Three Ways to Get Paid (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#141

Post by Wowfunhappy » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 10:20 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #81

gamerslexus wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only two ways to get paid, so it's either title is wrong or there's a missing part.

Getting paid is entirely consistent with going broke. Gross income doesn't have to be zero to be less than expenses.

To be fair (and perhaps overly pedantic), while the article title is "three ways to get paid," the quoted maxim begins "there are three ways to make a living."

It then goes on to say that the third way will make you "go broke", which seems somewhat contradictory.

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#142

Post by Wowfunhappy » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 10:58 PM UTC

These ways to get paid could be represented as a table:

                   They Want Lies   They Want Truth
                   +--------------+---------------+
     You Tell Lies | become rich  | ???           | 
                   +--------------+---------------+
    You Tell Truth | go broke     | make a living | 
                   +--------------+---------------+

Notice how the upper right quadrant is left out of TFA. If you end up there, I don't think things go well for you. By which I mean, like, you could end up in jail.

Maybe telling lies isn't such a great business idea after all?

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#143

Post by anal_reactor » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 11:33 PM UTC

prmph wrote: post #87

tombert wrote: post #48

I've told this story before, but it's relevant. When I worked at BigCo [1], we were interviewing a candidate for a position. He was pretty good, and we were in the process of making him an offer, but he was asking for more money and trying to negotiate his salary higher. I don't have an issue with this, BigCo has plenty of money, but other people, including a manager, were complaining. They felt that this is a good j…

Yeah, this tendency of people to believe a collective lie, to try very hard to believe it, or at least make it look like they believe it, even when everybody knows its a lie, astounds me to no end. Some examples: - Russians (or insert any other dictatorship trying to appear otherwise) faking "democratic" elections. Who are you kidding, yourselves? No one believes it. Just tell the west: to hell with your democracy. L…

I've also been baffled by this for a long time, but I think I understand this:

1. Our society is a complex system of independent actors, most of which are willing to lie for their personal benefit. It's not hard to argue that given enough time, there will emerge lies that most people do believe.

2. Most people aren't capable of holding a thought in their mind without being emotionally affected by it. This means that if some problem isn't immediately actionable, they don't want to discuss it, because that makes them feel bad.

3. Most people are simply stupid and do not think logically.

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#144

Post by ASalazarMX » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 11:39 PM UTC

catgomeyow wrote: post #108

beej71 wrote: post #58

When I was a dev working with my business-oriented business partner, I had to get used to sitting in meetings where we promised the client the world having no idea if I could accomplish it or not. Made a lot more money than I could have on my own. "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES'!!"

They did this to me when I was a technical director of a mid-sized engineering consultancy (aka, a sweat shop). I learned it on the fly when they had me go to a client meeting. They showed the slide deck of all of our credentials, and I was astonished that the sales engineer took the slide I sent them and increased all my years of experience by 25%. I asked them about it later, and they said don't worry about it, eve…

The "fake it 'till you make it" is prevalent in consultancies, because effectively all of them do it, and their clients know it, and if they don't do it they get pushed out of deals. I too started my career at one of such consultancies, and failed faking it once or twice until I managed to "make it" (that is, getting close enough to my peers so the client tolerated me). It felt dishonest, but was invaluable for a fresh programmer without any formal experience, at all.

IMO sweatshops are a necessary part of the ecosystem, but only until you grow out of them.

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#145

Post by brailsafe » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 11:59 PM UTC

IAmGraydon wrote: post #74

brailsafe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are "ways to get paid", but "jobs" implicitly may or may not be relevant to the topic. If there's no game, politics, or sales aspect whatsoever, which is rarely but not never the case, then it's kind of irrelevant.

>These are "ways to get paid" The link literally says "There are three ways to make a living."

Seems like a strange correction, although we're both correct, because the title of the page says "Three Ways to Get Paid", but the difference is negligible.

A job is one way to make a living, in which these ways may apply, but a job doesn't necessarily have to pay at all and can be entirely volunteer, if we're being pedantic. Jobs are often very bad ways to make a living these days.

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#146

Post by m463 » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 2:38 AM UTC

catgomeyow wrote: post #108

beej71 wrote: post #58

When I was a dev working with my business-oriented business partner, I had to get used to sitting in meetings where we promised the client the world having no idea if I could accomplish it or not. Made a lot more money than I could have on my own. "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES'!!"

They did this to me when I was a technical director of a mid-sized engineering consultancy (aka, a sweat shop). I learned it on the fly when they had me go to a client meeting. They showed the slide deck of all of our credentials, and I was astonished that the sales engineer took the slide I sent them and increased all my years of experience by 25%. I asked them about it later, and they said don't worry about it, eve…

I can't help but remember that dilbert...

https://web.archive.org/web/20230302211534im_/https://assets...

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#147

Post by lubujackson » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 2:45 AM UTC

tombert wrote: post #48

I've told this story before, but it's relevant. When I worked at BigCo [1], we were interviewing a candidate for a position. He was pretty good, and we were in the process of making him an offer, but he was asking for more money and trying to negotiate his salary higher. I don't have an issue with this, BigCo has plenty of money, but other people, including a manager, were complaining. They felt that this is a good j…

The wildest part of this is that the salary negotiations were open to a group of interviewers. Why in the world would engineers need to be a part of that?

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#148

Post by mock-possum » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:18 AM UTC

zaphar wrote: post #25

kuanbutts wrote: post #2

There's got to be a variant that is a 2x2 matrix of this: Lie to others, lie to yourself (spiral together; either fantastically poor or spectacularly rich) Lie to others, tell yourself the truth (manipulation, morally broke, but materially rich) Tell others the truth, tell yourself the truth (integrity, barely scrape by) Tell others the truth, lie to yourself (be used by the system, usually end up poorly)

It's not really a rule of thumb that "Tell others the truth, tell yourself the truth" means you have to barely scrape by. Plenty of people make good money that way.

Yeah on the contrary, it’s been my experience that finding other truth tellers tends to lead to a supportive community, where everyone is relieved they don’t have to put up with bullshitters.

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#149

Post by benhurmarcel » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 8:01 AM UTC

gonzalohm wrote: post #90

beej71 wrote: post #58

When I was a dev working with my business-oriented business partner, I had to get used to sitting in meetings where we promised the client the world having no idea if I could accomplish it or not. Made a lot more money than I could have on my own. "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES'!!"

The downside is all the stress from unrealistic objectives

Only if you actually try to achieve them

Re: Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

#150

Post by sph » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:09 AM UTC

beej71 wrote: post #58

When I was a dev working with my business-oriented business partner, I had to get used to sitting in meetings where we promised the client the world having no idea if I could accomplish it or not. Made a lot more money than I could have on my own. "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES'!!"

One of the most stressful times in my life was my first job at 19 where my boss would sell the moon to clients, then I had to find a way to deliver. On time.

Fuck that nonsense.