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We throw away our power as engineers working for other people

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Re: We throw away our power as engineers working for other people

#41

Post by codegeek »

"With Great Power, comes great responsibility" - Spiderman's uncle ?

Just because we have power as engineers, doesn't mean everyone is actually willing to go the extra distance to do their own thing etc. And I am as hardcore as you can get when it comes to controlling your own destiny. It comes at a significant cost and to be blunt, not everyone wants to do that. A lot of engineers are happy to have a good paying job that provides work-life balance, great benefits and most importantly: not worrying about the lives of a bunch of people (Read:employees).

I would not work a job, hopefully unless I literally cannot food on the table anymore. But I very well know that a lot of engineers who can be creators are happy to create things for others, work a job that they are satisfied with and call it a day. Nothing wrong with that at all if that's what floats your boat.

Re: We throw away our power as engineers working for other people

#43

Post by inopinatus »

rl1987 wrote: post #38
inopinatus wrote: post #19

The irony of saying "don't be a serf! build your own products!" whilst depending on the Medium platform is either delicious, or painful. Not sure which.

Just like your codebase is bound to have dependencies, so will your company. If he's not depending on Medium, he would be depending on Google for ranking, hosting company for hosting his blog, Mailchimp for sending out email marketing campaigns and so on. The difference is doing the work according your own decisions versus dealing with decisions made by other people higher up in the company according to some agendas…

If that equivalence were true, there wouldn't be any irony to mention. Technical elements are replaceable parts, unless some abysmally bad decisions have been made. Hopefully you/your firm does not need Mailchimp's continuing permission to exist. Any of the many competing similar providers will do.

In contrast the company in question has the tagline, "Make more money on Medium". Their existence is predicated on an external indulgence, and those are foundations of sand.

Re: We throw away our power as engineers working for other people

#44

Post by lerpapoo »

hirako2000 wrote: post #33
thespoonbends wrote: post #29

Why do so many of these "start your own business" nomads types have businesses that revolve around getting more people to start businesses? The author's business appears to be about monetising blogs. It's circular. Where's the value?

There is no value, but it pays the blogger. In a way they prove the point, only that it applies to themselves or the followers who would do exactly the same. The same can be observed in some educationnal subjects, some teachers make money teaching students how to become teachers of the same thing, with no concrete value other than filling jobs. The money often come from state funds :)

lol savage

Re: We throw away our power as engineers working for other people

#45

Post by jamil7 »

thespoonbends wrote: post #29

Why do so many of these "start your own business" nomads types have businesses that revolve around getting more people to start businesses? The author's business appears to be about monetising blogs. It's circular. Where's the value?

It’s like all of that indiehackers site’s businesses. I guess it’s the selling shovels in a goldrush strategy?

Re: We throw away our power as engineers working for other people

#46

Post by exdsq »

“At this point in my career I can write code for just about anyone. I don’t say that to brag, I say that just to lay out my options.”

I find this semi-guru semi-brag style of writing so infuriating. I’m sure he’s a great iOS developer but come on man... I wish more people wrote with the goal of genuinely helping others rather than just trying to promote their own brand.

Re: We throw away our power as engineers working for other people

#49

Post by lochlan »

nineteen999 wrote: post #32
lochlan wrote: post #9

Why should I incur the risk and time investment of founding a startup when I can enjoy comfort and success working at a FANG company? Startups _sound_ great, but death marching myself without compensation is a stressful proposition. Sure, I have a handful of ideas that seem reasonable and dreams of startup success—and maybe I'll explore them in early retirement.

Why should I incur the risk and time investment of founding a startup OR the culture at a FANG company, when I can thankfully avoid both and still be compensated really well and enjoy my work. It's not like there's only two options.

What exactly are you risking (or incurring) with regards to FANG culture? From my perspective it's all upside.

Re: We throw away our power as engineers working for other people

#50

Post by redis_mlc »

"Right after I turned 28, I sat down with my wife for a deep think about what I really wanted. I was the Director of Engineering at a recent-graduate YC company, we were about to close our Series A, and I was unhappy, over-worked, and I knew it was time for something different."

Satire? The show "Silicon Valley"? lol.

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