I tend to write a lot about career related topics since it's an area I've always been interested in and I've focused on in my own travels. I think that you want to manage your career actively, work on it, and try to move forward in whatever way best fits your life. That's different for each of us and I hope that as you work as a DBA, developer, manager, or anything else, that you think about what you want out of your career and take steps to move in that direction.
A decade ago the Internet was really starting to take off for business and many people were moving to California, Seattle, or a few other high tech places looking to join a startup company, build something amazing, get rich in a sale or IPO, and retire to teach high school, sail around the world on a boat or something else. This was just after the early 90s philosophy of many programmers to build something Microsoft wanted and sell to them.
The economy and technology have definitely cooled off. I don't see millions of dollars being thrown at every silly idea out there and thankfully I was never a part of any of them. But I did travel west, moving from Virginia to Colorado to work in a startup and hoping that they'd be successful and get bought. It didn't work out at that company, nor at the next one I tried, but I did move on to start SQLServerCentral, so things worked out well for me.
It seems that according to this article, those dreams are now just dreams for most people in Silicon Valley and other tech meccas around the world. With the economy cooling off and issues in the financial markets, there isn't a great chance that your company will make you rich overnight. Instead many companies are struggling just to find funding, which is a good thing, in my mind. Employees heading off to their jobs in startups need to focus on building a solid business and generating profits.
Something they should have been doing all along.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.mevio.com to get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.
or now on iTunes!
- Windows Media Podcast - 7.0MB WMV
- iPod Video Podcast - MB MP4
- MP3 Audio Podcast - 4.5MB
Today's podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.
I really appreciate and value feedback on the podcasts. Let us know what you like, don't like, or even send in ideas for the show. If you'd like to comment, post something here. The boss will be sure to read it.
