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Casado: Software engineers are significantly more mercenary today than 20 years ago

Martin Casado · a16z Podcast | From Research to Startup, There and Back Again · Jan 2, 2019 · at 54:17

Martin Casado, general partner at a16z, reflects on the cultural transition from passion-driven computer science to a professionalized, mercenary tech workforce.

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“Kind of on the negative spectrum, there's, you know, people are a lot more mercenary about it than they were before. And on the positive end, I do think we have a lot of framing around it. What does it mean to have a workforce in computer science that will come and go and to handle that in a way? But for me, it's been a very, very stark difference. The people that I used to work with 20 years ago, when we were literally all there You know, for the love of solving these great problems, to now, it's like, you know, this is your job.”

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