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> I believe the joke is on us as technical people. Quite the opposite? We can be paid for migrating current applications to "serverless", and when the tides of

by WJW 5y ago

> I believe the joke is on us as technical people. Quite the opposite? We can be paid for migrating current applications to "serverless", and when the tides of tech fashion change we can be paid again to migrate to the new fashionable tech. If the joke is on anyone, it is on the shareholders of the companies getting locked in. But, it is their money and if they want to trade some CAPEX for OPEX that is not really my problem.

bob1029 5y ago
> But, it is their money and if they want to trade some CAPEX for OPEX that is not really my problem. What if we made it your problem by granting you equity in the business? I feel like this is the #1 reason to funnel a portion of shares to your employees. Making the technical people give even 1% of a shit about the cost of doing business is infinitely better than 0%.
- WJW 5y ago
  If you are an engineer with 1% of equity, more power to you. In all the companies I've worked at, the influence of the cloud provider bill on the eventual worth of my options has been lower than my annual beer costs. The #1 benefit of options for startups is that they shift engineering costs from now to the future, so that you can hire any engineers at all while operating on a small budget. If the business works out, you already have so much money that the cost of the options will be negligible. If the business doesn't work out, the cost of the options was zero.
- nasmorn 5y ago
  I inherited an AWS stack that cost 10k a month and turned it into 1.5k in a week. Joke was on the previous devs too though as they were fired. But I guess at a big company it would be only 100% too expensive but at a much bigger scale and no one gets fired since it is basically best practices or so.
- ReactiveJelly 5y ago
  Is holding the shares a condition of working there? Cause I'd rather sell them and diversify. I don't want the risk of the company going under to cost me my salary _and_ my investments.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I think there's a good balance with the current vesting schedules. You vest the shares at some point in the future (giving you current incentive to align your actions behind the goals of the company). Then, when they vest, you can sell them to diversify (sometimes with a short waiting period if there's a trading window blackout or something).
  - TheCoelacanth 5y ago
    That's essentially what a vesting period is. A popular vesting schedule is 25/25/25/25, which means you would be able to sell 25% one year after getting the shares, another 25% after the second year and so on. Typically they would keep giving you more shares as your shares vest so that you always have some shares that you can't sell yet.
funcDropShadow 5y ago
The joke is on the customers, not the shareholders. They continue to profit from the profits of the companies they own. They feel only short term effects, every economic long-term effect is burdened by people.

by WJW 5y ago

bob1029 5y ago

> But, it is their money and if they want to trade some CAPEX for OPEX that is not really my problem. What if we made it your problem by granting you equity in the business? I feel like this is the #1 reason to funnel a portion of shares to your employees. Making the technical people give even 1% of a shit about the cost of doing business is infinitely better than 0%.

WJW 5y ago
If you are an engineer with 1% of equity, more power to you. In all the companies I've worked at, the influence of the cloud provider bill on the eventual worth of my options has been lower than my annual beer costs. The #1 benefit of options for startups is that they shift engineering costs from now to the future, so that you can hire any engineers at all while operating on a small budget. If the business works out, you already have so much money that the cost of the options will be negligible. If the business doesn't work out, the cost of the options was zero.
nasmorn 5y ago
I inherited an AWS stack that cost 10k a month and turned it into 1.5k in a week. Joke was on the previous devs too though as they were fired. But I guess at a big company it would be only 100% too expensive but at a much bigger scale and no one gets fired since it is basically best practices or so.
ReactiveJelly 5y ago
Is holding the shares a condition of working there? Cause I'd rather sell them and diversify. I don't want the risk of the company going under to cost me my salary _and_ my investments.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I think there's a good balance with the current vesting schedules. You vest the shares at some point in the future (giving you current incentive to align your actions behind the goals of the company). Then, when they vest, you can sell them to diversify (sometimes with a short waiting period if there's a trading window blackout or something).
- TheCoelacanth 5y ago
  That's essentially what a vesting period is. A popular vesting schedule is 25/25/25/25, which means you would be able to sell 25% one year after getting the shares, another 25% after the second year and so on. Typically they would keep giving you more shares as your shares vest so that you always have some shares that you can't sell yet.

funcDropShadow 5y ago

The joke is on the customers, not the shareholders. They continue to profit from the profits of the companies they own. They feel only short term effects, every economic long-term effect is burdened by people.