What happens to tech workers when their skills become obsolete?

Re:What happens to tech workers when their skills become obs... by austenallred on Thursday September 12, 2019 @03:04AM (#20948769)

> Actually, I have a wild fantasy. I build a startup like Lambda School but it is not supervised. So I give money to motivated students. This money cover their living cost for 2 or 3 years, internet, and a decent laptop. They have to spend 10 hours per day, 6 days per week to learn CS. After finishing the study, they can repay back my money with some interest (capped to a number) only if they find a proper job.

That was exactly the notion of modern labor, in Y Combinator last year. It lasted six months until it learned that teaching yourself CS is much more difficult than it sounds, almost everyone had given up, then they pivoted.

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Re:What happens to tech workers when their skills become obs... by yorwba on Thursday September 12, 2019 @06:44AM (#20949970)

Modern Labor in March 2019: "We Pay You to Learn to Code. Modern Labor is a revolutionary platform that pays you $2000 per month for 5 months to learn in-demand tech skills and then finds you your new job." http://web.archive.org/web/20190320144627/https://modernlabo...

Modern Labor in April 2019: "We Grow Tech Talent. Modern Labor is a revolutionary platform that grows talent for technical roles at your company." http://web.archive.org/web/20190412130518/https://modernlabo...

Modern Labor in May 2019: "Hire Tech Talent On-Demand. Modern Labor is a highly-selective talent network of US-based tech professionals to help you build tech teams when you need them." http://web.archive.org/web/20190501133947/https://modernlabo...

Modern Labor in August 2019: "Hire technical talent fast. Modern Labor partners with companies to help them find and hire technical talent quickly and easily." http://web.archive.org/web/20190831055322/https://modernlabo...

Fascinating to watch their transition from revolutionary platform to ordinary recruiting agency.

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Re:What happens to tech workers when their skills become obs... by j45 on Thursday September 12, 2019 @09:45AM (#20951366)

Revolution and disruption is sometimes needs more than words, evolution or fitting in. Increasingly it looks like finding small new interactions that can repeat and spread.

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Re:What happens to tech workers when their skills become obs... by langitbiru on Thursday September 12, 2019 @12:12PM (#20953190)

You grounded my fantasy. :(

I thought self-learning CS can be a good way to democratize wealth. You only need a laptop (even Chromebook is fine), internet connection, self-determination, raw intelligence and living cost covered to be able to master CS. But apparently most people are not able to do that. Maybe less than 1% of population can do this kind of thing. Or maybe not.

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Re:What happens to tech workers when their skills become obs... by austenallred on Thursday September 12, 2019 @12:22PM (#20953327)

Maybe they did something wrong and it's still possible. Hard to say. The difficult piece to solve is how to get people to power through when they're frustrated and confused. That probably takes more than money.

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