[earthnail]

What helped me was surround myself with people I like - I mean, work wise. That’s much easier said than done.

Michael and Dalton touch on this on a recent video where they compare modern FAANG with Goldman Sachs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia7IKW0yuG0

The founder culture is so full of kool-aid that it can be tough to find those people there, too, but I found overall that that was the best place for me. Interestingly, I found the older and more successful people to be much more sane, and super happy to meet smart sane young people. I have a lot of older friends now; many are founders of large companies who are just glad to have normal conversations - the kind of people that as a FAANG middle manager would be status contacts to brag about but now are just nice folks to grab a pint with.

The good people in tech still exist, and they’re often at key positions. But at Goldman Sachs I mean FAANG you’ll have a tough time fighting through middle management. And BOY was that FAANG culture bad for my mental health…

I hope this makes some sense. Watch the video, I think it will cheer you up big time:).

[nvarsj]

Hah that is a great video. I graduated in '05 and it was very similar. Everyone was asking why I was doing a CS degree - no future in tech, everything is being out sourced, etc. But I did it because I loved computers and coding! That kind of person seems very rare nowadays. I rarely work with people who had a similar passion - coding when they were a teenager for fun, for example.

Only thing I'd say about that video is they don't mention privilege. Joining an early stage startup in the US was only really possible if you were coming from a place of privilege imo, even when it was "uncool". At least that's what stopped me - I had 80k in student loans to pay off with a 10% interest rate, so I couldn't really take risks at that point in my life.