Ask HN: Are you a “lifer”? If so why?
I suspect that a lot of people would be happy to be a &quot;lifer&quot; <i>in the right situation</i>.  (Good company, good work, good colleagues, good respect, good TC.)<p>A barrier is that situation doesn&#x27;t occur often.  I think it could, but not many companies seem to be run that way.  The stereotypical tech company, for example, seems to be driven by growth at all costs, and there&#x27;s a kind of mercenary thinking by both company and employees, towards each other.  Which is intertwined with the weird dynamic in which folk wisdom is that companies will pay more to hire someone than they will to retain.<p>Another barrier is that a worker opting out of this -- to go to a mythical modest little oasis company run by a CEO with a heart of gold who will live forever -- can be difficult, due to the large number of high-TC other workers in the field.  In the US, if a worker is making relatively a lot less than others, they&#x27;re at a disadvantage for housing, healthy living in various ways, opportunities for their children, etc.<p>So even lifer-inclined people will be motivated to play along with our current situation of chasing FAANGs, hierarchies of people all targeting promo criteria and metrics rather than company and team success, job-hopping whenever the right bump of TC and title comes along, rehearsing for fratbro interview rituals, etc.  (Maybe with a bust cycle of a lot of VC exit schemes, we&#x27;ll start to get better, but a lot of workers and companies have known nothing else, and there&#x27;s a lot to unlearn.)