IT Industry

2.1 Information Age

Congrats! You're living in the Information Age. It's obvious, right? But what does that really mean? What opportunities and prospects does this fact hold? Let's take a quick look back.

The 20th century was the industrial age. Thousands of factories and plants were created in all countries, power plants and nuclear power stations were built. Humanity ventured into space for the first time, and the first Mars rovers were sent...

The biggest companies were involved in manufacturing and electronics. In the 80s, Japan almost overtook the US in GDP and became the world's largest economy. And Japanese cars, electronics, ships, phones, and even gaming consoles (!) were recognized as the best in the world.

The largest fortunes and companies were made in manufacturing. General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen: if you worked in the "industry," you had a great career and awesome prospects.

The oil sector was raking in billions too. But first of all, oil doesn't just need to be pumped, it needs refining, and gas needs to be liquified, with LNG terminals constructed. And secondly, the demand for oil was a result of the rapid growth in manufacturing and the auto industry, in particular.

Space, rockets, and technological singularity seemed so close! It felt like flying cars would be just around the corner, man would land on Mars, and the slowest plane would be supersonic. But none of that happened. Something went wrong.

Japan never became economy number one. No one landed on Mars, even though it's been over 50 (!) years since the moon landing. Commercial planes are flying slower and slower. No flying cars in the sky either. So what happened?

2.2 Information Revolution

In the 80s of the 20th century, the personal computer revolution happened, and in the 90s the internet (web) came along. And the world changed forever.

First, geeks moved online, then the youth, and now even an 80-year-old grandma checks the online water shut-off schedule for summer 🤦‍♂️.

Nowadays, not just everything happens online, but absolutely everything! People learn, work, relax, meet others. In the US, for example, 60% of married couples met online.

If you're looking to find a partner—go online, find a job—go online, want to study—go online. You can still die offline, but don't forget to clear your browser history! :)

As Time magazine wrote 10 years ago, "If you're not on the internet, you don't exist." And that was 10 years ago, even before the pandemic! (Not sure when you're reading this, maybe I should've written before the First Pandemic?!) 😅

In 2020-21, many cultural patterns changed: first employees started working online, then their management, and then even top executives joined in. And many really liked it.

So in the coming years, we will see an online revolution in the field of work, where someone from Belarus could be working for an American company while chilling in Fiji. Maybe that'll be you :)

2.3 IT Companies in the 21st Century

Ten years ago, there were 5 largest IT companies in the world: Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. And today they are just the 5 largest companies in the world. IT companies are now the biggest and the most expensive. And that's because they don't have millions of customers but billions!

Billions of people use the products of these companies. And if a billion customers bring in $10 each a month, you're looking at a tidy sum. That's why IT companies are worth not just a lot, but a whole lot.

Imagine a company worth a billion dollars. Is that a lot? Yup. And a company worth 10 billion? That's huge. How about a hundred billion? Massive.

Microsoft, at the time of writing this article, was valued at 3 trillion dollars. That's 3 thousand billion dollars.

• Microsoft — 3.124 trillion
• Apple — 2.915 trillion
• Nvidia — 2.280 trillion
• Google — 2.183 trillion
• Amazon — 1.919 trillion

Amazon, in its poor fifth place, is worth only 1919 billion dollars. And you still don't want to get into IT?

By the way, many IT companies pay their employees not just salaries but also in stock options. For instance, Amazon might pay a Senior Software Engineer a salary of $200k a year. And another $100k in stocks. In 3 years, those stocks may be worth $300k, so working as a programmer at Amazon could get you up to $500k a year. And you still don't want to become a programmer?

Internet companies grow super fast because they don't need to open new branches—everything happens online. Uber owns zero cars, yet it's valued at $104 billion. AirBnB doesn't own apartments, but it's worth $105 billion. Booking doesn't own hotels, but it's valued at $133 billion. Guys, get into IT: great atmosphere, awesome prospects.