In Silicon Valley, ex-coders become landlords, not restaurateurs码农的尽头是餐饮？

In 1999 a young engineer near Tsinghua said he would open a restaurant back in Shandong once he had saved enough; two decades on, Chinese coders do often end up in food service, while their Silicon Valley peers turn to venture capital, real estate or renting out houses.

The author opens with a small moment from more than twenty years ago. In the summer of 1999 he was doing casual work at a software company near Tsinghua, and over lunch he asked a young engineer what he wanted to do with his life. The man said: once I have earned enough, I will go back to Shandong, open a restaurant, marry and raise a family.

More than twenty years later, the author noticed that plenty of Chinese coders really do go into food service after leaving their jobs — an industry with almost no barrier to entry, brutal competition and razor-thin margins. So that is where a coder ends up.

In Silicon Valley the exits look different

The author has lived in Silicon Valley for over two decades, and by his reading, engineers there leave the trade in four main directions.

One is venture capital: people made rich by an IPO or by executive roles take their money, expertise and contacts into VC firms.

The second is real estate and everything around it. Silicon Valley is dense with wealth and the average home costs over two million dollars, so at a 2.5% commission, brokering one sale earns fifty thousand. Many ex-coders become real estate agents or mortgage brokers, or move into development and renovation.

The third is roles that deal with people rather than code — product managers, managers, lawyers. The fourth is the most straightforward: buy rental property around Silicon Valley and become a landlord.

These are only the cases the author has seen, and he says the list is incomplete. He wants to hear how the engineers around other people have made the switch.