5 ms·

Lol, this is me, a 100x dev, screwed over by big co employer. Decide to go solo and slowly build a company to compete with them. Started part time 12 years ago.

by abz10 5y ago

Lol, this is me, a 100x dev, screwed over by big co employer. Decide to go solo and slowly build a company to compete with them. Started part time 12 years ago. I think I could easily hit $1B valuation within 10 years. It is already super profitable and still growing. Eventually I’ll cost the competitors so much business that it’ll be much cheaper for them to buy me out for $Bs. If not it’ll still throw off $Ms in cash per year.

renewiltord 5y ago
Congratulations. What are you working on?
- abz10 5y ago
  It’s one of those secret but profitable niches.
  - halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
    Oh yeah, those. Heard a lot about them. Good luck!
  - everybodyknows 5y ago
    >throw off $Ms in cash per year. >secret What sort of businesses fit within those constraints? The only ones that come to mind are illegal …
    - abz10 5y ago
      Cash, as in free cash flow. Maybe not the best usage of the term, but better than revenue. And secret in that people in this niche don’t advertise the opportunity as new competition would cut into profits.
Rezwoodly 5y ago
Ahhhh, the Internet.. I too am a 100x dev who is on the fast track for a billion dollar pay day
soneca 5y ago
Are you 100x more productive than an average dev? Is that what _”100x dev”_ means?
- abz10 5y ago
  Yes, I would rate my development productivity to be roughly 100x of an average developer.
- cornel_io 5y ago
  That's probably what it means but it's also a weird thing to measure because depending how you define "average" you can juke the stats any way you want. If I said "hire" to a random resume that comes in for a job, the value of either the median or mean developer is likely very close to zero if not negative, and that's probably true even if you just look at devs who are actually employed writing code for generic companies. If you restrict to better companies you quickly climb the productivity curve, and at places like Google it's pretty rare to find someone who is a 10x dev as compared to company peers (though you can have 10 or 100x impact pretty easily if you're good at almost any part of business other than writing code and know how to thrive in a bloated corporate environment).
- riku_iki 5y ago
  By my definition 10x/100x dev means a person who makes decision which require 100x less resources to execute to achieve the same goal. For example, one can build clean, maintainable and monitored codebase/infra, which will support business goals and rapid evolution in long term, while some group of mediocre engineers can build overcomplicated system, over-polluted by bugs and technical debt, which will be significant liability rather than useful asset.
  - abz10 5y ago
    I’m amused that the 100x dev caught more flack than a likely solo $B bootstrap. In my view developer ability follows the Pareto distribution. I was born to program and have done it all my life and it’s all I do. I’ve been formally trained and have worked at world leading research institutions. I’ve always been considered a bit of a freak by my peers. I currently have two direct competitors, both have 100s of developers and are staffed by thousands. Despite starting after them I was able to ship a key feature long before them.
goldforever 5y ago
BS

by abz10 5y ago

renewiltord 5y ago

Congratulations. What are you working on?

abz10 5y ago
It’s one of those secret but profitable niches.
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  Oh yeah, those. Heard a lot about them. Good luck!
- everybodyknows 5y ago
  >throw off $Ms in cash per year. >secret What sort of businesses fit within those constraints? The only ones that come to mind are illegal …
  - abz10 5y ago
    Cash, as in free cash flow. Maybe not the best usage of the term, but better than revenue. And secret in that people in this niche don’t advertise the opportunity as new competition would cut into profits.

Rezwoodly 5y ago

Ahhhh, the Internet.. I too am a 100x dev who is on the fast track for a billion dollar pay day

soneca 5y ago

Are you 100x more productive than an average dev? Is that what _”100x dev”_ means?

abz10 5y ago
Yes, I would rate my development productivity to be roughly 100x of an average developer.
cornel_io 5y ago
That's probably what it means but it's also a weird thing to measure because depending how you define "average" you can juke the stats any way you want. If I said "hire" to a random resume that comes in for a job, the value of either the median or mean developer is likely very close to zero if not negative, and that's probably true even if you just look at devs who are actually employed writing code for generic companies. If you restrict to better companies you quickly climb the productivity curve, and at places like Google it's pretty rare to find someone who is a 10x dev as compared to company peers (though you can have 10 or 100x impact pretty easily if you're good at almost any part of business other than writing code and know how to thrive in a bloated corporate environment).
riku_iki 5y ago
By my definition 10x/100x dev means a person who makes decision which require 100x less resources to execute to achieve the same goal. For example, one can build clean, maintainable and monitored codebase/infra, which will support business goals and rapid evolution in long term, while some group of mediocre engineers can build overcomplicated system, over-polluted by bugs and technical debt, which will be significant liability rather than useful asset.
- abz10 5y ago
  I’m amused that the 100x dev caught more flack than a likely solo $B bootstrap. In my view developer ability follows the Pareto distribution. I was born to program and have done it all my life and it’s all I do. I’ve been formally trained and have worked at world leading research institutions. I’ve always been considered a bit of a freak by my peers. I currently have two direct competitors, both have 100s of developers and are staffed by thousands. Despite starting after them I was able to ship a key feature long before them.

goldforever 5y ago