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I haven't been able to see the follow up yet, but I will! And by the way, I love your style. Excellent podcast! I got that out of your podcast as well, the po

I haven't been able to see the follow up yet, but I will! And by the way, I love your style. Excellent podcast! I got that out of your podcast as well, the points you bring up here. And I agree 100%. Honestly, it is so sad and, as you say, disgusting, how many engineers use these excuses to stay in the position of a commodity. It's really self defeating to the engineers. When people occasionally bring up making a software engineers union or something of that fashion, it is to basically alleviate the commodity pain without addressing the causes, like the lack of recognition, laziness, and defeatist attitudes. Unfortunately, the only real way out is to break out on your own. Once you do, it becomes rather obvious that you had nothing to fear at all. Nothing of substance anyway.

rabidrat 10y ago
I've struck out on my own twice now. I worked my butt off both times, and made no money either time. The first time, I burnt out after my business partner left, and the second time, we tried to make/sell a video plagiarism detection service. These excursions did not just cost me the income I would have received from a corporation, but they also decimated my savings. I have friends who are my age who have worked at corporations consistently, and they have about 10x the savings I have now. Two of them are retired (just over 40 years old). I don't regret my excursions, because I hated many aspects of the corporate life, and I am the kind of person who has to see for myself. But I won't be striking out on my own again. Money, like software, is hard to make reliably at scale. I would no more tell an engineer to strike out on their own in business, than I would tell an entrepreneur to start making an MMORPG.