"Coding boot camps promise to launch tech careers" by Terence Chea | Associated Press, April 14, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO — He quit his job and spent his savings to enroll at Dev Bootcamp, a new San Francisco school that teaches students how to write software in nine weeks. The $11,000 gamble paid off:
Dev Bootcamp, which calls itself an ‘‘apprenticeship on steroids,’’ is one of a new breed of computer-programming school that’s proliferating in San Francisco and other US tech hubs. These ‘‘hacker boot camps’’ promise to teach students how to write code in two or three months and help them get hired as Web developers, with starting salaries between $80,000 and $100,000, often within days or weeks of graduation.
Are you crapping me?
Of course, this was all before Snowden, so.... world now knows the AmeriKan government is the greatest hacker of all.
These intensive training programs are not cheap — charging $10,000 to $15,000 for programs running nine to 12 weeks — and they’re highly selective, typically only admitting 10 to 20 percent of applicants.
Well, what do you expect when it's an intelligence agency recruitment drive to become a hacker?
And they’re called boot camps for a reason. Students can expect to work 80 to 100 hours a week, mostly writing code in teams under the guidance of experienced software developers....
Ten-hut at the terminal!
One San Francisco school called App Academy doesn’t charge tuition. Instead, it asks for a 15 percent cut of the student’s first-year salary. Graduates who can’t find jobs don’t have to pay, but so far nearly all of them have....
Over the past year, more than two dozen computer-coding schools have opened or started recruiting students in cities such as New York, Chicago, Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Mass. The programs are attracting students from a wide range of backgrounds, from college dropouts to middle-aged career changers. Most students haven’t formally studied computer science, but have tried to learn to code on their own.
Alyssa Ravasio, who graduated from UCLA with a liberal arts degree in 2010, worked at tech start-ups but was frustrated because she didn’t know how to write software, so she signed up for Dev Bootcamp....
Yeah, what a waste was that degree.
--more--"
Related: State Street launches UMass career program
Classes fill skill gaps on Wall Street
They want automatons to type in their trades. What a $ati$fying career that mu$t be.
Now start blowing:
"No one is calling it a return to boom times, but the state’s economy grew modestly in the final three months of 2012, even as the US economy unexpectedly contracted slightly, the University of Massachusetts reported Wednesday. The contrast offered further evidence the state is rebounding from the recession at a more robust pace than the nation as a whole, largely on the strength of its technology industries."
Oh, I'm just so tired of the corporate pre$$ and their $hit $pin. I'm $orry.
"Angel investors flood the tech start-up scene; On the prowl for ‘the next big thing’" by Michael B. Farrell | Globe Staff, March 17, 2013
Angel investors and their ranks in Boston are swelling fast as the tech economy goes deep into another boom cycle....
We need to get rid of boom-and-bust that seems to bring wealth to no one but the elite. That's not a good economic model.
Of course, the fawning press is refering to inve$tors as God-like, so get yer waders on.
Typically, angel investors put up anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 to back a young start-up, and can fund as many as 10 companies at any given time....
Angel investors have long been part of the tech ecosystem.
It'$ alive!
Usually they are successful entrepreneurs themselves, who after making a big score selling their own company, become a grey eminence to the next generation of tech whizzes, doling out money and business wisdom in equal parts.
Now though, as their numbers around Boston multiply, many of the newest angel investors are neophytes when it comes to technology’s undiscovered possibilities. But they bring their own form of experience and acumen to a start-up, as well as the equally crucial ingredients of money and a willingness to bankroll the bleeding edge of the business world.
While hard to quantify on a broad basis, angel investors have indisputably become integral players in the local tech economy, seeding many of the one-, two- and four-person start-ups that are crowding the many innovation centers that provide shared-working spaces to newly born companies.
The small companies that are going to get hammered by Obamacare and the new state tax for transportation?
“The level of start-up activity and the level of angel investing is incredibly good for the economy,” said Harvard Business School professor William Sahlman, who specializes in entrepreneurial investment and advises angel investors. “The economy needs a certain amount of risk-taking behavior.”
We need bankers, we need Wall Street!!
Indeed, the Massachusetts Tech Collaborative, a quasi-state agency that publishes an annual report on the local tech economy, considers angel investors such a distinct force that recently it created a separate category to measure their impact....
Heaven $ent, huh?
While a venture capitalist will fund some very young companies, write much bigger checks, and typically have more business acumen than angels, their involvement can often come at a price for start-ups: a larger ownership stake, more control, and hands-on management....
See: VenCap Vroom-Vroom
Well, know you know why your 401k has remained flat even as the market has zoomed, I don't care what the Globe tells you, and why tuition has skyrocketed all these years.
Technically, anyone with enough money can become an angel investor. But most angel groups require their members to be “accredited investors,” which the US Securities and Exchange commission defines as someone with a net worth larger than $1 million — not counting the value of their home — or an annual income of more than $200,000.....
Oh, I'm not an angel, not even clo$e. More like a demon I suppose, boo-hoo-hoo!
But to some veterans of the tech world, the surge in angels has all the hallmarks of an investment bubble — of too many inexperienced investors chasing too many speculative ideas — and will end with huge losses for many.
“Way more companies are getting funded than should get funded,” said a Jim Moran, a partner at the Waltham firm North Bridge Venture Partners, and himself a former angel investor and tech entrepreneur.
“There’s a bit of a pileup of companies that were funded with $1.5 million and don’t have a lot to show for what they’ve built. Angels make a financial decision, but they make an emotional decision, too — they want to feed their own desires, and they may like the entrepreneur,” Moran said....
That's always the way as they "burn through" cash. It's money-junkieism.
Cash-outs contribute to a virtuous circle that propels the local economy onward.
It i$ worthy of wor$hip so let's all bow down on a Sunday.
Executives of successful tech firms are themselves becoming angel investors in greater numbers, seeding the ground for more even start-ups, said Pamela Goldberg, chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Tech Collaborative.
That type of activity is seeding the ground for more even start-ups, she said. “The more vibrant our start-up community is, the more vibrant our state’s economy will be,” said Goldberg. “We can’t have start-ups without angel investors.”
Never mind that bubble behind her.
*******************************
Most start-ups do fail, though more angel investors tend to lose money than venture capitalists. Still there is the occasional success story....
For example....
Do I really have to type anything?
--more--"
"Energy entrepreneurs scaling back ambitions" by Scott Kirsner | Globe Correspondent, March 10, 2013
Welcome to the new world of energy entrepreneurship in Massachusetts. Entrepreneurs are gravitating to what you might call “low-hanging fruit”: opportunities to improve the way existing systems work, without raising zillions of dollars from venture capitalists or the federal government.
Must mean more oil, gas, coal, so forget all the fart mist about global warming.
And that makes sense, after a short stretch in which three Massachusetts companies — A123 Systems, Beacon Power, and Konarka Technologies — went bankrupt after scarfing up hundreds of millions of dollars from private investors and the Department of Energy. All three set up their own production facilities and bet on major industry shifts, like battery-powered vehicles quickly finding spots in driveways....
I just don't like the government betting with my tax dollar, I'm sorry.
Related: Powering Up This Post About China
Solar $hortout$
Obama Stimulus Giveaway to Corporations
What isn't down there?
“Huge, crazy projects just aren’t getting funded anymore.”
Good. What that tells you is they had so much money at their disposal they don't know what to do with it all, while you suffer declining conditions and the lash of austerity, dear fellow American of all types.
*********************
Udi Meirav’s last start-up, Luminus Devices, raised more than $120 million and built two production facilities to crank out a new kind of light-emitting diode. Now, he’s developing a new approach to making industrial air conditioning systems more efficient — and, so far, he’s doing it with about $1 million.
With eight employees in Massachusetts and Israel, his start-up, EnVerid, is working on a system that can be attached to existing air conditioners to pull carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds from the air. That lets the air conditioner recirculate air that has already been cooled, rather than venting it out and pulling in fresh, warm air to then cool. The goal is to cut energy use by at least 20 percent. EnVerid has done some early testing in Israel and plans to continue that in Texas this spring....
Who would have ever thought Texas and Massachusetts would $omething in common, huh?
Related: MassChallenge adding Israel contest
The Money Pipeline From Massachusetts to Israel
That is where the tax loot is going, folks, and who is benefiting off tho$e agendas' huh?.
--more--"
Time to get clean:
"Clean-tech backers slow their approach to growth" by Erin Ailworth | Globe Staff, February 03, 2013
After receiving tens of millions in taxpayer dollars in 2009, Waltham battery maker A123 Systems Inc. ramped up quickly, ultimately increasing production much faster than the electric vehicle market grew. The result was bankruptcy and the purchase of A123’s assets by a Chinese company on Tuesday.
And then being moved there.
The next day, another alternative energy firm that won tens of millions in government support opened a pilot plant in Bedford. But this plant was completely financed by private investors, and the company, solar component maker 1366 Technologies, has agreed not to tap its $150 million in federal loans until it proves its technology can succeed.
Also see: 1366 Technologies opens $6m Bedford plant
This tale of two companies shows how the once high-flying alternative energy industry has come back to earth, no longer charging full-speed ahead, but rather advancing cautiously. Chastened by slower than expected returns and several notable bankruptcies, including A123 and California’s Solyndra LLC, investors and companies have adjusted strategies and expectations.
See: Obama's Ro$e-Colored $ungla$$e$
Solar Stimuloot Went to Goldman Sachs
Ever notice all the money some how ends up down there?
After flooding the sector with money a few years ago, investors have pulled back, targeting money toward less risky companies that have shown their technologies are closer to commercialization, said Brian Carey, a principal in the clean-tech practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The Big Four accounting firm estimates that overall investment in the nation’s clean tech industry fell nearly 30 percent last year, to $3.3 billion. Investment in solar companies fell nearly 60 percent.
“We sense that clean tech has not delivered on its promise,” said Fatima Toor, an analyst with Lux Research Inc. in Boston. “But there is a drive, there is a demand for it. Solar is a growing market, wind is a growing market. [So clean tech] is going to grow, but it’s not going to grow as fast as everybody hoped.”
The essential problem is it doesn't deliver the "bang for the buck" as it were. If you are to run an industrial or technological society the clean-tech sources simply won't give you enough reliable power. You need to have fossil fuel generators and power plants back it up while getting rid of nuclear. The answer is so clear, and yet no in in authority $ee$ it.
Government is also moving more cautiously. Several years ago, caught up in the promise of alternative energy, Massachusetts awarded Evergreen Solar more than $50 million in state support for a panel-making plant in Devens. Evergreen filed for bankruptcy in 2011.
Related: Evergreen Defaults
In contrast, the state has been much more modest in its support of 1366 Technologies, giving the company just $300,000 in 2010.
The award has strong repayment provisions in place if the company fails to meet expectations, said Richard K. Sullivan Jr., Massachusetts’ secretary of energy and environmental affairs.
“It’s very different from Evergreen,” Sullivan said. “It’s the type of strategic investment that I think is appropriate for the state to make to grow the industry, [and] I think it’s smartly placed and smartly protected.”
Such shifts are leading companies to accept slower, more deliberate paths to growth. At 1366 Technologies, chief executive Frank van Mierlo said he and chief technical officer Emanuel “Ely” Sachs have purposely grown the company at a slow pace, cognizant that they’re working in a “very risky” field with lots of competitors.
That’s why they’ve begun with a modest $6 million pilot plant, rather than immediately using the federal loans to grow more aggressively.
Peter Rothstein, president of the New England Clean Energy Council, a trade group, said this kind of approach reflects an industry that is maturing, one that is positioning itself for long-term growth.
“Everyone hopes that this is not going from a boom to a bust, but from a boom to a maturation — a transition to a more steady, careful building process,” Rothstein said.
But for clean technology to grow and prosper in the United States, many supporters say, Americans need to become more tolerant of failure in what is still an emerging industry.
Translation: we have to let our hard-earned tax loot be to$$ed away to favored $pecial intere$ts.
I mean, it's a golden age for corporate profits and the banks are doing better than they ever have, yet the economy sucks even with the Fed on the job.
Without that tolerance, the sector will find it difficult to take the risks needed innovate quickly enough to stay competitive.
“We’ll see winners and losers, it’s unavoidable,” said Gil Forer, the global clean tech leader at Ernst & Young, another Big Four accounting firm. “That’s the evolution of an industry. Some companies will succeed, others will not.”
But banks get bailed out.
Despite the perception by some that clean technology is a bad bet, Forer added, “On every failure you mention, I can bring at least one success story.”
Yeah, the occasional one.
The Department of Energy says that it awarded grants and loans to more than 1,300 companies using stimulus funds, and only 1 percent of those firms failed.
I'm supposed to believe that?
Related: "While many industries are doing more with fewer workers, more than half a million new manufacturing jobs have been added in just the past few years."
I'm supposed to believe that?
Despite his own cautious approach, van Mierlo of 1366 Technologies said he believes that more should be done on a national level — through policies, market incentives, and financing — to push the country’s clean energy industry forward rapidly. In many ways, van Mierlo said, it was the country’s inability to implement a national energy policy, even as China and other countries accelerated their own initiatives, that slowed clean tech’s early momentum.
Yeah, well, China's now suffering a banking crisis because of the mass production of the things, so....
“The reason we [as a nation] got into trouble was not because we made too many investments too fast. It was because our competitors over the Pacific did it 10 times over,” van Mierlo said. “There are times that you’ve got to run as fast as you can and being prudent will just slow you down.”
--more--"
At least they are providing good-paying jobs for Americans:
"Tech hiring is tough on veteran workers; Keeping up with the latest gets ever-harder" by Katie Johnston, Globe Staff / September 18, 2011
Even as some firms decry a looming labor shortage in the industry, many educated, experienced, and technically savvy workers are finding themselves shut out of the latest tech boom....
Related: Sunday Globe Special: H1-B Hijacking
And if the House passes the work visas as a separate piece that will mean even more replacements.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: H1-B Hijacking
And if the House passes the work visas as a separate piece that will mean even more replacements.
Such workers represent a dark side of tech, an industry in which skills and people can quickly become obsolete and some companies, believing high unemployment will give them the pick of ready-to-produce workers, don’t provide training....
Or TOO EXPEN$IVE!
Or TOO EXPEN$IVE!
It is a particular problem for older workers, many of whom have worked for the same company and with the same technology for years, and may not have kept up with mobile applications, web development, and cutting-edge programming languages....
And who tend to MAKE MORE MONEY and HAVE ACCRUED BENEFITS!
And who tend to MAKE MORE MONEY and HAVE ACCRUED BENEFITS!
Some unemployed tech workers have nearly given up hope that their skills will ever be relevant again.
There is a whole world out there just like them.
There is a whole world out there just like them.
In the 1990s, Jon Baker made well over $100,000 a year as a technical writer, documenting user instructions for software, computers, and high-end printers, and fielding a constant stream of offers for new projects.
Today, unemployed for two and a half years, Baker, 62, of Sudbury, spends his days looking for jobs, networking with other unemployed tech workers, and creating coffee table books out of family photos.
The Globe once said looking for a job is a job!
The Globe once said looking for a job is a job!
With people getting product information by reading online postings by users and figuring out devices intuitively, companies are providing fewer instruction manuals, he said. On top of that, some technical writing jobs have been shipped overseas.
Say what?
And this has decimated the profession. When Baker was a board member of the Society for Technical Communication about a decade ago, there were about 24,000 members worldwide; today, there are fewer than 7,000.
Say what?
And this has decimated the profession. When Baker was a board member of the Society for Technical Communication about a decade ago, there were about 24,000 members worldwide; today, there are fewer than 7,000.
“The profession has pretty much collapsed as far as I can tell, and I don’t see a lot of reason for it coming back,’’ said Baker, who has looked into becoming a business analyst or project manager. “I may be at the point of being left behind.’’
--more--"
I'm wondering if the work visa brochure mentioned this:
"Class action denied in tech workers’ lawsuit" Associated Press, April 07, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Friday struck down an effort to form a class action lawsuit to go after Apple, Google, and five other technology companies for allegedly forming an illegal cartel to tamp down workers’ wages and prevent the loss of their best engineers during a multiyear conspiracy broken up by government regulators.
US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., issued a ruling Friday concluding that the companies’ alleged collusion may have affected workers in too many different ways to justify lumping the individual claims together. She denied the request to certify workers’ lawsuits as a class action and collectively seek damages on behalf of tens of thousands of employees.
The allegations will be more difficult to pursue if they can’t be united in a single lawsuit. Koh, though, will allow the workers’ lawyers to submit additional evidence that they have been collecting to persuade her that the lawsuit still merits class certification.
Apple Inc., Google Inc., and the other companies targeted in the lawsuit have been vigorously fighting the allegations.
More is at stake than potentially paying out significant damages to more than 100,000 workers. If the lawsuit proceeds, it could also expose secret discussions among prominent technology executives who entered into a ‘‘gentlemen’s agreement’’ not to poach employees working at their respective companies.
It's called collusion, and maybe the government regulators could give the NSA a call?
Really no need for secrets here, is there?
--more--"
Also see:
"State legislators launch tech industry caucus" by Hiawatha Bray | Globe Staff, March 01, 2013
Despite being a dominant sector in the Massachusetts economy, the high-tech community does not have its own dedicated constituency in the Legislature.
What, the lobbyists not enough?
Soon, though, there will be a Tech Hub Caucus of Massachusetts legislators, thanks to Democratic Senator Karen Spilka of Ashland, who announced the new group at a conference Thursday at the State House. Spilka said the caucus will focus on providing more support for this crucial sector of the Massachusetts economy.
“We need to educate both sides,” Spilka said. “The legislators, to get a better understanding of the sector and its needs, and we also have to work with the private sector to show them that we want to be a partner.”
The event was attended by executives from technology companies and featured demonstrations of locally developed products by companies such asiRobot Corp., of Bedford.
The event was sponsored by several technology industry associations, including the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange , and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
Gregory Bialecki, the state’s secretary of Housing and Economic Development, said that despite being a pillar of the economy, the technology sector is “somehow viewed as the fun new kids on the block.”
Bialecki said the formation of the Tech Hub Caucus showed that “the tech sector is finally getting closer to getting the recognition that it deserves, in terms of state government and state policy.”
Patrick Larkin, director of the Innovation Institute at the technology collaborative, said state government could do much more to assist the growth of technology companies. For example, government agencies could purchase products from start-up firms.
“That is a tremendous boost,” Larkin said. “Being their first customer, a technology company will tell you that’s huge. That’s everything.”
Spilka said she had no idea why the Legislature had never before established a technology caucus, even though Massachusetts has been a center of electronic and medical technology for decades.
“It’s something that’s really needed,” Spilka said, because lawmakers and technology business leaders should start talking to one another....
I thought they already did through lobbyi$ts, but....
--more--"
Related:
"IBM Corp.’s first-quarter net income and revenue fell due to delays in closing several large software and mainframe computer deals. It earned $3.03 billion"
That's over a billion a month.
Also see:
"Samsung said it expected to post an operating profit of $8.3 billion for the second quarter of the year, a 47 percent increase from a year earlier."
If the tech market is saturated and no one is buying, bubble about to burst. Been here before.
I'm wondering if the work visa brochure mentioned this:
"Class action denied in tech workers’ lawsuit" Associated Press, April 07, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Friday struck down an effort to form a class action lawsuit to go after Apple, Google, and five other technology companies for allegedly forming an illegal cartel to tamp down workers’ wages and prevent the loss of their best engineers during a multiyear conspiracy broken up by government regulators.
US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., issued a ruling Friday concluding that the companies’ alleged collusion may have affected workers in too many different ways to justify lumping the individual claims together. She denied the request to certify workers’ lawsuits as a class action and collectively seek damages on behalf of tens of thousands of employees.
The allegations will be more difficult to pursue if they can’t be united in a single lawsuit. Koh, though, will allow the workers’ lawyers to submit additional evidence that they have been collecting to persuade her that the lawsuit still merits class certification.
Apple Inc., Google Inc., and the other companies targeted in the lawsuit have been vigorously fighting the allegations.
More is at stake than potentially paying out significant damages to more than 100,000 workers. If the lawsuit proceeds, it could also expose secret discussions among prominent technology executives who entered into a ‘‘gentlemen’s agreement’’ not to poach employees working at their respective companies.
It's called collusion, and maybe the government regulators could give the NSA a call?
Really no need for secrets here, is there?
--more--"
Also see:
"State legislators launch tech industry caucus" by Hiawatha Bray | Globe Staff, March 01, 2013
Despite being a dominant sector in the Massachusetts economy, the high-tech community does not have its own dedicated constituency in the Legislature.
What, the lobbyists not enough?
Soon, though, there will be a Tech Hub Caucus of Massachusetts legislators, thanks to Democratic Senator Karen Spilka of Ashland, who announced the new group at a conference Thursday at the State House. Spilka said the caucus will focus on providing more support for this crucial sector of the Massachusetts economy.
“We need to educate both sides,” Spilka said. “The legislators, to get a better understanding of the sector and its needs, and we also have to work with the private sector to show them that we want to be a partner.”
The event was attended by executives from technology companies and featured demonstrations of locally developed products by companies such asiRobot Corp., of Bedford.
The event was sponsored by several technology industry associations, including the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange , and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
Gregory Bialecki, the state’s secretary of Housing and Economic Development, said that despite being a pillar of the economy, the technology sector is “somehow viewed as the fun new kids on the block.”
Bialecki said the formation of the Tech Hub Caucus showed that “the tech sector is finally getting closer to getting the recognition that it deserves, in terms of state government and state policy.”
Patrick Larkin, director of the Innovation Institute at the technology collaborative, said state government could do much more to assist the growth of technology companies. For example, government agencies could purchase products from start-up firms.
“That is a tremendous boost,” Larkin said. “Being their first customer, a technology company will tell you that’s huge. That’s everything.”
Spilka said she had no idea why the Legislature had never before established a technology caucus, even though Massachusetts has been a center of electronic and medical technology for decades.
“It’s something that’s really needed,” Spilka said, because lawmakers and technology business leaders should start talking to one another....
I thought they already did through lobbyi$ts, but....
--more--"
Related:
"IBM Corp.’s first-quarter net income and revenue fell due to delays in closing several large software and mainframe computer deals. It earned $3.03 billion"
That's over a billion a month.
Also see:
"Samsung said it expected to post an operating profit of $8.3 billion for the second quarter of the year, a 47 percent increase from a year earlier."
If the tech market is saturated and no one is buying, bubble about to burst. Been here before.
