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"[...] thinking of themselves as the CEO of Me, Inc; and to survive in the neoliberal world of work, the CEO of Me, Inc must be a quitter." I fail to see how t

"[...] thinking of themselves as the CEO of Me, Inc; and to survive in the neoliberal world of work, the CEO of Me, Inc must be a quitter." I fail to see how that's a bad thing. I've never quite understood this notion of tying your fate, your welfare and your livelihood to a single company. By not thinking of yourself as the CEO of Me Inc. you ultimately become a commodity for employers to do with as they please. At the very least there will be a power differential where the employer will always gain the upper hand in negotiations. Seeing and marketing yourself as a service provider in a market economy instead will allow you to focus on creating value in lieu of trading time for money. This can be beneficial to both parties. This whole idea of using 'time spent' as a surrogate measure for 'value created' is a large contributing factor to waste in modern economies.

gumby 9y ago
The article doesn't condem this per se, simply discusses the negative consequences for companies and people working in them (look at the Java/C++ case). I don't think it's safe to assume that the big company will take care of you forever but it's equally disastrous that the metrics of value have become so one sided.
michaelt 9y ago
I fail to see how that's a bad thing. Quitting itself isn't bad, but shorter job tenures and reduced job security may have second-order effects. For example, economic downturns will cause faster rises in unemployment, leading to faster drops in consumer spending. And employers are going to see lower returns from investing in training - meaning colleges might need even more focus on applied skills. Hell, it might even limit the complexity of projects our society is capable of delivering - we might be less able to successfully deliver projects that take longer than a year or two.
- LolWolf 9y ago
  > Hell, it might even limit the complexity of projects our society is capable of delivering - we might be less able to successfully deliver projects that take longer than a year or two. I guess that's somewhat true. But I feel that for companies handling more complex topics (not just the new 'AI deep learning on big data with hadoop on rails in the cloud' startup), experts are hired with the understanding that both the work is interesting and it would be a long-term project with long-term benefits. This is all, of course, without counting academia as possibly the ultimate example of long-term hiring with high-risk, high-reward returns.

gumby 9y ago

The article doesn't condem this per se, simply discusses the negative consequences for companies and people working in them (look at the Java/C++ case). I don't think it's safe to assume that the big company will take care of you forever but it's equally disastrous that the metrics of value have become so one sided.

michaelt 9y ago

I fail to see how that's a bad thing. Quitting itself isn't bad, but shorter job tenures and reduced job security may have second-order effects. For example, economic downturns will cause faster rises in unemployment, leading to faster drops in consumer spending. And employers are going to see lower returns from investing in training - meaning colleges might need even more focus on applied skills. Hell, it might even limit the complexity of projects our society is capable of delivering - we might be less able to successfully deliver projects that take longer than a year or two.

LolWolf 9y ago
> Hell, it might even limit the complexity of projects our society is capable of delivering - we might be less able to successfully deliver projects that take longer than a year or two. I guess that's somewhat true. But I feel that for companies handling more complex topics (not just the new 'AI deep learning on big data with hadoop on rails in the cloud' startup), experts are hired with the understanding that both the work is interesting and it would be a long-term project with long-term benefits. This is all, of course, without counting academia as possibly the ultimate example of long-term hiring with high-risk, high-reward returns.