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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • Literally every piece of infrastructure. Infrastructure is everything that makes things more efficient by being so ubiquitous that it becomes practically invisible.

    Sure, there are the obvious ones like clean water and electricity pumped directly to our homes. There are also other kinds of infrastructure that is less visible.

    Standardized size of shipping containers, food safety regulations, a legal system that keeps companies’ worst impulses in check, HTML as a freely available spec. These are a few of the many things that enable us to have a high trust society.


  • I can sympathize with not having the money to pay for a search engine when others are free. Aside from the great results, I like the idea of paying for a search engine.

    “If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product being sold” is true, and I don’t want to use a search engine that is trying to sell me to advertisers. I want the company’s goals to be aligned with mine as a user. I want them to worry about making me happy as a user, not finding ways to show me ads.










  • I have a couple decades experience as a software engineer and manager. I don’t know if you’re ready to hear my answer, but here it is:

    You might be in a bad situation, it’s hard to say with a single data point. There are bad bosses out there and it can be a nightmare, even at a good company. The “easy” fix is to try working on a different team or a different company and see if that solves the issue. Easy is in quotes because, as an immigrant, it may be tough to move to another employer.

    The harder answer is to look inside yourself.

    Your title asks about non-capitalistic companies. There are non-profits, but I don’t think capitalism is your problem here. You’re still going to run into problems at non-profits or even volunteering in open source if you aren’t able to integrate well with teams.

    There are always going to be cultural expectations no matter where you go. The situation you described about having a 1:1 over asking questions suggests you either have an overly sensitive manager or your manager is right and you are not effective with your feedback. Asking questions can open up conversations or be used to bully people you disagree with.

    The way you disagree matters. It’s not enough to be right, you need to persuade other people to be right too. As a manager, I’m focused on the team’s output and if one person is causing problems with the group dynamic, I’m going to address it.

    I’m hiring right now and have passed on candidates who fall into the “brilliant jerk” stereotype. There’s research that shows that those types drag the rest of the team down. Remember, I’m focused on the entire team, so any one person needs to fit into that context.

    If you find that your interpersonal skills need a boost, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” has good advice but it’s hard for some people to accept advice like “let other people be wrong when it doesn’t matter” and “compliment people.”

    The other thing I’m reading in your post is that you may be burned out. The classic solutions for that are therapy, rest, exercise, and investing in life outside work. It’s hard to spot burnout sometimes, but check in with your support group.

    So that’s 3 options forward: change your situation, improve your skills, or rest up and recover from burnout. Good luck.



  • Start saving for retirement now. You can make literally millions by putting away 10% of your income early on. Do it automatically so you never even notice the money gone.

    If you are worried about making the wrong choice and your company doesn’t have a 401k, open an IRA somewhere (Fidelity if you need someone to make the decision for you) and pick a date targeted fund. Set up auto deposit. Never look at the balance.

    You can always make it better later but for now the best thing to do is start. Don’t let analysis paralysis get in the way.





  • You are suddenly super rich. Now all your friends and family expect you to provide for them. Every kindness they offer is suspect, are they doing it because they like you or because they want your money? How can you really know?

    You don’t have to work and can go anywhere in the world. But your friends still have jobs, so you travel alone.

    Some of your friends start to resent your new lifestyle. Others may just be staying quiet. You read about “crabs in a bucket” and distance yourself more from them.

    It’s really isolating, but you meet some other wealthy people and you know they don’t need your money. And… you actually have some stuff in common with them. Yes Ibiza is overrated, but they suggest another place to check out. You go out with them to amazing restaurants that your old friends wouldn’t even appreciate. You can commiserate about how hard it is to get good help these days.

    On top of all that, you slowly start to notice an emptiness inside. You should be happy! You don’t have to work anymore! You have everything you could ever want! Why do you feel this way!?!? Drugs and expensive purchases fill the need momentarily. If try telling your old friends that you’re not all that fulfilled, they’ll pull out the world’s tiniest violin for you. You lack purpose and goals, and feel like you are drifting in a life of luxury completely devoid of meaning.

    If you’re lucky you find a way to have a new purpose in life and accept that the money changed you. If not you spiral and, best case scenario, wind up broke.