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Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

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Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#91

Post by starmole »

ryandrake wrote: post #84
starmole wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally see your point about the advice being douchey. But in this case it was somebody specifically asking for how to make the most money as a dev. Not a struggling single mom making ends meet. In his context I think I made sense. But I would never tell that to somebody trying to get by.

My issue is not that it's "douchey". It's that it's not repeatable. I can change my mind and go into work tomorrow not motivated by money but that alone will not change my career path. A more useful answer would be something along the lines of: "Get N years of domain experience in X technology at one of A, B, or C firms, and learn sales."

I strongly disagree with the repeatable idea. Any progress comes from people NOT repeating things. Computers are good for repeatable stuff. Repeatable means institutional. It is the enemy of progress.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#92

Post by tslug »

1. No.

2. Yes.

3. Respect the people you want to help you. For instance, let's say you want a bunch of people to take the time to read and answer difficult, open-ended questions for free in a way that could lead to vast personal wealth for you. You could demonstrate your respect for them by showing them the courtesy of proof-reading your post. As the questions are so broad, you also could show respect by sharing what you've learned in the research you've done so far to help educate them and to narrow down what you're looking for. You could demonstrate even more respect by thanking the authors of particularly good contributions.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#93

Post by chubot »

adventured wrote: post #79
chubot wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, being motivated by money is likely to make you less wealthy, because it leads you to the same behaviors as other people seeking money. You are then competing with them, which lessens your likelihood of success. Read Peter Thiel's Zero to One. He talks about competition vs. monopoly. You want to do things that other people aren't doing. He talks about the Harvard MBA grads who chase the last bubble, i.e. getting y…

Thiel's premise is not to do things other people aren't doing. That would have ruled out Google (AltaVista) and Facebook (MySpace). Thiel's premise is to be the last search engine, the last social network, etc. It's not: don't enter competitive fields; it's: compete, best the competition, and become a monopoly. There's no such thing as avoiding competition, there is no scenario under which Google was going to not hav…

His premise is: "What valuable company is nobody building?" [1] That sounds like avoiding competition to me.

If Google had wanted to compete, it would have gone for Yahoo, and become a portal, and tried to maximize user time on the site. The conventional wisdom was that Yahoo was far more worthy of competition than AltaVista. AltaVista wasn't even a company; it was almost shut down by its parent company IIRC. And it didn't make any money. Nobody wanted to compete with AltaVista. Search was viewed as a feature, not a company.

Facebook also avoided competition in its early years by being closed to the public and signing up one college at a time. They formed monopolies on social networks within specific colleges, and leveraged that position to expand to the rest of the world.

The idea is not to compete "head on". Don't just try to do same thing, but better. Do something different. It's hard to imagine what the world was like before Google or Facebook, but they were both doing something radically different early in their lives.

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-l...

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#94

Post by moeamaya »

jerguismi wrote: post #28
starmole wrote: post #24

It really depends on skill and motivation. If your motivation is only money you are unlikely to succeed. Personally I am a big corp dev and making >600k/year on track to retire at 40. But you do not get there by trying for the salary. Try to be good, no exceptional, at what you do. Become valuable and you will be paid. But your motivation should be your craft and not money. I believe the same applies for startup foun…

> I think as a dev big corps are the way better bet. Not much to loose, but possibly high payout. Startups very rarely pay out for devs. I disagree. These days the founders are devs more and more often. However, usually you have to get out of your comfort zone and do also other than dev work in a startup. Meaning also learning the business stuff. It isn't rocket science, but for many devs it can be quite uncomfortabl…

I think you missed out on the point of compensation. Even as a first employee working at a startup, you're only expected to get 1-3% equity, but you're as you stated doing many things outside of dev work. Big Corp Devs perhaps don't have as many tangential responsibilities, but they will often start with a significantly increased base salary which can be a serious opportunity cost to consider.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#95

Post by nudpiedo »

sosuke wrote: post #27
starmole wrote: post #24

It really depends on skill and motivation. If your motivation is only money you are unlikely to succeed. Personally I am a big corp dev and making >600k/year on track to retire at 40. But you do not get there by trying for the salary. Try to be good, no exceptional, at what you do. Become valuable and you will be paid. But your motivation should be your craft and not money. I believe the same applies for startup foun…

Why does money motivation reduce your chances? I don't think being exceptional is enough, there are several open source projects created and maintained by exceptional devs, but they don't make >600k/year. Being exceptional working at anything but the right company won't make you money. Why do you thing "dev big corps" are better? What does that mean to you? I think of Microsoft, Google, IBM, Apple, but even after you…

I agree with you. I work in one of those which you mentioned in Germany, and I've less than 3 years experience. By accident I saw the payroll of a top-dev (top engineer actually), and it is "just the double" of mine.

That makes makes for a good living with many luxuries Germany standard's but those guys are the ones who have to dance in front of the local CEO every week and can't enjoy weekends and work in the afternoon. They can afford sometimes low level luxury cars but for sure they can't stop working and just retire.

For them work developing or implement something is a hobby they can do after a whole day full of meetings.

Not a dream dev life, not a way to become actually rich. And I'd add: not a way to enjoy life (if you hate meetings and empty technical discussions which are not about the technical topic but about a political reason which usually sucks).

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#96

Post by austinjp »

starmole wrote: post #91
ryandrake wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue is not that it's "douchey". It's that it's not repeatable. I can change my mind and go into work tomorrow not motivated by money but that alone will not change my career path. A more useful answer would be something along the lines of: "Get N years of domain experience in X technology at one of A, B, or C firms, and learn sales."

I strongly disagree with the repeatable idea. Any progress comes from people NOT repeating things. Computers are good for repeatable stuff. Repeatable means institutional. It is the enemy of progress.

Progress != profit, for any value of "progress".

There are thousands and thousands of very successful businesses that mimic other businesses. Burger chains are a trivial example.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#97

Post by beagle3 »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #74

There's something we all can do if we work together to get each of us paid north of 200k a year. Form a software developer union.

The only unions that I am aware of that have achievements close to this are lawyer's guilds (through state bars) and doctor's guilds (the AMA, by limiting medical school admissions).

Lawyers, as of the last 15 years or so, are not doing so well - the median figure I found for 2013 is $114K. Doctors are doing better, at median $190K.

That's a far cry from "each of us" - even with these two professions, 50-80% of the people earn less than $200k.

And, they both manage it through strict licensing, which effectively requires 6-8 year studies in an accredited institute - which carry hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt in most cases.

Which union and setting exactly did you have in mind when you wrote this?

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#98

Post by prewett »

Save money and invest it wisely in stocks and/or bonds. It's not fast, it's not techy, but it is a tried and true way.

The trick is, you need to figure out what "wisely" is. IMO, if your strategy involves holding on to your stocks, it is probably speculation (=gambling) rather than investing wisely.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#99

Post by caminante »

austinjp wrote: post #96
starmole wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree with the repeatable idea. Any progress comes from people NOT repeating things. Computers are good for repeatable stuff. Repeatable means institutional. It is the enemy of progress.

Progress != profit, for any value of "progress". There are thousands and thousands of very successful businesses that mimic other businesses. Burger chains are a trivial example.

Yet, very successful burger chains aren't selling "burgers," just like Starbucks isn't just selling "coffee." If that were the case, every business would make average burgers.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#100

Post by gdubs »

prewett wrote: post #98

Save money and invest it wisely in stocks and/or bonds. It's not fast, it's not techy, but it is a tried and true way. The trick is, you need to figure out what "wisely" is. IMO, if your strategy involves holding on to your stocks, it is probably speculation (=gambling) rather than investing wisely.

>> if your strategy involves holding on to your stocks, it is probably speculation (=gambling) rather than investing wisely.

Holding onto your stocks is the opposite of speculation, isn't it? Most sensible investment advice, e.g. Bogle, recommends index funds that are held basically forever.

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