71–80 of 82 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's only unfair if someone else is willing to pay you more in order to generate that 2 million OR if no one else is willing to generate that 2 million for 120k. In that case, switch jobs. I find that programmers often overestimate their value.
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.
Same with CEO salaries, movie star salaries, professional athlete salaries, and VC profits. $100k is more than enough.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
TLDR DHH publicly rationalizes his own mediocrity using various flawed arguments.
A troll anonymously feels hurt that the universality of their goal of becoming the biggest asshole is being questioned.
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's clear that DHH has some bias against success. Quite on the contrary I and many others think of him as extremely successful: Profitable since year 2 IIRC Have built nice products that you can pay for by money (instead of by privacy) Well known for a certain web framework that 100 000s of developers use and many love. I'd even go so far as to say he influenced (not shaped though) our entire industry by showing how…
> Have built nice products that you can pay for by money (instead of by privacy) As a happy employee of Basecamp, this line makes me proud.
Feel free to make products in other markets as well - as long as they are profitable.
I want you to stay around :-)
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 growt…
I think your employees will face bigger and more interesting challenges, and learn more from smarter coworkers, and will be retained better, if you keep it a 10 person team for years and years and years. As 37signals proved more than maybe any other company.
Of course, they also proved (5)...
(Hi Edan!)
— Edward AbbeyEarlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's only unfair if someone else is willing to pay you more in order to generate that 2 million OR if no one else is willing to generate that 2 million for 120k. In that case, switch jobs. I find that programmers often overestimate their value.
Immediately, you start to think about costs, hurdles, and PITA to doing that. Those costs and hurdles represent the value that someone else is adding to allow you to "just code".
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 growt…
Tesla has to grow fast or go home (as do Amazon, Uber, etc'). But as you said, you can choose which company to start, you don't have to start Tesla or Amazon. I think your employees will face bigger and more interesting challenges, and learn more from smarter coworkers, and will be retained better, if you keep it a 10 person team for years and years and years. As 37signals proved more than maybe any other company. Of…
Of course, nowadays I think the average retention at tech companies is like 2 years isn't it? So this is an industry-wide problem. The bigger problem if you're founding a 10 person company is that, assuming you don't want to run this for the rest of your life, you'll eventually want people to replace you, and they will also want bigger challenges, etc.
I once saw a great talk at MicroConf, by the guy who started Balsamiq, which he started with the purpose of being a 1-person company. He soon found he had to grow. The bottom line of his talk is that most companies have a "natural" range of sizes they can be, and you can choose where you want to be in the range, but it's gotta be in there. Very good and interesting talk.
(Hi back! Didn't know you HN'ed)
The whole piece is a bit verbose, but the writer has a point. A lot of people are never satisfied, and that doesn't make the world a better place. The irony is unsatisfaction is rewarded. You can earn millions of dollars with making the world less beautifull, by selling people bad loanes or artificially keeping medicine prices high. I don't know if people can learn to have enough, or 'the system' must enforce it a li…
A lot of people are never satisfied, and that doesn't make the world a better place. A lack of satisfaction can also materialize in positive ways that do improve the world. This drive is innately human and is what led us to agriculture, medicine, technology, and to wherever else we're going to go.
Anyone knows the word for 'never having enough money, land or power and aquiring it at the cost of others'?