tastyham

Find a counselor to talk with about this. Ask your doctor for recommendations if you don't know who to talk with.

Human lifespan hasn't increased very much. Life expectancy at birth has increased significantly due to reductions in childhood disease and accidental death, but life expectancy at 50 and 60 have barely moved over the last 100 years. People have a much higher chance of making it to old age, but all the issues you cited will still hit them once they get there.

Sweet, I've always wished my worms would live longer!

Requiring registration screws over small time producers.

Sounds like there is a miscommunication about what your role is and possibly what each of you mean by "devops".

I made about $75k when my last company IPOed. I had worked there for 2 years before and had a relatively junior salary and not many options. I had a range of options at different strike prices, they averaged out to about 100% gain, but some were more and some were less.

People who had been there long had both lower option prices and more options and made quite a bit.

> arcane in-house proprietary stuff

Just like any other successful company that does something interesting and has been around more than a couple of years.

My experience hiring lots of engineers is that people with comp-sci or other stem degrees are on average much more successful at software engineering. Yes, there are great self-taught and code-schooled engineers, but on average they are less successful. Plus even the great ones seem to get started later with their careers instead of getting hired straight out of college like comp-sci majors.

I imagine it will also be difficult to network and build relationships in the industry without attending a 4 year school unless you are very outgoing. Who you know is often more important than what you know.

My take is that WHAT you do and WHERE you do it are much less important than WHO you do it with. Building strong family, friend, and romantic relationships is all that matters.

Nothing in your example is being "leveraged". "Use" is the word you're looking for.

Quantum Computing

My advice to 25 year old me would be to spend more time on relationships: romantic, friends, and professional, and less time on other BS.

Some thoughts:

1. Talk to a therapist about your stress/anxiety issues. This can totally kill an interview even if you're qualified, and is probably a bigger issue than your perceived lack of skill. Xanax or other anxiety drugs can help a ton for interview days, but talk to a therapist first.

2. Keep trying. It can take a surprisingly long time to land your first job.

Wool