Back in 1991 when I started my computer science degree, I just wanted to create new things - I …
… Back in 1991 when I started my computer science degree, I just wanted to create new things - I liked to reverse engineer, take things apart, hack code and build stuff that never existed before. My friends were going into chemical engineering because the average salary was like $45k / year whereas programming was something like $38k / year. They thought I was short-sighted because I didn't go for the money. But, it didn't daunt me that I got paid less. I thought it was awesome that someone would even pay me to do the type of work I was doing. I earned $33k in my first year. In contrast, I had a friend who managed a Barnes and Noble and was making 45k, but I didn't care. The early years were pretty awesome. In the 90s it was exhilarating to be working with your brainy hacker friends late into the evening. No chaos or rush - we'd release every 3 months on a regular schedule. We had tons of slack time to just play around. After work, we'd go out and have beers and talk philosophy and art and culture (It was during this era that Paul Graham wrote Hackers & Painters). …
Original discussionDo you want to be doing this when you're 50? (2012)181 source comments · at import