[techie12]

By hiring H-1Bs and offshoring, the industry has done a great job of dissuading college students from majoring in computer science. Now Bill Gates comes in and say, "Hey, guys, don't run off, the computer industry needs you.

Typical of the chutzpah of the ITAA and its open border backers, - no shame. The old story about the quintessential demonstration of chutzpah - the child that kills his mother and father, then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan - comes to mind.

Soon the immigration backers will be crying in likewise fashion that increases in H1-B are needed because 'Americans just don't seem to want to do these jobs'.

[Prime Choice]

Microsoft, Amid Dwindling Interest, Talks Up Computing as a Career

"I am rapt with attention, Mr. Gates. Please tell me more."

[techie12]

Immigration Bump

[neutrino]

Now, even at elite schools like M.I.T., the number of students choosing to major in computer science is down.

Proving that they're smart. Given the trends in outsourcing, the use of H-1Bs and L1s, getting a technical degree represents a big investment with little or no return.

Of course, this means that America will lose the ability to do technical work of any sort...but that's OK. Free trade is the key. Makes us all more prosperous, don'cha know.

C'mon, free traitors. Let's outsource more jobs!!!

[international american]

I would tell my kid, I will lend you 100 grand to buy a apartment building....(tuition) You pay me back in 10 years. In the meantime, get a real estate brokers lic. and buy forclosures!!

[Wheee The People]

By hiring H-1Bs and offshoring, the industry has done a great job of dissuading college students from majoring in computer science. Now Bill Gates comes in and say, "Hey, guys, don't run off, the computer industry needs you.

Word!

In their drive for the cheapest labor, (which means foreign) the High Tech industry has slit the throat of the domestic pipeline. Good students suddenly are attracted to banking, law (shudder), business, engineering or anything except computer science. Hello Mr. Gates...Econ 101...

[RightWhale]

There are enough general purpose computers to last forever. The next thing is microcontrollers, which is like devolving back to 8-bit processors. The challenge will be to see where a microcontroller is not and put one there. How many microcontrollers in your car?

[reed_inthe_wind]

Gates is right. There's still alot of cool things to do with IT. But, if I were starting over, I would have to take a close look at Bio-tech.

[iowaboy]

No doubt. I've been a software developer since 1988, and the job market is terrible. Companies are no longer willing to pay the big bucks anymore for guys like me. Over the past 12 months I've actually considered a change of careers.

[FoxPro]

Man, I have been having one hell of a time getting contracts for my 60 Russian programmers doing Oracle, SQL Server, .NET and JAVA. And they work for less than $20 per hour.

The computer science departments in universities here are doomed. I give them all 10 years.

Anybody majoring in computer science needs to have their head examined.

Anybody paying people to program in the US for a decent US wage is essetially commiting a fiscal fraud on their company.

[oceanview]

I'll tell my unemployed friends to start working on that AI breakthrough right away.

[oceanview]

I'm glad to see these young college people are "getting it" and bailing out. Better to make a change now, then be some guy in their 40s looking over their shoulder at work everyday.

[bvw]

King Midas was a wealthy Grecian merchant and a popular king with a loving wife and a young daughter, until the day that his beloved wife died while tending to the poor peasants on a winter night. Blaming her death on her foolish charity, Midas looked upon the poor with disdain, and dedicated his life to the one thing he could love that would not perish -- his fortune! But a local outlaw threatens to undo Midas' fortune, and when he steals his golden sword, Midas becomes obsessed with capturing this rogue who gives his gold away to the poor. Wanting more than anything to protect his fortune, Midas wishes for unlimited wealth and is visited in a dream by Dionysus, god of revelry, who answers the King's wish by giving Midas the "golden touch". Overtaken by greed, Midas turns all around him into gold, even the very creatures in the garden that his wife had so lovingly tended to. But his dream of wealth soon becomes his worst nightmare, when he captures the masked outlaw and turns him into a gold statue only to discover it's his beloved daughter.

(source: TV Tome: "Mythic Warriors - KIng Midas: The Golden Touch", http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-10240/epid-151073)

[redbaiter]

Never heard so much whining in all my life. I work in software development, I've never been busier (same goes for the whole group) and I just got a decent raise. Just keep working on your skill set and you'll be fine.

[mikegi]

It would nice if the NYTimes would produce a graph showing the number of CS graduates over two or three decades. I'm sure they deceptively picked the peak (1999-2000) as their reference in order to enhance the doom and gloom.

For the other oldtimers out there, doesn't all this D-n-G sound a lot like the Japan threat in the 1980s? Remember? The Japanese were going to kill the US high tech industry, buy up all the valuable US property, etc...

[Landru]

"'We need your excitement,' he told students at Harvard. 'Most of these jobs are very interesting and very social - you work with lots of smart people. I'm excited about the future of computing, and I'm excited to see how each of you can contribute to it.'"

That would've done it, alright.

Has I been in any of those audiences listening to this crackpot, I'd have stood up & called for a hot kettle o' pitch and sack of feathers.

When the goofy SOB left that day.

...it'd have been on a rail.

[dfwgator]

Instead, he plans to head to Wall Street this spring to join the bond trading desk at Lehman Brothers, where he will work on research and analyzing fixed-income securities.

That is going to be offshored as well.