Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

sahillavingia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 543 posts

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#231

Post by telesilla »

eloff wrote: post #214
matsemann wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live that office has to be a "proper office" in a sense, where you could have clients stopping by. Not just working from a room next to your exercise bike and laundry. Here the tax law is mostly written with hair stylists and others in mind, using a room for customers with its own entrance.

Where is that?

Countries like the Netherlands expect you to have a separate entrance and bathroom before you can claim it. Others allow you to claim a percentage of your living space and utilities. It varies around the world.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#232

Post by beaconstudios »

eldavido wrote: post #189
ska wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Process is one of those things you have whether you think about it or not. It's up to you collectively to decide if it is BS or not, too heavy, too light, etc. I'm not suggesting everyone has the influence to change process much at the place they work, but they idea that there is a single "thing" called process and some places have it and some don't is just dangerously misleading. It is true that process tends to nat…

This is a really thoughtful comment. "Process weight" is a good concept I wished more people understand. Building released-to-web software without hardware, big teams, long-term API support, etc. should really have almost no process, except for maybe high-level prioritization of features/functional areas (which a small-company CEO or PM can do). Reflecting on my own experience, it's the micro-management of most devel…

it's the tension between the bean-counter side of the company (finance, top level management, marketing vis-a-vis timelines) versus the creative side of the company (design & development, R&D). One side requires rigid predictability to perform optimally and the other side flexibility and ambiguity. Where the line is drawn and expectations are set is a function of company culture, hence why bigger companies/enterprises tend to come down heavy on requiring estimates.

(I don't mean bean-counter pejoratively; the world needs order and predictability just as much as it needs creativity).

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#233

Post by StevenWaterman »

ryanianian wrote: post #222
boo-ga-ga wrote: post #217

I think the critics who complain about money, pensions and healthcare didn't do proper calculations. Gumroad pays from $50 to $250 per hour. Let's say you get $100 (below average) and work 60 hours per month (one-week vacation every month). This is $6000 per month, which is basically more than enough for a comfortable living in 95% places on the planet. They pay equal money regardless of location, so the proposition…

It's worth noting the hourly rate cuts in half after 20 hours. It's still enough pay for comfortable living, but 60hrs/wk is a lot of work and is decidedly against the lifestyle TFA talks about. [edit: parent says 60hrs/month. At $100/hr that's $72k/year pre-tax. I don't know how to delete this comment but would if I could.]

Parent says 60hr / month

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#235

Post by coffee »

paxys wrote: post #39

I work for a large SaaS company with hundreds of engineers and a very healthy revenue. It's widely acknowledged that the company would continue to function exactly as it is now for a very long time if they fired 95% of the staff. Heck stability and uptime would probably improve due to fewer deployments/no new feature adds. So the graph with declining expenses and increasing revenue isn't at all surprising. The proble…

> if a competitor takes interest in your space and has a large war chest, you'd be powerless to compete with them

If that were true, every single company that had more money to spend would always win. But that's not what's observable. There seem to be other factors at play that don't always center around money.

> no new company that starts with the environment you are describing is going to be successful.

That would mean no upstart could ever compete in the same space any established player. But again, that's not what's observable.

It appears to be much more multi-faceted than just "he who has the most money always wins."

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#236

Post by [deleted] »

ryanianian wrote: post #222
boo-ga-ga wrote: post #217

I think the critics who complain about money, pensions and healthcare didn't do proper calculations. Gumroad pays from $50 to $250 per hour. Let's say you get $100 (below average) and work 60 hours per month (one-week vacation every month). This is $6000 per month, which is basically more than enough for a comfortable living in 95% places on the planet. They pay equal money regardless of location, so the proposition…

It's worth noting the hourly rate cuts in half after 20 hours. It's still enough pay for comfortable living, but 60hrs/wk is a lot of work and is decidedly against the lifestyle TFA talks about. [edit: parent says 60hrs/month. At $100/hr that's $72k/year pre-tax. I don't know how to delete this comment but would if I could.]

[deleted]

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#237

Post by [deleted] »

ryanianian wrote: post #222
boo-ga-ga wrote: post #217

I think the critics who complain about money, pensions and healthcare didn't do proper calculations. Gumroad pays from $50 to $250 per hour. Let's say you get $100 (below average) and work 60 hours per month (one-week vacation every month). This is $6000 per month, which is basically more than enough for a comfortable living in 95% places on the planet. They pay equal money regardless of location, so the proposition…

It's worth noting the hourly rate cuts in half after 20 hours. It's still enough pay for comfortable living, but 60hrs/wk is a lot of work and is decidedly against the lifestyle TFA talks about. [edit: parent says 60hrs/month. At $100/hr that's $72k/year pre-tax. I don't know how to delete this comment but would if I could.]

[deleted]

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#238

Post by dd_roger »

I mean, good for the contractors if they like it that way but basically this article is bragging that profitability has been achieved through a huge step backward in job security and legal rights for the employees (or rather, former employees now "reemployed" as contractors).

The glorification of the gig economy, i.e stripping everybody of the rights usually granted by the status of employee, needs to die.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#239

Post by boo-ga-ga »

paxys wrote: post #39

I work for a large SaaS company with hundreds of engineers and a very healthy revenue. It's widely acknowledged that the company would continue to function exactly as it is now for a very long time if they fired 95% of the staff. Heck stability and uptime would probably improve due to fewer deployments/no new feature adds. So the graph with declining expenses and increasing revenue isn't at all surprising. The proble…

Sahil says they pay $50-$250 per hour. I would not call it low-price:).

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#240

Post by wussboy »

ska wrote: post #37
dkdk8283 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love something like this: I loathe the bullshit factory process has become.

Process is one of those things you have whether you think about it or not. It's up to you collectively to decide if it is BS or not, too heavy, too light, etc. I'm not suggesting everyone has the influence to change process much at the place they work, but they idea that there is a single "thing" called process and some places have it and some don't is just dangerously misleading. It is true that process tends to nat…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...
Post reply on HN