At the peak of the dotcom boom of the early 2000s I had been hired above my skill set because recruiters were desperate to fill seats. I had a pulse and could code even a little so they hired me.

I was the senior web developer on an agency contract with a major corporation working on an ASP (pre ASP.NET) website. I had hired a temp to help me with the workload and one day, in exasperation at my spaghetti code and non-understanding of MVC concepts, he threw his hands in the air and exclaimed, "Do you even know what you're doing?!"

Not having the type of personality to give any subordinate a dressing down for insubordination, I just felt awkward. He was right, of course. I used that as impetus to study more and attend conferences. I'm still a below-average coder because my brain struggles with math and logic. A lot. But that definitely took me down a peg. All those recruiters treating me like I was hot snot on a silver platter when I was really just a cold booger on a paper plate.

My first job out of college I worked in the professional services of a dotcom. My company was a subcontractor to a major consultancy, so we worked alongside their engineers. There was one guy that only ever named his variables three letter initials of family members. If you tried changing the code he reverted them back. If that's not weird I don't know what is.

Yeah sure, the Metaverse will be bigger than the Internet.

I really believe that. Short of a system collapse, there's nothing which will stop some Web/VR/AR amalgam from eventually going mainstream. If anything, a prolonged pandemic will make humans hunger for more digital entertainment and socializing options.

Might take 5 years, or 25, but it will happen in some form. Eventually, people will even readily accept various augmentations to their bodies to further immerse themselves and connect to digital experiences.

BUT:

We're still pre-bubble.

Does no one remember the dotcom crash?

Facebook/Meta will become the new Yahoo, decimated to a sliver of its former glory. Million dollar hype NFTs will become the new $10 parked domain names. 99.99% of all current efforts and content will end up like a modern day Geocities Archive.

So yeah... when I read that my pension fund is considering "investing in metaverse technologies"...

...you fucking bet it's time to transfer to a different fund!

How I got started part 2:

Thanks for all of the +1. True story...

I want to say something to those who are new, or not confident, or think that they are not smart enough, or can't afford to learn.

Everything I learned in college, everything that I do in my job, every tool that I use, I can get online for free. It is up to you to aspire. I make 6 figures. Go get it!

I survived the dotcom bubble, September eleventh and the financial crisis of 2008. My passion for my profession gotten me through the tough times.

Read. Study multiple subjects besides tech (especially business and visual design). Be a jack of all trades and a master of some.

It's interesting how netscape was one among to start the dotcom bubble, and how the breakage of said bubble gave Douglas Crockford some time to read ECMA script standards, and really drove him to write the 'good parts' and JSLint. Which then lead millions of js frameworks to bloom; then node, react, now flutter; and what not!

Time travellers should be really careful not to step on that netscape fly!

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