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Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

le.mu.rs

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Re: Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

#21

Post by Adaptive »

andreyf wrote: post #2

Wow, he might be good at programming, but from his writing, he sure seems like a jerk (Zed Shaw's long lost twin?). I've known many professionals who, being very good at what they do, charge both less and more than $1k/hour, but none of them would ever mention their rate in public, much less feel the need to explain why they deserve it. On the other hand, this is great PR for software engineers: a couple more posts l…

Tangential, but I feel compelled to note that:

* I have never met Zed * Like many others I have heard all sorts of stories about him * People are capable of change * In my recent experience Zed has always seemed civil, thoughtful and passionate about code

He may have been a jerk in the past, I can't speak to that, but he seems like a decent guy now.

Yours, the anti-pigeonholing squad

Re: Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

#22

Post by rortian »

kevinpet wrote: post #11

If the best are 10x as productive as the mediocre, I don't see a problem with this. Of course, you might say that the $120 bulk of freelance programmers are already a notch above mediocre and maybe $500/hr is more reasonable, but whatever the market will bear. It's a good argument to cut top marginal tax rate so that he has an incentive to take more work than he's willing to at $500/hr after taxes (assuming he's in t…

Marginal tax rates being high is a great idea. I'd be with you if people with high salaries spent all, or virtually all, of their salary. But they don't.

In this economy we need more money being spent. When things are doing well again, you could try to make a case for the rich being richer, but it's a strange cause to take up.

Re: Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

#24

Post by _delirium »

rortian wrote: post #22
kevinpet wrote: post #11

If the best are 10x as productive as the mediocre, I don't see a problem with this. Of course, you might say that the $120 bulk of freelance programmers are already a notch above mediocre and maybe $500/hr is more reasonable, but whatever the market will bear. It's a good argument to cut top marginal tax rate so that he has an incentive to take more work than he's willing to at $500/hr after taxes (assuming he's in t…

Marginal tax rates being high is a great idea. I'd be with you if people with high salaries spent all, or virtually all, of their salary. But they don't. In this economy we need more money being spent. When things are doing well again, you could try to make a case for the rich being richer, but it's a strange cause to take up.

They're also exceptionally low, currently. There are no rates above 35%, whereas they used to be above 70% back in the Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson/Ford/Carter/early-Reagan days. But I suppose which rates and which kinds of incentives count as too high / too low is always relative and subjective...

Re: Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

#25

Post by mrshoe »

That’s a little like hearing what Brad Pitt got paid for his last movie and wondering why the producer didn’t instead hire Brad Pitman for scale.

Oh you’ve never heard of Brad Pitman? You’re not familiar with his work? But you are familiar with Brad Pitt’s work, right? After all, he’s an experienced actor and producer with not one, but two, Academy Award nominations and a portfolio full of household names.

Bzzzt. Horrible analogy. Brad Pitt isn't worth what he's worth because of his portfolio full of household names. He commands his rates because he is a household name. People will go see movies just because he's in them. He's not getting paid for talent, experience, or attractiveness. He's getting paid for his personal brand. That brand all but guarantees that the filmmakers will earn a handsome return on their investment.

You, however, are an iPhone app developer. App purchasers have never heard of you. They will not turn out in droves to buy an app just because you worked on it.

Re: Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

#26

Post by moe »

_delirium wrote: post #15
xenophanes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working 10 hrs a week at 1k/hr would be awesome. Saving time is better than maximizing money.

Sure, but that's the part I'm wondering about. 10 hrs/wk at $1k/hr would be great (~$500k/yr for part-time work!), but, say, 1hr/wk on average wouldn't be too good, even at that rate. And I read his post as having an undercurrent of being more, "I'm trying to convince you paying me $1k/hr is a good idea" rather than "there are actually a lot of people already paying me $1k/hr". Has he gotten dozens of contracts at th…

A few? One?

I'd venture the guess the number is very small or perhaps even zero.

At that rate he'd burn through a reasonable budget for an iPhone app within weeks. And I mean the entire budget, which would normally include graphics design and backend work.

I have no doubts he could get an app off the ground faster than most teams - given he lives up to his bold claims, which is entirely possible.

But as with every software project that's only a very small part of the story. The elephant in the room is maintenance and ongoing development.

If you have $500k and were to launch a business around an iPhone app what would you rather do? Give most of that money to a single person, get your app in 8 weeks and call it a day?

Or would you rather hire a team, pay significantly less for the initial launch, get it in perhaps 16 weeks, but then still have money in the bank and a committed team for further steps?

Hiring this guy at that rate just seems like a bad business decision for pretty much any project. If anyone does then, well, kudos to him for parting the dumb from their money.

Re: Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

#27

Post by mikecane »

I don't know him, so I can only go by what he wrote there. So all I see are two things he cites as accomplishments, yet with that, he is nearly guaranteeing a hit. I don't know of anyone -- writer, filmmaker, etc -- who'd base any sort of track record on just two outings. Hell, even Spielberg had a bomb when he was hot: 1941.

Here is Steve Jobs on designer Paul Rand, who Jobs wooed from IBM to have him design the NeXT logo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb8idEf-Iak

So ask yourself, would Steve Jobs think the guy who wrote this post was worth the money he was asking?

Re: Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

#29

Post by agotterer »

alexkiwi wrote: post #16
andreyf wrote: post #2

Wow, he might be good at programming, but from his writing, he sure seems like a jerk (Zed Shaw's long lost twin?). I've known many professionals who, being very good at what they do, charge both less and more than $1k/hour, but none of them would ever mention their rate in public, much less feel the need to explain why they deserve it. On the other hand, this is great PR for software engineers: a couple more posts l…

I'm not so sure I would want to work with this guy, Zed Shaw on the other hand was one of the nicest people I've ever gotten an e-mail from

I met Zed in person a few months ago at a meetup. I had an awesome 45 min chat about everything technology. What a nice guy. I wish him all the best.

Mike Lee's blog title is "motherfucker". From that alone you can derive what type of person you're about to do business with. Theres no question his experience and skills are incredible. Fact of the matter is there are other successful app developers who likely have a resume that is comparable.

Think of it like dating. Would you date the hottest girl if she had a shitty personality? Maybe :)

Re: Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

#30

Post by xenophanes »

rortian wrote: post #22
kevinpet wrote: post #11

If the best are 10x as productive as the mediocre, I don't see a problem with this. Of course, you might say that the $120 bulk of freelance programmers are already a notch above mediocre and maybe $500/hr is more reasonable, but whatever the market will bear. It's a good argument to cut top marginal tax rate so that he has an incentive to take more work than he's willing to at $500/hr after taxes (assuming he's in t…

Marginal tax rates being high is a great idea. I'd be with you if people with high salaries spent all, or virtually all, of their salary. But they don't. In this economy we need more money being spent. When things are doing well again, you could try to make a case for the rich being richer, but it's a strange cause to take up.

> In this economy we need more money being spent.

Economic activity is not economic productivity. Spending money doesn't make us richer. Producing does.

Encouraging people to work more would help the economy; encouraging to people to spend more would only help to the extent that it stimulates people to produce stuff for sale.

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