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Are coders worth it?

aeonmagazine.com

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Re: Are coders worth it?

#101

Post by waterlesscloud »

d4nt wrote: post #72

The value of a lot of these apparently lightweight B2C apps is derived primarily from the attention that they get from their users. If you can build something that gets attention, then that's worth a lot of money. In a world where people are spending less and less time watching TV there is now a huge imbalance between corporations who have lots of money and want attention, and huge numbers of people with smartphones…

"In a world where people are spending less and less time watching TV there is now a huge imbalance between corporations who have lots of money and want attention, and huge numbers of people with smartphones and limited attention spans. It's like a thunderstorm, all these electrons trying to get to Earth, then suddenly, Bang! Instagram."

Wow. That's the most vivid explanation for it all that I've ever seen. Thanks for that.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#102

Post by elliottcarlson »

leoedin wrote: post #8

I think the real issue is that there's people with lots of money that are willing to fund a lot of different companies in the hope of stumbling across the next facebook. Result? A whole host of well funded but ultimately useless apps and websites. Meanwhile, the people who can make these websites are making lots of money. It's probably a bubble to some extent. Eventually, if the return from all these web apps is less…

Investments almost work on a loss leader model - while there is still decisions made on who to invest in (some VC firms/investors/angels making wiser decisions than others), they are still banking on the small percentage of those investments actually making a return on investment. This return covers the failed investments that they might eventually write off.

The general rule is 1/3rd of investments will fail, 1/3rd of investments will under perform and 1/3rd will meet expectations - and to put that in to a better perspective, "expectations" should be read as a 5x to 10x return on investment. A better firm might be able to skew that more to the successful side, while another firm might be more on the failure side.

I don't think the money will "run out" - but the better firms (think USV, Sequoia, Accel, etc) will continue having the experience in finding successful startups and the smaller firms might just not see the return on interest and exit the game.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#103

Post by nfoz »

einhverfr wrote: post #39

There is a lot to this piece. I do think good coders are worth it, but I also think the current social/mobile bubble will burst (not that there aren't important gains to be had in those spaces but that the gains do not live up to investors' expectations). It seems to me so many businesses are chasing playthings because solving the real problems of the day are hard. To be sure not one of us can solve any of them, but…

> It seems to me so many businesses are chasing playthings because solving the real problems of the day are hard

Not only are they hard, it's that they're not obviously monetizable.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#104

Post by darkxanthos »

jacques_chester wrote: post #56
stdbrouw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sure, but there's a difference between understanding this on an intellectual level (which he already does) and coming to terms with it on an emotional level.

Granted. But if the existentialists taught us anything, it's that if you stop and look, I mean really look at your life, you'll find how thoroughly inconsequential it is. Which is no comfort at all. Quite the reverse. Ignorance really is bliss. I find the intellectual argument comforting because I can focus on the things I can control, the things that are within my sphere of power. I used to be very interested in pol…

Exactly. HMoney isn't the only value here as I see him somewhat struggling with how much he values doing something more meaningful.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#105

Post by jimmaswell »

rdouble wrote: post #18
jumblesale wrote: post #6

Very well written article, I always enjoy reading stuff from the intersection of writers and coders. What I found startling was how different my experience has been to that of the author's at the start of the article. I've put up with some horrific jobs paying miserable money in some of the most uninspiring industrial parks you could imagine. I've taken work in dingy Victorian offices so cold that I've had to program…

It's particular to the New York startup scene. There is a lot of money sloshing around and startups have a different hiring strategy than in Silicon Valley. It's quick to hire, quick to fire. I've had six figure offers without even going through a real interview. This leads to a lot of churn. One place I worked at ran through three almost entirely different engineering teams in 18 months. It will be interesting to re…

I didn't know New York had a startup scene. Is it exclusive to the city?

Re: Are coders worth it?

#106

Post by dhimes »

drunkpotato wrote: post #59
dhimes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. There are some that are worth a lot of money. But to be worth that kind of money you need deep domain knowledge. I won't pay $120/hr for someone to tinker with jQuery. I will pay that for a machine learning specialist. The fact is that 'coders' are today's version of auto mechanics in the 70s. The barrier to entry is low- an old box, a linux distro, google- and off you go. So everybody who can't do something…

Perhaps you've been very lucky or found some especially naive people (right out of grad school, perhaps). Your rates immediately struck me as the kind of rate you would quote if you'd never, in fact, tried to hire somebody skilled. I allow the possibility you have been lucky and successful. In general you'll be paying upwards of $250/hr for a machine learning specialist (sometimes upwards of $500/hr if they have a mo…

You caught me: I've not hired a domain expert coder. But I've also not paid $120/hr for front-end coders. I over-paid for one guy who knew far less than I did- horrible coding practice, always thought he was farther along on the project than he really was (and wanted money), and, in fact, never got far enough to even understand the problem before I terminated the agreement.

For $120/hr the person isn't fiddling- they've done it before, probably have a personal library they can pull, and a basic shell of a website can be ready pretty quickly. Their time is almost entirely spent on the custom part of the site.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#107

Post by [deleted] »

dhimes wrote: post #22
jezclaremurugan wrote: post #3

Not all web developers are "plumbers". If you are working on websites with heavy traffic, then you need to use complex algorithms to scale. That needs someone who is comfortable with algorithms, and that needs a quite lot of thought. The author describes simple CRUD websites and then equates all of web development to trivial tasks like that. Even scaling simple CRUD needs a lot skills, intelligence and ingenuity. And…

I agree. There are some that are worth a lot of money. But to be worth that kind of money you need deep domain knowledge. I won't pay $120/hr for someone to tinker with jQuery. I will pay that for a machine learning specialist. The fact is that 'coders' are today's version of auto mechanics in the 70s. The barrier to entry is low- an old box, a linux distro, google- and off you go. So everybody who can't do something…

[deleted]

Re: Are coders worth it?

#108

Post by wolfpackk »

grey-area wrote: post #50

Wonderful writing, I loved the way it circled several times around the central issue - the value of work, and I particularly liked this conclusion - much validation and reward in our society is driven by how much people are willing to pay you for your chosen work, and it's very hard to separate your self-worth and confidence from that. It's hard to reconcile when your values don't meet those of the people around you,…

Tulip Mania was so volatile and quick that I doubt there was much of anything beyond armchair tulip specialists

Re: Are coders worth it?

#109

Post by rtperson »

dschiptsov wrote: post #26

Bad programming (coding) is easy. Idiots can learn it in 21 days , even if they are Dummies . -- HtDP2 btw, 5 opening paragraphs with so many Is and numbers hardly could be considered a good writing. I guess that the word for this (writing style and the content) is hipsterism.)

I'm not sure if English is your first language, but the writing in this article is actually very good. I don't have any problem believing that people are willing to pay Somers for his writing. (And $10K is, by magazine standards, a princely sum.)

Re: Are coders worth it?

#110

Post by ctdonath »

grey-area wrote: post #50

Wonderful writing, I loved the way it circled several times around the central issue - the value of work, and I particularly liked this conclusion - much validation and reward in our society is driven by how much people are willing to pay you for your chosen work, and it's very hard to separate your self-worth and confidence from that. It's hard to reconcile when your values don't meet those of the people around you,…

A thing is worth exactly what another is willing to give for it.
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