In which I acquiesce to the siren song of capitalism

OK, I suppose some disclosure is in order. I recently accepted the offer of a software development position at Google.

Provided I defend as planned this summer (hardly a foregone conclusion, but my advisor seems to believe in me), this fall I'll be ending my career in academia and moving to the Bay Area.

At this point it is worth noting that if I were smarter, more talented, more focused, or simply hungrier, I would probably have done as most other recent Ph.D.'s from my research group have done, and obtained an academic job, or at least joined a research lab. I'm reminded of the time I chewed out Jonah Goldberg for implying that liberals become academics because they can't get jobs in the private sector. In computer science, the opposite's closer to the truth. (Well, I did have one academic job offer, but for various reasons I turned it down. I also turned down a few interviews, mostly because I'd concluded that I wouldn't accept those positions even if they were offered.)

Not that I'm complaining. There are worse things in life than getting a job offer that 99% of the people in my profession would kill to have.

Finally, you may wonder how this affects my blogging. Well, in my previous post, I took a position that tilts against one of Google's most prominent current lobbying efforts. That doesn't really settle the issue, of course --- especially since the mechanics of options dictate that I want GOOG to drop as much as possible before I start work, and rise to stratospheric heights only thereafter --- but anyway I hope that my opinions will remain independent of my paycheck, even after I shuffle off this academic coil.

I won't take it personally, however, if you consider me a wholly owned subsidiary of my putative future employer.

In which my potential capitalist overlords demonstrate their hip and irreverent solicitousness

So, this morning, the U.S. Postal Service knocked on my apartment door and left a package from Kiki's.

The card revealed that the basket came courtesy of the company that offered me a job recently. The strange thing is, I didn't remember giving this company my home address. Hmmm.

I subsequently emailed the recruiter, thanking her for the basket, and alluding to my confusion, whereupon she explained that my home address was on the physical, pen-and-paper employment application I'd filled out during my face-to-face interview. The story suddenly became much less funny/cool/sinister than it would have been, particularly given the company concerned. Oh well.

Being the export of a hip Bay Area confectioner, the candy basket contains, of course, not only the standard-issue Raisinets, Smarties, etc., and not only a company-logo moon pie and T-shirt, but also some items that allude to the social practices of the local fauna.

Plus candy cigarettes, which I have not seen since I was about 12 years old. These remind me of the fact that my interview hotel offered a yo-yo, Slinky, etc. inside a little "kiddie-toy minibar" in the desk. All part of the careful cultivation of juvenile play behavior endemic to Bay Area geekdom. I could, at this point, work up some kind of cultural commentary on the relationship between play, creativity, immaturity, and geek culture, but Douglas Coupland already did that about a decade ago.

Some scattered thoughts on interviews, Jorge Cham, computer science, and grad student hardship

So, I'm back from my first academic interview. Oddly enough, I had a great time. People tell me that this level of enjoyment fades after you've been to a dozen. Fortunately or unfortunately, I probably won't have that problem, because I probably won't have a dozen in-person interviews. I will also say that having a nice industry job offer in your back pocket makes these things much less stressful.

Which is all in the way of remarking that I saw Jorge Cham speak, not long ago, as part of his lecture tour on the travails of being a fledgling academic.

Jorge Cham --- or at least the lecture persona known as Jorge Cham --- is a brilliantly funny, smart, and compassionate guy, and I don't doubt that his strip and lecture tour are doing worlds of good for struggling grad students all over the country.

On the other hand, as a computer science grad student, I couldn't help but think: could it be possible that a grad student at Stanford computer science really had it that bad? In particular, Jorge's statements about the economic insecurity of grad students struck me as strange. Computer science is one of the few branches of academia for which the implicit bargain --- sacrifice now, and you'll get a good job later --- still holds. Now, that job may not be an academic job, but if you go to a good grad school in computer science and cannot land an academic job of some sort, then chances are that you weren't cut out for academia anyway.

Jorge --- like, for that matter, Cecilia and Nameless and Mike Slackenerny --- could get a very well-paying job in industry, at almost any time of his choosing, simply by walking away from the academic game. And this economic reality has consequences throughout the grad student experience --- at "good" schools (which certainly includes Stanford), we get paid a livable wage, and we're largely given the infrastructure we need to be productive, and we get decent support in our job search. Because we can walk away.

I understand that Jorge's speaking, in some sense, for all grad students, not just computer scientists. And I also understand that grad school poses emotional challenges that all the economic security in the world wouldn't fix. However, if I were in Jorge's place, I'd have confessed, in my lectures, that my deal was much sweeter than the average grad student's. I mean, I'd be slightly uneasy, coming from my current situation, laying claim to the full measure of grad student hardship.