Here’s a post, from user lgieron, that was killed yesterday on Hacker News. It will be invisible unless you log in. The full text is below:
One thing to keep in mind – coding for a living and coding as a hobby are two VERY different things. To get a taste of what you can expect in the industry, see for example Michael O. Church’s blog (https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/)
This is not an offensive post. This user, lgieron, is arguing that a 37-year-old doctor should not abandon his medical career lightly, just because he enjoys programming as a hobby, because doing it professionally is a different game. Then, he links to my blog. For this, the post is killed. As is typical on Hacker News, the user was not aware of its removal until he logged out of Hacker News and saw the site as non-users do (this is reminiscent of Hacker News’s passive-aggressive “hellban” pattern, wherein users are banned without knowing it, or being given a reason for the ban).
We now know that Y Combinator is so afraid of what I have to say that they are banning comments (and, possibly, users) for the “crime” of linking to my blog. For the future, if you’re going to link to my blog, please use a link-shortening service like bitly. If you spell out “michaelochurch.wordpress.com” on Hacker News, there is a good chance that no one will hear you.
It’s clear that Hacker News has a vested interest in deliberately misrepresenting the opportunities that live within the private-sector, venture-funded software career. You can’t build “unicorns” without bringing people in and misleading them about their own prospects (since people join these companies expecting to be founders inside of 5 years, and most won’t, because math). Should a 37-year-old doctor drop his medical career and write software? I can’t answer that question. It shouldn’t be done lightly, and the “drop out of your school/career and become a founder!” cheerleading that comes out of the Valley right now is just irresponsible. Chances are that, if he does so, he’s going to be an open-plan programmer competing with 22-year-olds who can work longer hours, take lower salaries, and tolerate more bullshit. Programming itself is a hell of a lot of fun, but this is a pretty terrible industry.
Meanwhile, I’ve done a lot of thinking about what can replace Silicon Valley, and I’m starting to come up with concrete suggestions. I’m putting an October 1 publication date on it, because I need time to process what I’ve come up with and make sure that I’m not full of hot air.
