95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

You should re-read the comment you replied to carefully. PragmaticPulp doesn't imply that everyone on a PiP is bad a person and should feel bad.

For PragmaticPulp's argument it is more than enough that people on the job market skew towards being worse employees. Similarly, people on a PiP skew towards being lower achievers.

> IMO, you and every salaried engineer are someone who's willing to settle for donating 90% of the profits from their labor to shareholders in exchange for a little bit of comfort and an illusion of safety.

Where do you get the 90% figure from?

In general, it's really, really easy to start a company that makes use of programmer labour. Barriers to entry in the buy-side of the market for programmers are low. Especially with the more globalised labour market we got out of the pandemic.

So colour me suspicious of the notion that it's trivial to 'exploit' programmers and steal their lunch like you suggest.

Keep in mind that that most software projects in most companies are delayed or fail outright.

In the terms of that article, Principal Engineers would perhaps be classified as 'losers'.

> The Gervais principle differs from the Peter Principle, which it superficially resembles. The Peter Principle states that all people are promoted to the level of their incompetence. It is based on the assumption that future promotions are based on past performance. The Peter Principle is wrong for the simple reason that executives aren’t that stupid, and because there isn’t that much room in an upward-narrowing pyramid. They know what it takes for a promotion candidate to perform at the to level. So if they are promoting people beyond their competence anyway, under conditions of opportunity scarcity, there must be a good reason.

> Scott Adams, seeing a different flaw in the Peter Principle, proposed the Dilbert Principle: that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to middle management to limit the damage they can do. This again is untrue. The Gervais principle predicts the exact opposite: that the most competent ones will be promoted to middle management. Michael Scott was a star salesman before he become a Clueless middle manager. The least competent employees (but not all of them — only certain enlightened incompetents) will be promoted not to middle management, but fast-tracked through to senior management. To the Sociopath level.

From https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

To be clear: I mean to imply no opinion on whether 'The Gervais Principle' is true nor applicable. I'm just saying that 'The Gervais Principle' is perfectly compatible with Principal Engineers at Google knowing their stuff.

It's just that the 95%-ile photography major or art major etc is not gonna make money from photography or art. Nobody buys the records of a 95%-ile musician either. (Though you can probably teach music at that skill level and earn a living.)

In comparison, a 95%-ile engineer can expect to make a decent living from engineering.

> I think this point of view is not only blatantly false but also much more dangerous than most people realize.

I partially agree about the notion being dangerous, despite probably being true.

The thing is that most people never put in the conscious effort required to get to 95%-ile proficiency. Despite any exhortations to the contrary.

If you are at a startup, you are doing a lot, but there's a big chance no one will ever see it.

Bigger risk, bigger reward. Most people are driven by what makes them feel good, not just money.