<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER  No. 2044 -- 7/29/2009 >>>>>

High tech American workers are finally doing what they have to do to
compete with H-1Bs and offshoring -- they are working for free. The only
way it can get more "competitive" would be for Americans to pay companies
for the privilege of working, or perhaps they can pay a rental fee for
sitting at a company owned cubicle.

You gotta enjoy the positive tone of the Sacbee article. It talks about
history repeating itself, as Stanford graduates are treated to cheap
cocktails before they get into line to sign up to work for a few worthless
stock options. Haven't we seen that happen before???

An international business graduate likened this trend towards free labor as
a way for Americans to get back to their core values. What core values is
she talking about -- slavery?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2056443.html

Seeking comeback, Silicon Valley workers offer to work for no pay
phecht@sacbee.com
Published Sunday, Jul. 26, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO -- Soon after earning his MBA from Stanford, Andrey Abramov
launched his first technology startup -- a cell phone e-mail service he
says "died horribly" in the 2000 dot-com crash.

He recovered to earn "hundreds of thousands of dollars" a year in ventures
including call centers, social networks, anti-piracy software for video
games and a Web marketing portal for brain exercises.

Yet today, Abramov, 39, finds himself among newly busted entrepreneurs and
displaced technology workers. And he's offering to work for free for a
chance at another comeback.

In the Silicon Valley region, unemployment tops 11 percent and investment
capital has all but dried up. Here, unemployed tech professionals are
showing up in droves at Bay Area mixers -- and signing on en masse on
career networking sites -- to volunteer labor and expertise in exchange for
equity shares in Silicon Valley startups that have no money to pay them.

At the Metreon retail center in San Francisco recently, Abramov joined
dozens of unemployed or underemployed Stanford graduates for a reception
with under-funded dreamers, from Internet marketers to video game designers
to wireless gadget makers.

He stood there wearing a stick-on badge listing his expertise -- "biz
development and strategy, engineering, marketing, project management" -- as
30 companies made their pitches for people willing to invest five hours or
more a week in free "equity" work.

"If you are a company, please buy a job seeker a drink," said Julie
Greenberg, co-founder of a Web networking company, Jobnob, which sponsored
the gathering. "They're willing to work for free. It's the least you can
do."

From San Jose to Alameda, and Santa Cruz to San Francisco, it is the new
survival story of Silicon Valley.

With a half-million Internet, computer, biotech and financial services
workers, the pool of jobless talent here is so deep that Jobnob scheduled
separate college-themed "happy hours" for tech professionals from Stanford,
Harvard and Berkeley alone.

Seeking to pair job seekers with startups, Jobnob began receptions with an
open event last month at a San Francisco wine bar. It expected a turnout of
30 people. About 300 out-of-work professionals showed up offering their
services.

"This is a time that's really unique, where so many people with five, 10
and 15 years' experience and advanced degrees are out of work," Greenberg
said. "Sitting at home looking at the Internet listings is not going to do
it for them."

Simultaneously, the "angels" of Silicon Valley -- wealthy individual
investors critical to tech startups -- have suffered huge stock portfolio
losses and largely taken flight.

So volunteer professionals are helping fuel the dreams of cash-strapped
entrepreneurs such as Steven Echtman, chief executive of startup
HearPlanet.

At the Metreon, Echtman worked the room and his iPhone. He showed off his
application that lets travelers use mobile devices to get instant narrative
guides for worldwide points of interest from Inca ruins in Urubamba, Peru,
to the Pashupatinath temple in Katmandu, Nepal.

He isn't yet "cash positive" in his dream to build the de facto "auto guide
to the world." But Echtman has signed on four equity volunteers, including
Allison Sophia Jones, an Internet sales representative and former Davis
resident who found him through the "meetup" link of a networking group, SF
New Tech.

Jones, a 2003 international business graduate from the University of San
Francisco, has been seeking another opportunity since a movie downloading
venture she worked for went out of business 10 months ago.

"We just basically ran out of money. I hate when that happens," she said.
"They let me go along with my whole sales team."

With hundreds of applicants for job postings, Jones said restless
professionals with free time "are getting back to their core values and
choosing to put forth their energies for something they believe in."

Bruce Runyan, 55, a Stanford grad with a B.A. in physics and a master's in
operations research, worked 20 years as a vice president at software and
telecommunications companies in California. But after a recent layoff,
employers have largely brushed him off as overqualified.

So Runyan came to the Metreon looking to volunteer "for a team-level job to
help build a company."

Carl Guardino, president of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said
the current economic downturn is viewed as less devastating than the 2000
tech stocks meltdown. That wiped out hundreds of paper millionaires and
ended the glitz and swagger of the Internet technology gold rush.

Now, Guardino said, an "ownership culture -- an egalitarian culture of
Silicon Valley lives on," as unemployed professionals offer services in
hope "of being part of owning a company."

Abramov thought he had a winner in his last venture -- WiFi Commute, a
service designed to provide wireless access to rail commuters on Caltrain
routes. But his business collapsed when he was unable to negotiate terms
for buying and reselling bandwidth.

"My startup is dead. It's like losing a baby after taking it to the limit,"
he said.

His finances are so bad, Abramov said, that soon "you'll see me in the soup
kitchen." And yet, at the Metreon event, a setting remarkably upbeat, he
spoke about volunteering to help somebody else's startup succeed.

"Maybe I'll find an interesting project to buy me time or the right startup
where I can fit in," he said.

There were plenty of options to ponder.

A young entrepreneur was seeking a business developer for an Internet
carpooling network he billed as "the new transportation paradigm for the
21st century." A firm called Blue Tweet wanted sales associates to market
online retailers on Twitter.

Randi Kofman, whose Palo Alto Adiri Inc. sells premium baby products,
sought an Internet social media marketer "to reach mommy bloggers and tell
them we are listening."

"We're a very smart company with a lot of stock options," she said.
"Because we don't have a lot of cash."

Jobnob co-founder Alan Shusterman, an Internet advertising product manager
in tech's go-go days, said the event in a Metreon business suite offered
quite a contrast.

He recalled lavish parties of the mid-'90s, when Oracle Inc. once rented
out San Francisco's Nob Hill, including the Fairmont, Mark Hopkins and
Stanford Court hotels, for thousands of celebrants.

"It was unbelievable. There was so much buzz. Everyone was worth $10
million on paper. And then everything crashed," he said.

This time, Shusterman said, "there is no somberness, and the fact that
these are such difficult economic times is actually spawning innovation."

Navneet Aron hopes so. The 30-year-old former Intuit engineer manager
formed a firm -- mobiQpons -- that allows people to instantly call up
coupons on mobile devices and have retailers scan the devices or punch in
the coupon numbers.

"I have access to talent that ordinarily you couldn't get at an early stage
for a company," said Aron, as he called up coupons for Planet Hollywood,
Home Depot and Bath and Body Works on his iPhone. He is seeking equity
volunteer interface engineers and social media markers.

His business venture "was the best idea I've heard today," said Heidi
Klauser, a '92 Stanford grad, retailer and former tech professional looking
to find a new opportunity through equity work.

"No one in this room is living the dream of the pre-2000 days, when
everybody had multimillion-dollar funding," she said. "They're not living
the dream. But they're still dreaming it."

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