[lsc]

Do you remember 2001? One moment everything was brilliant. a year later and I had people who were working alongside me... people who were better than me in the late '90s... working for me, because their other option was retail. "I can't pay you what you are worth," I said to an ex-coworker I found working in a sandwich shop in the mid-aughts, "But I can pay you more than this place does." The guy really was pretty good, and he ended up working for me for many years.

Now, maybe we are in a bubble and maybe we are not, but the tech sector has a history of very sharp ups and downs, and in the downs? my experience is that a lot of pretty good people end up un[der]employed.

The other interesting thing is that from what I've seen? Layoffs at big companies (and if the sector takes a dump, there will be layoffs) are generally more "fair" than interviews at the same places. By that, I mean that those people who are shy but good are often the last to get laid off, but beyond a certain level, when interviewing, the "shy" part hurts you more than the "good" part helps you.