You face the opportunity cost of not working for a company whose stock will rise fast, making it worth much more in years 2-3+ than it was initially priced at.

None of us have a crystal ball though, so it’s all speculation.

FB is not cool, TikTok is eating Instagram’s lunch causing IG to pivot more to video, so it comes down to the Metaverse.

This was compiled in 2020 and Meta might move up the list in 2021.

It’s worth noting that Netflix does not have RSUs, and Stripe keeps appreciation of RSU value for itself. So if you expect Meta stock price to go up over the next few years (a big if), compensation at Meta could be higher in the long run.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/

“I want to stress the importance of being young and technical … Young people are just smarter. Why are most chess masters under 30?" he asked. "I don't know… Young people just have simpler lives. We may not own a car. We may not have family."

Of course, he said this in his twenties and he may have changed his tune. As far as I know, he hasn’t handed the reigns of Meta over to a twenty-something just yet.

I ended up taking a job with a FANG company that skews slightly older than most startups, but even here I’m on the wrong side of the Bell curve. I can run circles around most of my younger coworkers so I never feel like my job is in jeopardy. But I’m often the oldest individual contributor on any given project and I have to wonder, where have all the older software engineers in Silicon Valley gone? Did they retire early, and was it their own choice? Will I be served up as Soylent Green in the cafeteria next year?

I moved into software engineering from a different engineering discipline where most of my coworkers were in their forties and fifties, and some were older than that. I doubled my pay, but now I work on the SF peninsula where I can’t afford a house, and I probably cut my remaining working years in half. All in all, it seems like it may have been a questionable choice in the long run.

Engineers working in programming-adjacent industries (rather than Silicon Valley web tech) such as telecommunications, defense, aerospace/satellites, medical technology, etc., tend to earn less but have much longer careers in my experience (and often work on more interesting problems IMO). You may be able to leverage your medical degree, after your residency, to work in an area with more specialization and less churn.

Interest ebbs and flows. Korea is perhaps eclipsing Japan in general interest these days. But their cultural export is pop music and boy bands, and their main Western demographic seems to be teenage girls.

Intermediate developers, bitten by their past mistakes, decide to future proof their work. But they don’t just look one or two steps ahead, rather they try to look five steps ahead and identity problems that do not and may never exist. Consequently, they over-engineer, over-abstract, and over-complicate everything. Carmack’s recent “But here we are” speech resonated with me.

Advanced developers identify the right balance for each task between simple and complex, concrete and abstract, and pragmatic and idealistic. In my experience, they favor simple and pragmatic solutions, use abstraction effectively, and can satisfy near-term goals quickly without painting themselves into a corner. “As simple as possible, but not simpler.”

I try to avoid working for tech leads stuck in the second phase, which is not uncommon. If you suggest taking the “ifs and for loops” approach of solving a simple problem with a simple solution, they’ll assume you’re on the wrong side of the bell curve.

Again, they give you the options: subscription model or ad-based model.

This covers the cost of infrastructure, paying creators, and paying developers.

It doesn’t make sense that they or any other company will host and send you video for free at a financial loss to themselves because you’re watching it on “your computer.”

Then again, we live in a world where drugstore makeup needs to be kept behind lock and key, so this shouldn’t be surprising.

Stating the the obvious, but these features were developed by real people and revenue pays these developers, pays for the infrastructure, and pays the content creators. As an alternative for those who have the means, you can also sign up for a subscription to remove ads. I’ve gotten more value out of my youtube subscription than most other streaming services I pay for.

Ranking a 4.9 star item with 500 reviews above a 5 star item is intuitive to many already, and will become intuition quickly for everyone else because it’s broadly more useful. The average customer doesn’t care that much how the sausage is made, they care about quality of the results.

Ranking items is basic functionality and it’s broken across the web. It shouldn’t be a feature that’s only available to users willing and able to fiddle with browser extensions.

“Targeting” is more neutral. You might target someone with an ad because you believe in your product and expect it will improve their life. But it would be a bit weird to say you’re luring someone to use your beneficial product.

In Facebook’s case, they apparently know of harmful effects on youth, so “lure” seems appropriate.