Ask HN: How was life for a regular dev during the dot com burst?
I had a summer internship at HP while I was in college.  (I graduated in 1992.) When I graduated, the assumption/expectation was that they would offer me a job. They hesitated, and a manager who was unusually nice to me explained that HP hires people who will stick around for many years -- and thus, they weighed every hire carefully.<p>He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recession, everyone at HP -- all the way up and down the ladder -- worked 9 days out of 10, and took a 10% salary cut, in order to ensure that there wouldn't be any layoffs.<p>People spoke about the company, and how it treated employees, with great pride, and the way that they treated workers during hard times was one major reason for that.<p>If nothing else, I learned from these stories that the boss/owner should be paid <i>last</i>, after all of the employees receive their salaries.  I've done that whenever I've had employees, and I credit that lesson not just to general business ethics, but to a sense that business is about much more than just profit.<p>It's hard to imagine a modern company taking such steps to avoid layoffs, but the story continues to inspire me nearly 30 years later.