381–390 of 458 posts
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I wonder if it's sustainable though. If you keep raising the prices and people buy what you're selling, and then eventually realize the quality isn't up to par of what they're paying for.
No matter what you think you are selling, you are always selling the buyer's experience. And for some work, framed the right way, high prices improve the experience.
My parents had been running their own tailor shop in the 80's, barely making ends meet, pulling in less than $20K a year. It wasn't for lack of business, father was a master tailor trained in Italy and capable of elite bespoke craftsmanship. They had as much business as they could handle. The problem was that they were charging what they thought the work was worth rather than what their customers were willing to pay.…
I'm not sure this is totally applicable to say a tailor shop, but I do wish more craftspeople would try charging more money for quality work. For example say I want some shelves built. If my shelf-builder charges $X that's fine, but what if I would happily pay $2X? On the one hand, I might be personally miffed to know I'm paying 2X instead of the X someone else is paying. On the other hand, I'd probably be the more s…
The $300h one looked like a piece of art. The $20h looked like sea gull crap landing randomly around the piece.
You should try working in an investment bank as a contractor. You need to find the right team, but a lot of them are massive collections of people doing virtually nothing but getting paid great daily rates. The trick is to look busy and wrap your team/yourself in a perceived sense of enigma and complexity. If you play your cards right, you can end up in a situation where no one will ask questions as long as you fire…
This describes >80% of engineering departments at past large firms where I've worked. Ironically, these people are 'architects' and get paid handsomely.
I had worked for a big bank doing financial modelling, reporting, random ad-hoc stuff for about 3.5 years before getting fairly bored. I quit and went to work for a small AI/ML* consulting firm whose biggest client turned out to be the same bank I used to work for. Before I left, I gave my boss an opportunity to beat the new salary that was offered to me. He said he couldn't. My annual pay was ~170k at the bank, but…
2. Phd related to AI?
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Yeah but not to let them know his estimate was off.
Yeah. Maybe it's just an omission in the story, but once the original scope was exceeded, an "I wanted to let you know that we've reached the number of hours I estimated for the task; let me know if I should continue on this project on an hourly/daily basis of $x" email was probably warranted.
My parents had been running their own tailor shop in the 80's, barely making ends meet, pulling in less than $20K a year. It wasn't for lack of business, father was a master tailor trained in Italy and capable of elite bespoke craftsmanship. They had as much business as they could handle. The problem was that they were charging what they thought the work was worth rather than what their customers were willing to pay.…
This is a classic example of a Veblen good [1]. "Veblen goods are types of luxury goods for which the quantity demanded increases as the price increases, an apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. Some goods become more desirable because of their high prices." The suits are expensive, so they must be good. It's also a status signal to others that you can afford such g…
My parents had been running their own tailor shop in the 80's, barely making ends meet, pulling in less than $20K a year. It wasn't for lack of business, father was a master tailor trained in Italy and capable of elite bespoke craftsmanship. They had as much business as they could handle. The problem was that they were charging what they thought the work was worth rather than what their customers were willing to pay.…
I can understand when it comes to physical goods.
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One of the first web systems I ever put into production (still in use other than modernization I went 5 years without a bug report which still astounds me) after I jumped from desktop to web I charged £1500 for (it was about 20 hours actual work the rest was spent learning the right way to do things), did the job over 6 weeks. Client let slip they'd been quoted £11,000 for it and 3mths. Next job they asked me to do w…
As a European I wonder how much this whole discussion translates to Europe (and its countries more specifically). American professionals seem to be dealing in ridiculously, obscenely high payments, seen from my personal vantage point. But that's also because money has an enormous role in life there. If you have money you are someone. You are someone to the extent of how much money you have. More generally I wonder ho…
My parents had been running their own tailor shop in the 80's, barely making ends meet, pulling in less than $20K a year. It wasn't for lack of business, father was a master tailor trained in Italy and capable of elite bespoke craftsmanship. They had as much business as they could handle. The problem was that they were charging what they thought the work was worth rather than what their customers were willing to pay.…
There were mentioned studies in the book "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" that mirrored what your parents experienced. Long story short, a jeweler was trying to move some turquoise and told an assistant to sell them at half price while she was gone. The assistant accidentally doubled the price, but the stones still sold immediately. Turns out there's a phenomenon where humans automatically associate price to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. Maybe it's just an omission in the story, but once the original scope was exceeded, an "I wanted to let you know that we've reached the number of hours I estimated for the task; let me know if I should continue on this project on an hourly/daily basis of $x" email was probably warranted.
What if you don't get any answer ? Shall you go on ? Leave unexpectedly? Apparently his staying on the job for his hourly rate wasn't an issue and was even expected.