I think your wife is right. I have a tesla and I always think about that indicating something. Also Tesla's are so ubiquitous it doesn't matter that much like it used to be, and you can get a used one for pretty cheap. But that rich guy reputation still persists.
And then now that we have Elon Musk following the Howard Hughes self destructive cycle (greatest video game player AND ceo of 5 companies who posts all day on social media), there's a very possible negative takeaway - especially in tech it's hard to know. I live in a ridiculous world, I actually see 'got mine before elon was a doofus' bumper stickers. We should all try to judge each other on actual behavior and choices. I'm an asshole completely separate from buying a tesla a decade ago, people.
I live in a California 'burb and with all the tax credits, you really do see Teslas everywhere. You could be driving through a run down neighborhood and you could still see a Tesla around.
I'm not quite understanding the point you're trying to make about the bumper stickers though. I think Elon's actual behavior and choices are what causing people to have these bumper stickers.
Henry Ford was a real piece of work for a good while. I'm not sure how much it would have affected his sales--not that he was selling to the upper end of the market.
And also, the customer has the money and gets to make a choice. Sure, supply and demand is a real thing. But there is also a notion of friction blocking the sale. Everyone absolutely hates considering a new purchase that doesn't give you clarity on details and price.
So that CTO says I'm probably not going to bother with you if you don't have a clear price. I also practice this purchasing way. Everyone should. So sure, someone in sales will fight to the death to justify their strategy of obfuscation and charging what the market will bear, and to try to justify their presence in the sales process with some kind of commission and argument about how they caused pain for the buyers and got more money. Meanwhile, company B sold me a widget for whatever, I already paid them, there was no salesperson wasting time on either side.
As a corporate executive, buying things for good prices is a substantial part of your job. You're not some grandma looking for a movie to watch who will bail if she can't figure out how much it costs. Sure, you can refuse to buy things altogether, but it won't be very good for your company - these kinds of companies seem to have been broadly outcompeted by ones that do buy things.
Sure, but as a corporate executive you also have a limited amount of time. If you invest all of your time on inefficient sales processes then you may only get to consider one or two or three providers. If instead you eliminate the ones that have bad signs (like heavy price obfuscation) you can instead focus on the vendors that don't do those things. In the end you might not get the best product and/or the best price, but the same is also true if you waste all your time jumping through sales hoops and aren't able to examine more players.
If jumping the hoops guaranteed the best price, then I would agree with you, but I would vehemently disagree that it does.
It still sounds like they are spouting bullshit. Their credentials lower my respect, they seem like the kind of things that impress an idiot "thought leader in ai".
Where is the place that mid level software engineers think there are not good career prospects and they'd get paid more? I can only guess it's a place where there aren't many dev jobs. My experience is in the Seattle area and we are begging for people to even apply for jobs. There are 10,000 jobs easily in Seattle. My company would love to grow its dev force 50% and we can only get people by hiring them away from another company (perhaps an obvious comment :-)), and by hiring new college grads.
If your job is working you too hard, with not enough pay, then people here get another job. It seems harder to high people with some experience at my company anyway. New college grads make 120k+ at top companies (we are a startup but not a unicorn, we pay a little more than that).
Pardon the question: What skills are you looking for that define "mid level software engineer"? I'm a long-time engineer at a single company. I've been more and more tempted to strike out elsewhere as I feel like there is nowhere else for me to move into position/pay wise where I am. I need help to determine how to frame the skill level that I have and/or where to focus on so that I can claim/apply with a certain level of skill.
Title placement is often just a rough estimate based on years of experience. If you've been at a single company for a while, the usual advice is to break your time up into roles/projects on your resume.
But that's a clearly inaccurate view. The cars work, very well. They have sold mass numbers, in opposition to car dealers, conservative oil and gas industry opposition, the automotive industry. They have little maintenance (far less than regular cars). They seem pretty safe overall. I've owned a number of high quality cars, such as an audi s4, and my tesla since 2012 (7 years ago they had all this stuff!) has worked well. These cars are made and driven by humans, so there will be some mechanical problems, people with crash them occasionally, they are filled with energy and can catch on fire occasionally.
Your example illustrates to me why moral hazard isn't the best title for this. We should provide free housing to people in need so they don't do things like commit a crime to go to jail.
The US isn't in the same league. We have independent and trustworthy federal police (the fbi). They are under attack by the president but they are more trustworthy than I ever realized in general. I don't see political investigations of opponents of the govt, like happens commonly in China. I don't see endemic corruption.
^ I totally agree with your take, but I think it's worth noting that we really could lose these things. I'm hopeful the current administration is an aberration and we'll return to some degree of normalcy in the future, regardless of which party is in power. But if we don't, institutions like the FBI will eventually erode as well.
And then now that we have Elon Musk following the Howard Hughes self destructive cycle (greatest video game player AND ceo of 5 companies who posts all day on social media), there's a very possible negative takeaway - especially in tech it's hard to know. I live in a ridiculous world, I actually see 'got mine before elon was a doofus' bumper stickers. We should all try to judge each other on actual behavior and choices. I'm an asshole completely separate from buying a tesla a decade ago, people.