Agreed. Non-competes always seemed incongruous to the tech/startup zeitgeist of the last 10-15 years. But just by walking around in Boston, one can simply look at the architecture and infer it’s a parochial, old school little city. Power struggles abound, and corporations tend to dominate there.
Increasingly I have come to believe that managers learned to represent their tech companies as “startups” in order to justify disorganization and less than stellar salaries.
Exactly, while the legislature let EMC "lobby away" the attempts to meaningfully reform non-competes, Gov. Healy wonders why the AI lead has slipped from the state and is now forming an AI "task force":
“Boston, in general, was one of the leading spots for AI,” said task force member Usama Fayyad, who is Executive Director of the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University. “For I would say a couple of decades, in the very beginnings of artificial intelligence.”
“The governor was saying, ‘Hey, why have we let this lead slip away from our state and how do we bring it back in a big way?’ I think the state is going to identify areas of strength where we can have distinction,” he said.
Boston/Mass has let every tech "lead" for the last 60 years "slip away," so why would AI be any different?
Boston has never actually had a lead, but it has had the opportunity to be competitive, especially when MIT was significantly better than Stanford, but every time things have played out the same way.
And yes, there have been task forces and various govt programs and all that before. They all say and do the same things and get the same results, namely re-elected and annoyed when someone points out that they've moved on to ranting about other things, having done nothing to stop yet another tech from playing out elsewhere.
Indeed. Sports involve risk, and competition is about learning to navigate those risks. This implies a right to self-destruction. Without this sports are void of courage and competence, and their value is greatly diminished.
“If it were not so frightening it would be amusing to observe the pride and complacency with which we, like children, take apart the watch, pull out the spring and make a toy of it, and are then surprised when the watch stops working.”
I was in a nearly identical situation to yours about 10 years ago.
At the end of undergrad finance/economics studies I recognized I needed more technical expertise, so I went to a grad program and learned as much as I could about econometrics. I thought this would eventually position me as a consultant/data scientist.
As I studied, I realized programming was my favorite part of the work.
I used these skills in a few different roles. A couple years later a friend/mentor suggested that I just consider becoming a software engineer.
I never pictured myself in a pure tech role. It worked out better than I would have guessed.
My suggestion is that an engineering role is not as far away as you imagine. You have time to make a career in it, so you should reflect on if you’d enjoy it.
Increasingly I have come to believe that managers learned to represent their tech companies as “startups” in order to justify disorganization and less than stellar salaries.