Iyow - in your own words

Does experience pay off? Or is it just scarring? I guess that’s one of those questions that depends on whether you ever get another chance at achieving your goals. Maybe it’s just a question of nerve.

A web videographer I met a few weeks ago who had worked in the Bay Area through the boom-bust sounded decidedly optimistic. He thought that this was the perfect position to be in, to be a bit battle-hardened, but well-situated in the middle of SF. It’s a well-worn cliché both in and out of the Valley that “we are an engine of economic growth.” Though it’s exhausting (and self-absorbed) to walk around thinking that.

If you stuck around somewhere long past your sell-by date, what next?

Sigh, I hate these stereotypes of young-dot-commers happily skimming the cream off of dubious tech savvy. Now Coming Soon! To a theater near you! Web 2.0!!

SFGate really should’ve known better – the amount of ad revenue cited by one of their interviewees ($450/mo.) really doesn’t go that far in SF. And these little niches of income do not a down payment or retirement plan make.

It has not been a free ride for those of us on the work end of the stick. As a close friend said after the first bust, “I rode the tail-end of the dot-com wave, and all I have to show for it are 57 t-shirts and a severe case of burn-out.” As another friend said with a shiver as we discussed the oncoming whatever-it-is over dinner, “I’m scared.”