[stblack]

This resonates profoundly.

But I'll tell you who I REALLY feel sorry for. I feel sorry for today's 20- and 30-somethings who will likely never know the $1000-$2000 days many of us knew in the 80's, 90's and 00's.

Back in the days when FedExing diskettes across the planet was a normal thing.

Take today's 20 and 30-somethings and project forward 20-years, I wouldn't want to trade positions.

[wyldfire]

I'm confused: $1000-2000 days? Are you suggesting that there are "many of you" who pulled down ~250-500k USD per year back in the 80s/90s/00s? Which industry(ies)/career(s) are you referring to?

[davelnewton]

It depended... $1k days weren't terribly unusual back then, or now, if you have specific skill sets.

[bshimmin]

Or even if you only happen to have a pretty standard skill-set, but are reasonably good at what you do, good at selling yourself, and happen to be connected with the right sort of people. (Though making $2000 a day might also require being quite hard-working, depending on what you do.)

[trcollinson]

Y2K fears, Mainframe to Server migrations, Command Line to Graphical UI, the Internet! Oh man, those were good times.

However, to be brutally honest, $1000 a day isn't even close to unobtainable now. Many people in this industry pull down ~$250-500k per year.

[mathattack]

Much easier to learn to program and do bigger things today. Professional life (and life in general) is much better today than 25 years ago.

20 years ago: - It was hard to find books on technical subjects. - Computing time was so scarce you had crazy internal chargeback systems. (Though this is sort of coming full circle with AWS) - You had to worry about every level of the stack to do the simplest things. (Weak abstraction) - No meetups or other technically assisted socializing. - In most cities if you wanted to grab a beer, the cost involved coming home smelling like smoke.

[pmorici]

You realize it will be 2015 in two weeks right? 20 years ago it was 1995 computing time wasn't "scarce" the PC had already been around for 10+ years 20 years ago.

[mathattack]

I'm aging myself. Maybe I should say 25. :-)

When I was in school, computing time was a pain in the ass. Same with my first job after. I'm not talking run a little Excel, more like "Create the data cube for a company's monthly sales numbers" computing.

[CmonDev]

I would trade a position with a 20-year old. They have a bigger chance of becoming immortal.

[lingua_franca]

wake up, many guys in their 20's make $300k to half million a year at Google/Facebook/Amazon these days...

[angdis]

I find that very difficult to believe. Also, what do you mean by "many" ?

[lingua_franca]

https://www.secret.ly/p/cdipjjrrdgfrdgayrhgdfrryly

[bbcbasic]

Bear in mind that "many" is only "tiny fraction" of the "helluva lot" of programmers who don't earn that much.

[lingua_franca]

yeah u r so right but that dude concluded all today's 20 and 30-something...