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Enough

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Re: Enough

#31

Post by cko »

forgottenacc57 wrote: post #17

DHH's writing sort of radiates a sense of superiority.

Several thoughts:

You could read the article as sour grapes. Like his business didn't reach unicorn valuation, so well, that wasn't his goal in the first place.

I remember seeing a YouTube interview (I believe it was on TWIST) when he claimed there was no hypothetical amount of money he would take (billions, etc) to sell his business.

The cynical and greedy part of me found it incredulous. Is this guy in denial? Surely you can take the billions, and find some other project to have fun with? Or is Basecamp his only life calling?

The less skeptical side of me envies that mindset. I'm at a point in my life where I clearly have enough. My passive cashflow covers my expenses 3 times over. I'm 31 and If I continue working full-time I'm on par to make $200k next year. But almost every moment of the day I'm obsessed with trying to find my Basecamp. When is it enough? Maybe I should adopt some kids.

I hope that didn't sound like my own version of humblebrag - the fact is, I'm dissatisfied and there's no reason I should be.

Re: Enough

#32

Post by ludicast »

"My personal preference is to only be a general if it can be in the Roman tradition of charging in with the first wave."

- great line

Re: Enough

#33

Post by austenallred »

Am I the only person sick of DHH and the 37 Signals people writing the same article 800 times?

We get it. You don't have to raise VC or grow exponentially to have a great company. They have seriously written the same thing hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways, and it's barely even a contrarian view anymore. I hear as many people saying, "I wish more people would talk about how you don't have to raise VC" as I do people talking about raising VC these days.

Re: Enough

#34

Post by taneq »

sotojuan wrote: post #15
fredley wrote: post #6

This mindset applies to many things besides growth. For example, how much money (as an annual income) is enough for you? Have you ever sat down and reasoned it out? I see many people stuck chasing larger and larger payouts, to the extent it makes them unhappy or even unwell, who never stopped to consider how much money was enough.

This is what I feel when I see people complain that developer salaries have an upper limit in the mid 100s. I mean, I kinda get it, but honestly $100k is more than enough for me, let alone $150k.

It's a scaling issue. If I'm being paid $100k to generate $200k worth of value, fair enough. If I'm being paid $120k to generate $2 million worth of value, that starts to seem unfair.

Re: Enough

#35

Post by sotojuan »

forgottenacc57 wrote: post #17

DHH's writing sort of radiates a sense of superiority.

IDK about DHH but Jason Fried, also a writer in this blog (and co-founder, I think) makes similar points about growth, startups, etc.

I do agree with them that the "we must be the biggest!!!" attitude of SV/NYC startups is harmful and unrealistic. I'm not sure if Basecamp is the best counter example (though I do like their 4 day summer work weeks), but I wish more tech businesses were just that - simple businesses.

Re: Enough

#36

Post by edanm »

Of course everyone is free to choose what they want to do with their own business. And I have personally also chosen non-standard paths of smaller growth (e.g., I started a software consultancy instead of a VC-backed company).

However, there are a few concrete reasons why companies, especially software companies (as opposed to e.g. restaurants), tend towards growth:

1. Some companies will require some amount of growth to be profitable. Not necessarily VC style growth, but you really might need a 100-employee company.

2. If you're not growing, you're not facing new challenges. This might or might not bother you as the founder of the company, but people tend to like dealing with new challenges in their work, whether it be technical challenges or business challenges.

3. Relatedly, if you want to work with smart, ambitious people, you need to have growth to provide them with interesting challenges. A McDonald's can afford to rehire employees every year, but it's harder for software companies.

4. Even if your employees don't care about technical challenges, they probably still care about compensation and their career ladder. It's all well and good that you as the owner are making lots of money, but your employees need a realistic path to making more and having a better job title too, otherwise you can't retain the best employees.

5. Of course, the simplest reason is named in the article - because of zero marginal distribution costs and network effects in software, large players eventually tend to dominate many fields. Even if you build a CRM perfectly fit for a niche industry, there's a good chance many customers will eventually jump to something like salesforce, both because of marketing, and because of features/network effects (more integrations, etc).

Again, not saying DHH is wrong, just that these are structural reasons why software companies (and similar) tend towards growth.

Re: Enough

#37

Post by korussian »

austenallred wrote: post #33

Am I the only person sick of DHH and the 37 Signals people writing the same article 800 times? We get it. You don't have to raise VC or grow exponentially to have a great company. They have seriously written the same thing hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways, and it's barely even a contrarian view anymore. I hear as many people saying, "I wish more people would talk about how you don't have to raise VC" a…

Since DHH started writing, there have been 800 generations of starry-eyed startup people with unexamined motivations. He can do his thing and there's more than enough regard for the value of it.

Re: Enough

#38

Post by ryanbrunner »

austenallred wrote: post #33

Am I the only person sick of DHH and the 37 Signals people writing the same article 800 times? We get it. You don't have to raise VC or grow exponentially to have a great company. They have seriously written the same thing hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways, and it's barely even a contrarian view anymore. I hear as many people saying, "I wish more people would talk about how you don't have to raise VC" a…

I mean, how many others are there? I think there was a pretty strong undercurrent, even to the point of it being the dominant narrative back when Basecamp was getting started in the mid 2000's, but since 2010 or so, most of the startup world has focused on the venture-backed "rocketship" approach.

Yeah, it's usually not hard to predict what DHH's stance on growth vs. sustainability is going to be, and yes, he's prolific, but it's worthwhile to have opinions that go against the prevailing consensus, even if you don't agree with them.

Re: Enough

#39

Post by kerkeslager »

bjpbakker wrote: post #22
sotojuan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I feel when I see people complain that developer salaries have an upper limit in the mid 100s. I mean, I kinda get it, but honestly $100k is more than enough for me, let alone $150k.

I believe that to be not just about earning more money but also more appreciation. People might not be looking for just more money, but as they see their managers making double their salaries while taking credit for people's work, they want more money to feel more appreciated.

Agreed. It's about fairness to some extent. Software developers are often in the position of providing most of the value of a company while the business people writing the paychecks pay themselves most of the profit.

I've seen situations where the company got $950K of a $1.2 million contract simply for negotiating the contract with the client, while the dev who did 6 months of work got the other $250K. $250K for 6 months work is a lot, but $950K for 2 weeks work + occasional maintenance of the business relationship is a lot more.

Of course, I've also seen the flipside: I worked at a company where the CEO was salaried less than me and his share in the company wasn't likely to grow in value such that his compensation vastly outstripped mine. I've been paid more at other places, but nobody complained about compensation there.

Re: Enough

#40

Post by cctan »

fredley wrote: post #30
bjpbakker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that to be not just about earning more money but also more appreciation. People might not be looking for just more money, but as they see their managers making double their salaries while taking credit for people's work, they want more money to feel more appreciated.

I think some people probably conflate the two without realising. You think your work is just as valuable to the company, if not more valuable than your manager's, and you could very well be right. However, value of your work is only one factor that determines your salary, there are other market forces in play, and it's hard to rationalise about such things.

But developers and engineers should take the matter into their own hands and don't just bury their head in the sand and let the 'business' people decides their benefits and compensations.

It would serve them better if they can treat themselves as product and services providers in a free market. Band together and unite! Don't stab each other in the back for meager bones being thrown at you.

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