All Schools are Created Equally

College Majors Engineering Majors
141

<p>

</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Seems like our dispute is over the definition of who the “best” or employees are. I would argue that for most jobs, the “best” employees are those who work well within the team and which is therefore almost predicated on what you would call ‘nepotism’, and what I would simply term social hiring. You don’t want to hire brilliant jerks. You want to hire somebody who fits in the team. </p>

<p>Now, granted, there are some jobs for which you would want to hire the most brilliant people you can even if they’re jerks - certain R&D jobs being the prototypical example. But they’re hardly typical of most jobs. The ability to interact with the team is more important for most jobs than sheer technical knowhow.</p>

142

<p>It’s a very cynical person who justifies nepotism because other people are usually jerks.</p>

<p>I still say the most qualified applicants should be given a face interview, and then the best all-around person can be chosen. I have nothing against teamwork or social skills, and in fact I agree they are important. I just tend to think that there’s something wholly unethical - or at least un-American - about your success in life not being based on what you know or how hard you’re willing to work, but on who you know and what kind of life you were born into.</p>

143

<br>


<br>

<p>Well, one could just go through the NASDAQ 100 or the Russell 2000 or
the S&P 500 to factcheck an assumption. Might also find some good picks
too.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>With monster.com and many companies looking virtually for employees
and the some employers requiring online video interviews, location
shouldn't matter as much. The probabalistic argument for geography
is only useful if you get out and mingle in the right circles. That
can and does happen virtually today. For many tech guys, it is far
easier to to virtually given their reclusive lifestyles.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I was offered a job over something that I do as a hobby. I had never
met the guy nor did I know what he did but he followed what I did
online. It turns out that he was a senior vp at a technology company.</p>

<p>This is certainly a form of networking where someone can snoop on your
public work - even if it is only a hobby. I declined the job because
I already have a great job in a good location.</p>

<p>I've had others contact me for paid contract work through the same
channels. In general, I avoid that sort of thing as it can result in a
conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest. I
sometimes just volunteer to do work for free. You never know when you
might need a friend.</p>

<p>I am a big proponent of networking but I don't believe that you have
to be geographically colocated to have a usable network.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>One can be around in a lot of different ways today. Perhaps being
"plugged in" would be a more appropriate term.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I thought that we were talking about career potential vs top private
schools.</p>

<p>Are you stating that all rich investment bankers live in Manhatten?</p>

<p>Those that are rich can afford to live in Manhatten and therefore
cost of living isn't as big an issue for the average professional.
But do those rich investment bankers that go bust and lose their
jobs stay in Manhatten? We've had a few of those stories here on
CC. Keeping your expenses low in the good times makes it far easier
to survive the bad times.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Maine has certain specialties that venture capitalists might find
interesting. Why do you think DeLorme is up there? Southern Maine is
an hour from Boston. Portland is two hours. Bangor is four hours.</p>

<p>Ever been to Bar Harbor? I would guess that a lot of VCs vacation
there. Portland is nice too. And the fishing is good. One of the
financial guys that I read is up there fishing.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Well, then let's say that it is a career consideration. You don't live
your career. You live your life. And therefore quality of life affects
your career.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Yes. What does the average actor make?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>What kinds of locations does Fidelity Investments look for?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Why is Massachusetts losing population if you take out immigrants?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>For the most part, yes. Perhaps it's for the idea of a better life.
Or things appear better there. Or there is more political funding.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>It seems that you can make these things up at will.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>The Fed legalizes the theft of money from savers by keeping interest
rates artificially low to allow the banks to recover from their stupid
mistakes. The Banks corrupt our political system to win huge favors
from the Treasury. I would refer you to Bernanke's recent chat where
he justifies what he, Paulson and others have done.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Perhaps there is something that attracts them there. Some people do
like city life and there are very good schools available in those two
states.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I only manage a few million. Maybe enough for a hedge fund ten years
ago.</p>

<p>I otherwise fail to understand your depiction of a binary strawman.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Well, Hudson isn't really Boston.</p>

<p>So what Perlmutter did in Israel had nothing to do with Merom's
development?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Perlmutter is into manufacturing?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Maybe, maybe not. He stayed there when they were under ariel bombardment
so he seems to be a pretty hardy person.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Did I say this? I thought that I just said that the do movies and TV
there. One could just get a job through a contact and then move there
for the opportunity instead of moving there for a potential
opportunity.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Strawman.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Arguably zero isn't so arguable.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Hedge funds or companies? The big bubble areas were California,
Florida, Nevada and Arizona. Probably a few more too. I would guess
that a lot of firms and people did move to Miami but more to cash in
on the real estate boom.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Are you arguing against this?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Berkshire has something like 20 or 30 employees in HQ. The company is
its subsidiaries.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>No you don't. You can use connections if you have them.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I see. So you are saying that Microsoft hires a lot of engine designers
for their software engineering operations.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>The move to the suburbs in the 70s and 80s was a response to high
crime rates in the cities which were the result of economic problems.
I will add that busing and poor schools exacerbated the problem. The
financial problems in the Catholic Church took away a lot of parochial
schools as options for parents that wanted to live in the cities while
providing good and safe educations for their kids.</p>

<p>I received an email from a mother of a child that is homeschooling her
children. She lives in a pretty bad area of Boston and one of her
children was killed at school which is why she is homeschooling now.
Why does she continue to live there in pretty bad circumstances? I
don't know. Perhaps she cannot afford to move out of the city or maybe
she doesn't know how to move out or maybe she doesn't have a vehicle.
But a lot of people that move to or live in cities don't do it because
they truly want to or love the life there.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Do you believe that voters are always right?</p>

<p>People voted with their wallets in paying many multiples of salary to
buy houses that they truly couldn't afford. Investors voted with their
wallets to buy Enron, Worldcom, Lehman, Bear and other companies. People
voted with their wallets to buy SUVs and big houses before fuel costs
went up. People in New Jersey voted too.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I've seen startups where there is no office - everyone works out of
their home or their University offices (quietly of course). We lost
a few people to an organization like this last year.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>My sister made the move. She moved there because her inlaws (husband's
parents) lived there and could provide free daycare. Her husband, at
the time, had a job working in a shipyard in SF and he needed to be
nearby. Her husband also had other relatives in the area and she had
her sister in San Francisco. So for her, it was her husband's job and
nearby relatives. She can do her job anywhere.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>They are certainly better than San Francisco from what my sisters have
told me. Schools are a consideration. But there are also other
factors. Perhaps the real estate bubble attracted people to the area
too.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Those attempting to catch falling knives should wear steel gloves.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>You can really get bent out of shape, can't you? I knew all of that.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>There are reasons why New York is attractive. I like to visit the
city. There are good private schools. There are some good public
schools too. If you are making a lot of money, the expenses aren't as
big a consideration.</p>

<p>How many have the banks laid off in the last two years though. Why are
they laying off staff in New York? If they can afford infinite expenses,
then why don't they just carry all of those employees and associated
business costs?</p>

144

<br>

<br>

<p>This is a big point. People that I know casually or socially sometimes ask for my recommendation and I won’t provide it unless I know their character and background, either through common work or having known the person for a long time. Many companies provide a bounty for referred hires but that taking that money is not worth the hit to reputation that recommending a bad hire would cause.</p>

<p>BTW, being socially inept does not mean that you can’t get a job but it may make it harder to find a job. We do get candidates like this and they can be so good technically that deciding between social skills and capabilities is tough. We have our share of temperamental and strange engineers and their engineering abilities outweigh the social problems. Everyone eventually figures out who is temperamental and what sets them off and avoids doing such things.</p>

145

<p>I feel like this thread has become a contest to see who can have the longest post. I’m going to post the entire body of “Heart of Darkness” if the trend continues. This is a fact.</p>

146

<p>

</p>

<p>Not only does it affect your social capital, but it could impact your productivity as well. Somebody who I had gone to school with interviewed for an internship with my company (I didn’t know this until he showed up for the interview). Afterwards, one of my colleagues pulled me to the side and asked me what I thought of him because he knew we went to the same school. I couldn’t recommend him for the job because I knew if I did, I’d end up having to picking up the slack because we’d be working closely together (among others) as a team. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>You say that as if networking requires one to be practically born into the industry and you have no control over your network. If that’s what you’re getting at, then it’s completely untrue. You can develop your network through friends, colleagues, former colleagues, fellow alumni, classmates, professors, etc. I’m not saying nobody gets a job through their parents or friends of the family, but this is not too common. I started off college not knowing anybody in the civil engineering or construction field. For all but my first job, I’ve had somebody put their name and professional reputation on the line for me. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>And I agree with that. However, having a good professional reputation (and thus being recommended by others) should not be weighed lightly. I would trust a few years of someone’s experience with a person much more than a few hours during interviews.</p>

147

<p>

</p>

<p>It’s not entirely clear to me whether the advent of telework decreases the value of location within the US. As I have been saying throughout this thread, tech firms don’t seem to be relocating their headquarters in any mass exodus out of expensive locales, which they could ostensibly do given the availability of telework technologies. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>And that fact-checking only confirms that a great proportion of major tech firms were started in the well-known startup locales. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Nobody is saying that you have to do anything. However, the social psychology literature has confirmed time and time again that physical proximity remains by far the best way to develop social capital. Controlled experiments where subjects were directed to use ever-less-proximal communications technologies - such as video conferencing, then interactive chat, then email - resulted in greater miscommunication and, more importantly, the ascription of ulterior motives and mistrust amongst participants, and poorer team performance (where performance was defined as the ability to arrive at mutually beneficially agreements). </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>See above. Being ‘plugged in’, while better than nothing, remains a weaker method of developing social capital. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>We are.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Well, seems to me that all sorts of investment bankers - both rich and poor - live in Manhattan. In fact, I suspect that the a highly disproportionate percentage of the ‘poorer’ investment bankers live in Manhattan (along with London), simply because they tend to be the bankers who are just starting out, and NYC is where most of the entry-level IB jobs in the US tend to be. If you want to break into IB and then find out that the company wants you to move to New York, you could decline, but then that would mean that you would lose the job. If you take that job and then lose it now, you probably have to stay to find another one. </p>

<p>Furthermore, even experienced Ibankers who are laid off are not leaving New York in droves, if they want to stay in Ibanking. Granted, if they leave the industry entirely, then they can and do leave the city. But, again, they have to stay if they want to play. Or, at worst, maybe they can move to a secondary finance locale. But certainly, it’s rather difficult for somebody to simply move to, say, Mississippi and still work in IB. </p>

<p>Now, granted, you could obviously just leave at any time. But that would probably mean the end of your IB career. After all, you probably don’t have the experience to find another job in the industry unless you’re willing to stay where the entry-level jobs are. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Wait, what’s this? So now you are conceding that physical proximity is important? I thought you said that notion was rubbished telework technologies due to the rise of telework technologies. By that logic, who cares if southern Maine is an hour away when VC’s can fund a business plan purely through videoconferencing? </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>So what you are saying is simply reinforcing the point that proximity does matter. The VC’s have to be physically around, even if perhaps simply for a chance face-to-face meeting while on vacation. Glad to see that you agree with the basic point. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>That’s a different argument entirely. We were simply talking about what you should do to boost your career. Boosting your quality of life is another matter. For example, Ibanking is a career infamous for its low quality of life. But many people nevertheless desire that career. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>The average actor makes little. But that’s the lifestyle they have chosen for themselves - people desire a shot, however, small, at glory. You may choose to call it stupid, but I think you now concede that moving to a locale where acting jobs are available is what aspiring actors do. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>You seem to be quite the expert when it comes to non-sequiturs. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Last time I checked, Fidelity was headquartered in Boston (and also co-hq’ed in Bermuda for tax reasons). What’s your point? </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>It seems that you can make things up at will. Seems to me that you have come around to my side on practically every point, but you just don’t want to admit it. </p>

<p>Besides, I made up nothing. I simply said that you improve your odds of finidng a startup by moving to a startup locale. I never said that you absolutely need to do that. However, I have said that location matters, and so, if given the chance, why wouldn’t you then want to leverage location to your favor, rather than against you? Why not place yourself in the best position to succeed? </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Massachusetts isn’t a great state * for everybody*. The state has bad weather, many of the older manufacturing industries are dying, the cost of living is high. So, sure, I agree that if you’re not working in certain industries, you may be better off elsewhere.</p>

<p>However Massachusetts remains an excellent location to be in if you are in one of the state’s stronger industries, such as academia, high tech, health care, or to some extent finance. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I think you do hang out with too many chip guys. All that matters is that, whatever funds Abu Dhabi might have provided to seed Globalfoundries, at the end of the day, AMD is still headquartered in Sunnyvale. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Uh, then according to that argument, very little tech is actually “in” Boston, for Boston, strictly speaking, is a relatively small and geographically constrained city. Heck, for the purposes of this discussion, even MIT isn’t really “in” Boston - it’s actually in Cambridge.</p>

<p>We are talking about the greater Boston metro area. Most of the tech industry, especially the startups, in the Boston metro area is not located within Boston proper but are rather located around the Technology Highway 128 area that rings the city, and Hudson is undoubtedly included. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I’m sure he did. But so what? It’s unclear whether he will become CEO and even if he did, he would have to move to Santa Clara. Right now, whether we like it or not, the political power in Intel remains in Silicon Valley. Nobody is proposing to relocate Intel headquarters to Kiryat-Gat. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Complete nonsequitur, for it doesn’t matter why the finance industry is actually performing surprisingly well, relative to the rest of the nation. Sure, it may well be true that the Fed is providing politically unpalatable support to the industry. But so what? All that means is that the industry has cunningly devised a successful too-big-to-fail strategy, and continue to pay giant bonuses besides. It’s brilliant. If the world is unfair, you want the unfairness to work in your favor, not against you. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>So now you’re agreeing that you and people like you would not want to move to certain locales. Hence, if wanted to hire people like you, I would probably not want to start my business there. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Perlmutter is into management. If he ever gets promoted to CEO, he will inevitably have to move to Santa Clara headquarters. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Last time I checked, Mississippi had the lowest income per-capita in the entire country. Doesn’t seem to be an economically vibrant state. Now, granted, I’m sure there probably are some successful businesses there. But also seems to be many problems and much poverty. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>So now you are saying that not just LA actors, but most people in the world are stupid. Interesting. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Well, we’re still arguing about it, aren’t we? </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Actually, things don’t go back and forth. The trend is monotonic. The trend of suburbanization in past decades did not actually decrease the rate of urbanization in the country, for US cities continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace. What did happen is that older Northeast and Midwest cities declined in population, but Western and Sun Belt cities such as Los Angeles grew at a frenetic pace. </p>

<p>But regardless of what might happen in the future, what is indisputable now is a strong trend of urbanization throughout the world. Maybe people are being stupid, but the trend is unmistakable.</p>

148

<p>

</p>

<p>I am pulling nothing out of my hat. The general thesis is clear - certain locales are clearly more conductive to certain careers than are others, and if you want such a career, you should head for such a locale, and ideally, to the dominant locale. Unfortunately, there is no method to diversify your geographic proximity, for you can choose only one place to live. Why not give yourself the best chance to succeed if you can? </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I doubt it. Note, that’s not to say that it doesn’t offer any entertainment, for surely it does. But certainly it cannot compare to LA or New York. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Wrong - I simply requoted what you said, which supports me. Thank you. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>The typical aspiring actor in Los Angeles probably makes more than the typical aspiring actor in Missouri. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Ah, so now you’re conceding that there are weights - that by choosing to enjoy the ostensibly high quality of life of Maine, you are indeed reducing your chances of finding the best tech job. That’s been my point all along.</p>

<p>Look, nobody is arguing that you shouldn’t consider your quality of life. If you really love Maine (or Mississippi or wherever it is), you should go there. But at the same time, you shouldn’t fool yourself into thinking that you aren’t giving anything up from a career standpoint. You are, so then the real question is whether what you gain in terms of quality of life compensates you for what you concede.</p>

<p>But it is simply ridiculous to assert that you give up nothing in terms of career possibilities. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Do you continue to argue for it? </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Which only reinforces my point that it’s rather hard to work as an engineer at BH in Omaha. Generalizing that point, Omaha may not be the best place to be for an aspiring engineer. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Voters aren’t always “right”, but then the problem is that, as the Keynesian Beauty Contest delineates, the market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent. </p>

<p>For the purposes of employment, you have to go to where the jobs are. Now, perhaps it is “irrational” that the jobs are located in certain areas and not others. For example, maybe it is stupid that tech companies continue to headquarter themselves in Silicon Valley rather than Mississippi. But so? At the end of the day, you need a job, and you can’t wait for them to come to their senses and relocate to Mississippi, as by the time that happens, you may be dead. Employment is an inherently social phenomenon which means that you have to respect social forces, however stupidly you may think those forces are behaving. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>And if you don’t? You said it yourself - most college kids don’t have great connections. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Ah, but did you lose everybody to such an organization? More importantly, how’s your office doing - is your management thinking of abandoning it entirely? No? I see. What do you think that means? </p>

<p>Lots of employees have demanded that companies eliminate their offices, and what is remarkably is that so few companies actually do. In fact, I suspect that the trend of “officization” may actually be increasing. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>So you’re conceding that somebody had a job (at the shipyard) that required physical proximity, effectively anchoring several relatives. </p>

<p>That’s how geographic locales start. One person gets a job that requires physical proximity, and soon enough, a number of family relatives want to live in that locale to be near to that person. Companies then realize that qualified people like your sister are to be found in that locale, and that’s how that locale develops economic vibrancy. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Are you going to buy steel gloves for your sister? </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Nobody is saying that the banks or any other companies can afford infinite expenses. If business goes down, you have to cut expenses, and you would have to do that whether you were located in an expensive locale or a cheap one. After all, Michigan is far cheaper than New York, yet how many people has the auto industry laid off? </p>

<p>Nevertheless, moving to a cheap locale probably would not make things any better, or at least the banks don’t seem to think so. They seem to think that it is vital to stay in the nation’s financial center where they can enjoy the advantages of a deep workforce and proximity to clients. Maybe they’re being dumb, maybe those advantages are unimportant, but hey, at the end of the day, they’re the ones that are offering the jobs. So if you want an IB job, especially at the entry-level, at the end of the day, you probably have to move to New York, however foolish it may be for those banks to remain there.</p>

149

<p>

</p>

<p>First off, how would one obtain this contact that jumpstarted the process?</p>

<p>Secondly, and far more importantly, why would you ever have to move to Toronto at all? I thought you had been saying throughout this entire thread that you can rely on telework technologies. So I suppose that would mean that a future Brad Pitt could have just stayed in Missouri and simply conducted all of his auditions through videoconferencing, right? He would never have to move until perhaps such time as he has actually secured a role. And heck - maybe he can still live in Missouri after obtaining the role, for you said yourself, there are a few office-less startups in which everybody works remotely from home. Maybe all future movie actors could do the same. Why even run a production studio at all? Maybe all the movie companies should just sell them off. </p>

<p>Somehow I think there’s a flaw in this strategy.</p>

150

<p>

</p>

<p>I agree. Furthermore, social capital is optimally fostered through face-to-face communications, which is what I had been saying throughout this thread. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Sure, you may eventually figure it out. But what if you never do? Doing so requires investing time in a person to understand his quirks, and what if you don’t have that time. Let’s face it - most companies are under time pressure, and they don’t have the wherewithal to figure out through trial and error what sort of personal problems any individual employee may have. </p>

<p>Contrast that with the alternative, where somebody in the company already knows the quirky person beforehand and can warn the group about what the person should not do. That built-in social capital and social knowledge would then enhance the productivity of the group by avoiding problems. That’s yet another reason to hire through social networks.</p>

151

<p>

</p>

<p>My first response to that is, whether we like it or not, some people are born with advantages that others do not have. That’s life. It’s not fair, not ethical, not American that Brad Pitt is far more handsome than I am. He didn’t have to work for his handsomeness, he was just born with it, and I wasn’t. That’s not fair. It’s not fair that LeBron James was born with the genetics to become far taller, stronger, and more athletic than I am, such that no matter how much I practice basketball, I will still never be better than him. </p>

<p>But however unfair it may be, the fact remains that millions of movie-going women will buy tickets to see Brad Pitt, whereas they’re not going to pay to see me. Similarly, millions of people will watch LeBron James play basketball, and nobody is going to want to watch me. A market system is not a moral seminar. A market system is a method to efficiently allocate scarce resources. LeBron James was born with great athletic talent and I wasn’t, so it is efficient for him to become a millionaire professional athlete but not for me. Similarly, it is efficient for those who are born with social capital to be compensated for it. </p>

<p>However, as ken285 said, social capital, unlike handsomeness or athletic talent, can be developed over time. Everybody is born with a differing amount, but you can also accumulate it through diligence by embedding yourself within the right social networks and learning how to schmooze (yet another reason why geographic proximity is so valuable). On the other hand, no matter how hard I work, I will never look like Brad Pitt. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Yet the core problem remains - how does a company know who the most qualified applicant is? No company has infinite search resources. </p>

<p>Steve Ballmer was hired by Microsoft because he was Bill Gates’s old college buddy. Now, maybe there was somebody out there in the world who was even more qualified than Ballmer, but how would Gates have known about that guy? Microsoft was still a startup at the time and therefore lacked the ability to conduct even a region-wide search. Gates hired through his social network because that’s all he had. What else was he supposed to do? Gates didn’t want to take the chance of hiring somebody he didn’t know well. </p>

<p>Yet at the end of the day, what that means is that if Ballmer had not gone to Harvard, he wouldn’t have become Gates’s late night poker-playing pal, and he wouldn’t be the billionaire CEO of Microsoft now.</p>

152

<p>First, sakky:</p>

<p>I believe there is a difference between start-ups and what most people think of when they imagine normal hiring situations. Clearly, practical limitations and special positions may warrant special treatment. But, for established companies that have a reasonable search capacity, far more can be done than you seem to be advocating.</p>

<p>Since the long posts haven’t stopped…</p>

153

<p>Don’t make me post the rest. Let’s keep these posts readable in a single sitting, huh?</p>

154

<br>


<br>

<p>That may be a historical issue. Or an issue with tech firms that do need
physical plant. Today one can start up a software company with an idea and
a little capital, perhaps an iPhone, a Mac and a software development kit
or a computer and Developer Studio or a system with Gnu tools. There are
so many free tools available and free help available that capital costs
can be very low. Many projects can be done part-time in the context of
working full-time for another company. The problem arises when you want
to expand. Someone doing something like this is unlikely to relocate to
another part of the country to find someone else to work with them.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>The latter part of your paragraph looks like it is discussing work; not
a network for getting a job.</p>

<p>There are issues with distributed work but it is a fact of life today.</p>

<p>We had a local engineering plant of 3,000 employees where they moved
the work to two sites 40 and 50 miles away (and not a pleasant
commute). Some employees were given jobs that are 100% telecommuting.
Others were given jobs that were two days in the office and three days
from home. Some probably had to go in all the time. I have two
friends, one that works fulltime from home and the other that works
part-time. He swapped vehicles with his wife - his pickup truck was
using too much gas and she has a local job. What do you think the job
satisfaction level is when you turn an employee's 10 minute commute
into a 1 hour commute?</p>

<p>Telework is a fact of life.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>The groups that I've worked in have been at this sort of thing since
the mid-1980s. I think that we have it down quite well, social
networks included. Perhaps that is something that should be taught
in school.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I have relatives that are IBs. One lives in Chicago but spends a lot of
time in London. The other used to work in Hong Kong - I'm not sure where
she is today. She doesn't have a university degree.</p>

<p>I guess that ALL in Manhatten is expanding a little.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Rather difficult is different from ALL IBs work in Manhatten.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Reminds me of the hedge fund manager that completely went bust after
loading his own savings into the fund. Going from half a million a year
to nothing and losing all of your assets can't be fun.</p>

<pre><code>"We need young people instead of the, you know, a smart kid coming
out of school, instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we
need them to decide they want to be an engineer, want to be a
scientist, they want to be a doctor or a teacher, and if we're
rewarding those kinds of things that actually contribute to making
things and -- and making people's lives better, that's going to
put our economy on solid footing, we won't have this bubble and
bust economy that we've gotten so caught up in for the last
several years."
</code></pre>

<br>


<br>

<p>I am merely correcting your factual errors.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I am merely correcting your factual errors.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Working on an a rig in the Gulf of Mexico is low quality of life but
it pays well. Some are willing to put up with low quality of life if
there are other factors that compensate for that low quality of life.</p>

<p>It isn't a different argument. You don't live your career. You live
your life.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>That does sound stupid to me. Maybe some do and some don't.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>And where is it building out? And why?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>You are your own greatest fan.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Fudging again.</p>

<p>There are a variety of reasons as to why people choose to live where
they do.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Yes but you said that everyone is flocking to the cities. And Boston
is a great city. So shouldn't the population be growing by leaps and
bounds in Boston and therefore Massachusetts? You said that it's the</p>

<h1>2 startup or venture capital city. Shouldn't everyone be flocking</h1>

<p>to Boston and Massachusetts to take advantage of those VC guys?</p>

<p>Are you saying that factors of life other than what you consider
career opportunities via geography impact the decision on where
people take jobs and live? Are you agreeing with me?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I guess you didn't read about the layoffs, hiring freezes and
furloughs at the public and private universities in Massachusetts last
year and this year. Community colleges are doing a booming business
this year though.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>AMD was effectively split into two. We'll see what happens. Part of
what they did to restructure was to not violate an agreement with
Intel on how and where they can manufacture x86 chips. The structuring
was to avoid by a narrow amount, a percentage limit. AMD is at a
technical disadvantage to Intel and Intel is executing well. AMD has
had forced layoffs while Intel has reduced staff at it's leisure. AMD
continues with its hat out for anyone, including governments, for
money. The EU was gullible enough to fall for AMD's pleadings but I
don't think that AMD will see that $1.5 billion. I do think that they
will be asking for more from their buddies in the Middle East. It
can't be fun for those getting laid off - lots of other people in your
industry getting laid off in the same area at the same time just has
to be a pain. It's like trying to unwind a position when everyone else
is doing the same thing. You want to unwind when the crowd is
stampeding in.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I would define Boston as within Route 128. Hudson is out on Route 495.
It is geographically closer to Worcestor than Boston. Cambridge is well
within Route 128 - in fact it is only across the Charles.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I'd suggest looking at a map.</p>

<p>I've actually been at the Hudson plant.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he would spend a week in
California and a week in Israel. It appears to me that his social
network hasn't been harmed one bit by living and working in Israel.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>It's a direct answer to your original question.</p>

<p>They might wind up taking the whole country down with them in the
too-big-to-fail strategy. And there certainly were some that didn't
survive or are walking as the living dead. Or do you still have
hope in your Lehman shares?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Location is a factor. Offer me enough to compensate for a locale and
I might go there. As I've said, it's a factor. Do you now agree with
this?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Well, you posited that he was in a manufacturing plant outside of
HQ. As far as moving goes, maybe he will and maybe he won't. Intel
had plans to relocate Intel engineers located in Israel if they
wanted to move. I think that most or all didn't move.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>What's the biggest egg company in the US?</p>

<p>Mississippi was the fifth wealthiest state in the country many years
back but overdependence on a cash cow did them in. Reminds me of DEC.
As I've said before, quality of education and cost of living is a
factor on where to locate. Mississippi does have a lot of things going
against it as a place to locate a startup or to live in general. But
some apparently do like it.</p>

<p>The Wikipedia entry says that Mississippi has the lowest income but
adds the "but" it also has the lowest costs. It does seem to be a
good place to locate auto manufacturing plants according to Nissan
and Toyota.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Well, most people in the world are stupid. Look at human history.
Is that something that could be written by smart people?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Perhaps that is due to demographics or immigration run wild. The illegal
immigration issue is an external factor. But the trend does go back and
forth - in New England.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>That will be wonderful for big pharma.</p>

155

<br>


<br>

<p>You keep changing the parameters of certain.</p>

<p>You can choose more than one place to live.</p>

<p>Success is defined differently for all of us.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>How's the ice fishing in LA and New York?</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Wrong. Strawman.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I've always said that there are multiple factors. You're the one
talking about binary choices.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>You were arguing that location is everything and that other factors
meant nothing. Career, career, career as you defined it. I'm just
being realistic.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>[There are more than 20,400 businesses located in the metropolitan
statistical area, with total employment approaching 375,000. The city
is home to five Fortune 500 companies: ConAgra, Peter Kiewit Sons,
Berkshire Hathaway, Union Pacific, and Mutual of Omaha. More than 30
other Fortune 500 companies have manufacturing plants in the
metropolitan area.</p>

<p>The headquarters of about 30 insurance companies call Omaha home. More
than half of the two dozen telemarketing/direct response/reservation
centers operating in Omaha also have their corporate headquarters
located in the metropolitan area. Many other large firms have their
headquarters in Omaha, including Lozier Corporation, First Data Corp,
ITI Marketing Services, Omaha Steaks International, Pamida, Oriental
Trading Company, Valmont Industries, Inc., and Godfather's Pizza, Inc.</p>

<p>The Omaha economy is well diversified, with no industry sector
accounting for more than a third of total employment. Omaha's highest
concentration of employment is in trade, transportation, and utilities
with strong showings in education and health services as well as
professional and business services. This is offset by a relatively
smaller share of total employment in the manufacturing, construction
and mining, and information sectors.]</p>

<p>Omaha doesn't sound like a bad place to live. The thing that would
bother me the most is the tornadoes. We had one weather system chase
us from Kansas City to Omaha many years ago.</p>

<p>The point, though is that you can look for a job from Omaha. Your
resulting job doesn't have to be in Omaha. At the moment, your odds of
finding employment may be greater on Omaha. Their unemployment rate
for June is 3.0 to 3.9 while the unemployment rate for California is
above 10% according to the BLS. That puts it right up there with
Mississippi. The lowest enemployment rate in the country is in North
Dakota between 0 and 2.9.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Only if you bet.</p>

<p>One of the wealth pieces that I read several years ago is that the
wealthy invest differently. They don't have to earn a return on their
investments. Others have to to pay for things that they want in life
down the road. The wealthy already have that covered and can accept
subpar returns. Of course as we found out last year, irrationality
does eventually come to bite you. Hard.</p>

<p>For those that bought ordinary houses at two, three, four and five
times what incomes can support, the market turning rational is a hard
lesson. With stocks, you can just hit the sell at market button. With
houses, it is a little harder.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>You can look where the jobs are. You can look where the jobs will be.
You can make your own job. You don't have to do anything. You can even
go back to school.</p>

<p>You could move to California and look for a job and then find something
that opens up in Omaha or Florida or Idaho. Then you get to move again.
Or you could stay where you are and look and find that job in Omaha,
Florida or Idaho and then move.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>You can look but there is no requirement that you live there to look.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>No, we didn't. We have older workers in the organization and older
workers usually prefer stability over income potential. Startups do
blow up. All the time. Older workers usually don't like to shop around
for jobs frequently as they have other commitments that work better
with job stability.</p>

<p>I'm one of the workers that comes in everyday. The new hires usually
come in everyday but that's expected. Other workers come in four days
a week, one day every two weeks, or the spend half the year elsewhere
and the other half in this area - and still come in once every two
weeks. Others work half a day to deal with childcare responsibilities.
My previous manager was located in the UK. She came to see us four times
a year but did everything else over the phone or through email. We were
all located in the US. We have workers in other countries of course.</p>

<p>I've worked projects with other employees in multiple timezones in the
US and in India. In previous jobs, I've worked with employees across the
US, in Australia, New Zealand, all over Western Europe, Canada, Israel,
South Africa, Central and South America. We have many employees from
India, Taiwan, South Korea, etc. When they go home, they typically take
a laptop with them so that they can work remotely. That's the nature of
vacations today - you check your email and deal with priority issues,
even during vacation.</p>

<p>We have been replacing lost workers.</p>

<p>I don't work in an HQ building. Just a satellite. It's a fairly big
satellite but it is still a satellite.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>A few companies in my area have gotten rid of their office - employees
now work out of their homes. The company pays for telecommunication
costs, and home equipment. This is on a large-scale. There are many
employees that report that they get more done working at home. There
are certainly long times in projects where you do heads-down work and
where interruptions are costly.</p>

<p>I live fairly close to work so it doesn't really matter. If the weather
is bad, I just work from home. So does everyone else. When gasoline went
to four bucks, people worked more from home (lots of SUVs, Minivans and
Trucks in our parking lot).</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Conceding? I never said that some jobs don't require physical
proximity. I would think that to be ovious. If you need to screw on
nuts and bolts or inspect or repair equipment, you have to be
there. We don't have remote control robots to do that yet.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I see. So now you conced that there isn't only one locale and that
they can form in other areas. That sounds consistent with my view.
But you don't even need a locale. You can certainly start your own
I guess. Or work in a place where there isn't one or where one is
only starting.</p>

<p>My sister is a nurse. She can work anywhere she wants to. He's working
at a computer tech job and spends a lot of time working with people in
asia now. He doesn't have a degree and that has shut him out of a lot
of jobs and it has reduced his options in an otherwise difficult job
market.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>The auto industry is an interesting example of labor moving to other
locales because of costs. Detroit has been shrinking while foreign
automakers have been moving into other parts of the country to produce
automobiles. Unions are a factor too as is safety. I would think that
a lot of Toyota workers wouldn't want to work in Detroit for fear of
retribution from workers at domestic carmakers. We have BMW and
Mercedes with plants in the Southeast too.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>We're fortunately seeing more interest away from IB jobs from students
in the CC forums. One of my sisters did work for many, many years in
M&A in San Francisco. The company closed because they can't generate
enough business. They did great for quite some time. I guess that's
creative destruction.</p>

156

<br>

<br>

<p>Have a look at the internships, careers and employment forum.</p>

<p>It’s interesting that your suggesting to move to a locale to look for
a job is rarely suggested when there are questions about how to find a
job or internship.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>I can rely on telework technologies. Many other professions can too.
There are lots of professions that can’t. At least not yet.</p>

<p>One thing that I do notice on Hulu is that there are more and more
animated shows coming online. I personally do not like to watch these
shows but I’m an older person. These types of shows seem quite popular
with younger viewers and maybe that’s where the future is. If networks
could replace expensive actors, they would. Our technology is nowhere
near that but we get closer on a regular basis.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>It depends on where you are. Nursing and community policing aren’t
going virtual anytime soon. There are lots of jobs where it does
work. If there weren’t, then India and China wouldn’t be such a
threat.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>A brilliant person can save you massive amounts of time and labor.
The person with the right knowledge and skills can do the work in
one week that could take someone else one, two or five years to do.
If you want to get your project done on time, you hire that guy and
deal with the social issues later on.</p>

<br>

<br>

<p>Hiring the brilliant jerk is orthogonal to the way in which he is
hired.</p>

157

<br>

<br>

<p>I have way more technology than you have spam.</p>

158

<p>My God, I’m done with this. The whole argument going on here is just stupid. These posts have turned into short stories. Bottom line, who cares? You can do whatever you want.</p>

159

<p>Since when was there a character limit on posts? As long as everything relates to the matter at hand, why does it matter if its long or short?</p>

160

<p>

</p>

<p>Because some people don’t want to have to read article-like posts when they could just as well be said in a few sentences. Everyone on here is trying to act so intelligent by adding so many unnecessary words.</p>