tools to help people setup a good fundraiser which would increase their chances, for the most part, it just came down to their extended social network.
Most people came to our service directly to give to a specific fundraiser (as opposed to coming to our site to find a fundraiser to give) and while we did things like "now that you gave here, check out this" type features, the results were somewhat lackluster. If I were to start a compassionate crowdfunding site today, I'd try to build it in such a way that it could be embedded into niche communities that are both to gather content, support, and fundraising.
The whole experience is that it was fantastic to work with people really dedicated to the mission and feeling like you are making a difference. On the other hand, it's hard also not to change your mind on how healthcare is viewed in the US, that the majority of Americans are one car transmission away from a downward spiral into poverty, and while I appreciate GoFundMe and other compassionate crowdfunding sites, a high tech only, private enterprise solution is not always the best way to solve humanities problems. Coming from a die hard capitalist, that's saying something.
I've heard this many times before and don't doubt thats the way doctors feel but it's a little like not monitoring production because you don't want developers chasing down minor production issues.
Except there's an entire literature of false positives and the costs associated with these detections [1]. Costs here include not only direct financial costs of potentially unnecessary surgical procedures, but include everything to additional complication due to treatment and patient emotional grief/loss of earnings due to aggressive care.
The lesson a lot of people who are not familiar with public health is that you need to sorta take the long view for these things since we don't make rational decisions.
To bring back your analogy, it's then sorta like requiring an all hands meeting every time your IDE catches a typo. It's still monitoring a something that MAY cause a problem in the future, but to a good enough degree the costs associated with monitering may not be relevant to your actual end goals.
I believe around $199 a share is when AAPL would become the first company ever to have a market cap of $1T. It could happen tomorrow. For reference, the first $1B market cap company was US Steel in 1901.
Here are a couple things that have served me well:
* Own what you own 100%. Be proactive, ask questions so you understand context, and raise concerns along with possible solutions when they pop up.
* Help others when you can. If you are going to be in this industry a long time, your network of colleagues and friends will help you long past your current gig. They can help you solve problems and avoid bad technical choices and when you are ready to move on, they can help you find a new job. The kindness you show others pays off in many ways.
* It's easy to get emotional when you are passionate about a job or a project and that passion can quickly turn into anger. Before sending an inflammatory email, sleep on it.
* Learn the tools of your trade well. Know your editor, debugger, devstack, monitoring tools, deployment tools, etc. I'm a bit hyperbolic but the single best thing I did in the last 20yrs was learn vim well.
* Work hard but pace yourself. Put aside time for yourself to stay healthy.
* Enjoy the moment even when it's stressful. You'll eventually look back on your career and see that the highlight reel features some "against all odds" moments and battle scars.
Maybe more than a toe dip based on the price, but for me, getting a MUSE device helped me start meditating and I haven't stopped since. The thing I like about it is that it gives you feedback when your mind is focused (and feedback when you are not) and quelled my own internal fear of 'am i meditating correctly?' I can't vouch for the scientific basis of it but it has helped me in my everyday life.
I went through a period where I used a Muse almost daily, and it's definitely fun/useful when you're starting out, but I found the positive feedback (birds) only kicks in when you have a particular type of focus on your breath. There are both false positives (you may be distracted and thinking while keeping a superficial focus on the breath and the device will report that you're totally focussed) and false negatives (you are well-focussed on both body sensations and breath but the device is reporting that you are distracted).
So it works for a particular type of meditation, if you're relaxed in a particular way, if the battery level and contacts are good, if the initial calibration went well. It's great for starting/restarting a meditation habit but I would say one outgrows it fairly quickly.
Edit: the following pay-what-you-want course really helped me; it even improved my Muse scores! I have no affiliation.
I think you are selling yourself short by not asking questions particularly as a junior dev. Depending on the role, people are hiring you for not only your current skills but your potential to grow. Write some questions down in advance - no one is going to ding you for having a cheat sheet for asking questions.
Here's some questions I'd ask:
- what sort of training or growth opportunities do you have?
- do you offer any aid for continued education or online courses? What about conferences?
- do you have a buddy or mentor program to help me get moving quickly?
- Are there any books or resources you recommend so I can hit the ground running?
- If I got the role, what would make you feel you made a great hire in 6 months or a year?
I thank you for your kind and very welcome advice.
These are great questions - I think I probably have trouble locating more junior dev opportunities.
I always do research on the history of a company but because of turnover it doesn't score me any piñatas to know where they started if the interviewer can't engage with the stuff I'm mentioning. :(
Just doing the research puts you in the top 20% of candidates.
I have lost track of over the years how many time I have got the answer “nothing” to the question what do you know about the company.
I personally find it amazing that people don’t make the most basic investigations into the place they are wanting to spend most of their waking hours. It is like waking into a car dealership and saying to the first salesman you meet “I have $30,000 - just sell me any car as I don’t care.”
