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Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#571

Post by alien_at_work »

emerged wrote: post #447
reuven wrote: post #91

How about freelancing? I've been doing that since 1995 -- and my income and happiness have never been higher. Pros: - Work on what you like, with the people you like - Potentially very high salary, definitely more than you would get as an employee - Want to work on side projects (e.g., software, books, and courses)? Go for it, and benefit from multiple income streams. Cons: - You're running a business. That requires…

I've done freelancing and have worked remotely as an employee. Though the former brought in more money (which is heavily dampened by the increased tax and loss of various benefits), I so loathe the administrative hassles that I'd gladly take half the overall pay in order to avoid it.

I don't know where you live but consulting agencies usually also offer payrolling: they manage all the admin/tax/pension stuff and charge less than 10%. Some even charge a flat rate (I paid about 120% of a single day's wage, but I've heard of people paying 80% or so).

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#572

Post by gaius »

Producing results isn’t necessarily how you move up the corporate ladder. Internal politics are usually as important, if not more so

For those kinds of people, that should be listed as a pro rather than a con. A job you can do purely by schmoozing and not producing is exactly what they want!

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#573

Post by gaius »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #491

My dad refused promotion at CERN several times. He continued to work as a testing engineer, and would not climb the corporate ladder into management roles. That reduced his paycheck. When the company had financial trouble though, they fired all the middle managers and kept the engineers. He learned an important lesson - working at a low level with only machines below you is a safe and stable job. I want to do the sam…

When the company had financial trouble though, they fired all the middle managers and kept the engineers

The truth is that most layoffs don't work like that, unfortunately. Members of the management class will generally try to protect their own, and they see engineers as mere blue-collar workers, no matter how skilled or qualified those engineers are. Yes, even software engineers.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#574

Post by JBlue42 »

cbr wrote: post #551
JBlue42 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on where you live. When I looked into splitting a place here in LA, it was only $100 less than if I stayed in my studio, with less amenities. I'm lucky, as I'm rent-controlled, but even people I know that live in 4-bedroom houses in not great areas are paying only a little less.

It sounds like rent control isn't making this a fair comparison? We'd want to compare going out and renting a new studio vs 1/N of an Nbr.

I see your point. I think at market rate a couple years ago, my studio would be around $1500/mo, 1 bd at $1750, and 2 bd at ~2100. So yes, there could be several hundred saved.

The "best" deal I've found in LA is when you have a partner and can split the one-bedroom with them.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#575

Post by pjungwir »

lliamander wrote: post #149
nichochar wrote: post #42

This is rather true in practice, but I find it tremendously depressing. I have found that the executive path is actually the one that most of the scumbags take, it is the one that attracts the most people, and those people are usually not likable, they're salespeople that sell themselves all day. The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of mone…

> The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of money and prestige. I think this is a damn shame, and we should be striving to stop that. You may like Eric Dietrich's book Developer Hegemony[1]. He talks about both why the third group is less successful and how people within that group can potentially improve their situation within the current sy…

I haven't read Developer Hegemony, but the book Managing the Professional Services Firm by David Maister is all about the structures present in other professional services work, e.g. law, accounting, engineering, etc., even car mechanics! :-) A ton of it is shared with software, so if you are a freelancer or trying to start a dev shop, it is great reading.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#576

Post by btilly »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #482
btilly wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a twist on this to think about. Careers are made or broken on whether you get to be an idea person or an implementer. If you're an idea person you get the lion's share of the credit for anything that goes right, and can always blame your failures on the implementor. Plus ideas are easier to come up with than implementations. If you're an implementor you work hard, and then don't get much of the credit. But wi…

Can you implement your own ideas?

Sometimes. But if everyone simply does what they think best, the result does not add up to a sensible whole. Therefore there is a necessary tradeoff between doing what you think is a good idea, and doing what someone else in the organization thinks is a good idea.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#577

Post by btilly »

mseebach wrote: post #524
btilly wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a twist on this to think about. Careers are made or broken on whether you get to be an idea person or an implementer. If you're an idea person you get the lion's share of the credit for anything that goes right, and can always blame your failures on the implementor. Plus ideas are easier to come up with than implementations. If you're an implementor you work hard, and then don't get much of the credit. But wi…

Careers are fraught in any organisation that systematically allows individuals to take credit/blame for team efforts. That said, I've met quite a few implementers that seem to believe that because it's their hands on the keyboard, no other activity warrants credit, all the way down to the guy who thinks that he commands "respect" (in the gang-sense) because he can shut down the Exchange server.

Can you name me an organization where individuals (particularly near the top) do not wind up with credit/blame for team efforts?

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#578

Post by Iv »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #501
Iv wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it all boils down to playing the blame game. It takes time to do so and implementing an idea takes a lot of time. Having an idea is the easiest thing ever. I can have five ideas before lunch with time to spate on blaming the people who will actually implement them for the past failures of my "great ideas with poor implementation" But engineers/implementers who get into politics have a huge advantage: they can…

But it really depends on how healthy your corporate culture is. I would say that in 90% of the companies, "technically correct" is just not good enough.

Technically correct is not enough in a sane culture either. But the business side of thing is not complicated, it is opaque.

Be technically right, hunt the information that will make you correct business-wise. And you will be able to make a much stronger claim in the blame game that the guy who is just business-right.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#579

Post by eksemplar »

nichochar wrote: post #42

This is rather true in practice, but I find it tremendously depressing. I have found that the executive path is actually the one that most of the scumbags take, it is the one that attracts the most people, and those people are usually not likable, they're salespeople that sell themselves all day. The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of mone…

It depends, in modern digitization there is plenty of room for mangers who started out on the productive end. It does require extra education, organizational understanding and people skills, but the sales bit isn't really a plus outside of contract management.

Most sales people in IT are employees.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#580

Post by dgreensp »

enjo wrote: post #517
btilly wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a twist on this to think about. Careers are made or broken on whether you get to be an idea person or an implementer. If you're an idea person you get the lion's share of the credit for anything that goes right, and can always blame your failures on the implementor. Plus ideas are easier to come up with than implementations. If you're an implementor you work hard, and then don't get much of the credit. But wi…

Is any of that true? Are ideas really that easy? Also these people aren't being paid for ideas. They're being paid for vision and the ability to guide that vision through to completion. I've met FAR more competent implementers in my life than I have product owners. You seem (and others) seem to be arguing that there is some sort of market inefficiency here, but I don't see that. And I say that as an implementer.

At one level, “idea person” is a misunderstanding of the founder’s role; founders must execute, all day long. It’s not just the programmmers who “implement,” either.

At another level, I’ll admit that most founders I’ve worked for have excelled more at promoting their ideas, raising money, and hiring talent — top talent, no small feat! — than product ownership. In this case, the lieutenants who make the gears mesh and not jam are the heroes to me.

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