Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Revelation 1 - Silicon Valley (SV)

Had breakfast briefly w/ Chuck and Aaron.

Aaron is a pretty brilliantly smart guy -- now he's at Facebook and was telling us a few things
1- the amount of engineering is amazing.  They are building their own hardware, data centers, etc.  All open source as well
      http://www.opencompute.org/
      http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/06/facebook-opens-data-center-filled-entirely-with-servers-it-designed/

2 -- its all young people.  Aaron said its mostly 23-26 yo's who work pretty odd hours and ride skateboards around and are out of shape.

3 -- he wouldn't have passed as a developer because their tests are super hard.  also he failed to get in in '2007 and got in in '2009 instead.. costing him prob $10m bucks!  I am guessing he made a few million off it regardless but not like mega-buckaroos.   But point is, if he couldn't get in then I wouldn't get in either...

So all in all, it makes me wonder if my dream of getting back into Silicon Valley is just a dream or what..  I mean I am thinking after 6years out of hard core tech, and 6years older, now 40, that I could still waltz my way back..  perhaps I'm not thinking straight ?

Sure I can waltz back into Samsung or some mid-grade role, but Goog or FB.. I think that time has passed me by.  Probably my peak time to go that route was 10yrs ago when I went to BGI instead of Netflix, Apple, Ebay or some other top tier tech firm.   Today I can prob get into an HP or Samsung, but then my work life may be similarly disinteresting as it is now...  ?  or would it?   Hmmm new things to think about as I ponder my next move in life.

Thinking to work this current job for another 20years is depressing me.

As for Chuck, he bought a Tesla and is enjoying life.  he is 68... damn that is old, but he is looking/doing very well and I'm very glad he made time to have breakfast with me on short notice.

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