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

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

#91

Post by natrius »

kenshi wrote: post #63
agotterer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

Do you really think you can derive the character of a person based on the title of their blog? Seems pretty damned shallow to me.

Life is full of uncertainties. Our job is to assign probabilities to outcomes and use those probabilities to make choices. I don't think it's unreasonable for that piece of evidence to increase the probability of his disagreeableness in someone's mind.

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

#92

Post by blasdel »

petercooper wrote: post #80
mkramlich wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting comparison you made too. Because for me, I respect Carmack a hell of a lot more than Mike Lee. And I suspect he's a much better programmer as well. And human being.

I find it more interesting that you're using a blog post to judge the author's quality as a human being.

To be fair, there's a long history of self-aggrandizing blog posts with which to judge him by.

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

#93

Post by silencio »

sachinag wrote: post #47

To everyone who thinks he's crazy, a single, solitary counter that is in no way indicative of a trend or a pattern: when it comes time to have someone build our iPhone app, I know who my first e-mail will be. You wanna know why? I know his rate without having to fill out a goddamn "contact me" form and his portfolio signals that he's worth the rate. Now, I have no idea how many hours it would take to build our app, b…

Really? It's that problematic to go talk to someone who'll want to talk to you about your needs and see what works out for both of you? You'd prefer the guy with that vague portfolio and a flat published rate instead? I don't publish my rate (let's just say it's not even half of $1k/hr except in extraordinary circumstances, like most developers I know consulting on non-specialized stuff), but I am at no shortage of clients right now. If I could actually slow my flow of emails from interested individuals, businesses, and recruiters for consulting and jobs, I'd be so happy...

Anyway, I'm not denying Mike's claim to fame, and other than some of his nuttier blog posts/tweets he seems like a reasonable guy the few times I've met him in passing. But I'd want to do a little more research into a person's background before jumping on the bandwagon and assuming what he's done in the past is going to help you towards whatever goal you might have. And this is why I call his portfolio vague. While it might work for the kind of work he's looking to do right now because his expertise as being part of the teams behind so many hits is exactly what he's selling, I'm not about to work with/hire someone as an actual developer (and not just consulting on The Big Picture of things) without more info on what exactly he did on those apps. (Though I'm sure if he ever did consider doing that that he'll kindly provide it to interested parties.)

BTW, his $1k/hr rate blog post was originally about his plans to travel worldwide and to use limited consulting hours at that rate to help fund it. I don't think he's the one you're looking for to send your first email to if you need a talented developer to work longer term. If you are looking for long term work, @schwa, the guy that wrote that tweet that Mike screenshotted and included at the top of this blog post, maintains a list of experienced developers looking for work (http://toxicsoftware.com/i-wouldnt-hire-an-iphone-developer-...). Big Nerd Ranch, the company founded by Aaron Hillegass, the person that wrote the book on Cocoa Programming, also does consulting (http://www.bignerdranch.com/consulting). Iconfactory does UI/design work (http://iconfactory.com/design). The list goes on and on.

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

#95

Post by mkramlich »

astrange wrote: post #81
mkramlich wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting comparison you made too. Because for me, I respect Carmack a hell of a lot more than Mike Lee. And I suspect he's a much better programmer as well. And human being.

Was that last part necessary? I think it's a bad idea to declare someone not a good human being based on the one blog post you read. (Especially since he wrote a few others about saving endangered species and homeless people.)

You're totally right. I have never met either man in person. I only said I suspected that, based on the personal behavior I've seen expressed in both cases. I've never seen Carmack behave badly. What I read in the Lee post constitutes bad behavior, in my ethical system. YMMV.

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

#96

Post by petercooper »

blasdel wrote: post #92
petercooper wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it more interesting that you're using a blog post to judge the author's quality as a human being.

To be fair, there's a long history of self-aggrandizing blog posts with which to judge him by.

That still seems like an curious criterion with which to judge someone's humanity. Gary Vaynerchuk, DHH, Zed Shaw, and a lot of the people admired by many HNers are very self-aggrandizing.

Sidenote: It seems that people like this have to deal with a trough on their way up where a lot of judgment gets thrown their way for their outgoing manner. If they hit it big, though, that seems to be quickly forgotten and everyone loves them. We've seen it with all of the above. Those who fail to cross the trough, end up forgotten.

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

#97

Post by mkramlich »

petercooper wrote: post #80
mkramlich wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting comparison you made too. Because for me, I respect Carmack a hell of a lot more than Mike Lee. And I suspect he's a much better programmer as well. And human being.

I find it more interesting that you're using a blog post to judge the author's quality as a human being.

Writing things on the Internet is part of human behavior.

What a person says reveals aspects of who they are. The Internet is not some special place that is exempt from all normal expectations of conduct that otherwise hold in meatspace. Just as simply being part of a business enterprise does not exempt one from being judged as a human based on your behavior.

Also note I said "suspect" not "knew for certain" or anything as extreme or decisive as that. Important distinction, and one I chose intentionally when picking that word. :P :)

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

#98

Post by joe_the_user »

petercooper wrote: post #56
mrshoe wrote: post #25

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. Hor…

He commands his rates because he is a household name. [..] 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. I think his conclusion is wrong but the analogy is good. It's unnecessary to be literal with the term "household." Most of the world's top scientists, lawyers, and bankers aren't household names, yet…

The analogy is good because Brad Pitt's value comes from people value him for other people's opinions. The pull for going to see a movie star come because you believe that his fame has value for itself.

If Mike can just make one employer think that other people want to hire him, he can command these otherwise absurd rates. It's a sort-of mirror world.

Prestige, log-rolling, extended-Ponzi scheme. It's all representation chasing more representation.

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

#99

Post by waterlesscloud »

kenshi wrote: post #63
agotterer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

Do you really think you can derive the character of a person based on the title of their blog? Seems pretty damned shallow to me.

Why is it shallow? It's a facade he has deliberately chosen to present to the world. That choice implies things, and he's either aware of that fact or utterly clueless.

Note that I'm not saying anything about what conclusion I draw from that fact, just that it's a fact.

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

#100

Post by dasil003 »

marciovm123 wrote: post #36
dasil003 wrote: post #20

He's claiming his role in Tap Tap Revenge as justifying that rate. If all you know about his role at Tapulous is what's been written at TechCrunch that probably sounds impressive. Of course if you know some of the guys there who don't have a soapbox and a sycophantic following that's a pretty hilarious opener.

can you elaborate?

I'm not involved with Tapulous and therefore I'm not really at liberty to say. Actually I probably should have kept my mouth shut on this thread, because I despise when people do what I just did, but I just could not sit by while that credential got thrown out there as if Tap Tap Revenge was his brainchild or something.
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