4 ms·

Holy cow. If CheddarApp justifies a $1000/hour rate, then good programmers could easily justify $100k/hour or better. Lawyers who handle multimillion dollar d

by rprasad 14y ago

Holy cow. If CheddarApp justifies a $1000/hour rate, then good programmers could easily justify $100k/hour or better. Lawyers who handle multimillion dollar deals can justify $1000/hour. Security specialists can justify $1000/hour. Some guy who makes a mediocre todo list application can't.

joering2 14y ago
You don't get it. he can charge whatever he wants to. Nothing stops him for charging $10,000 per hour, just like Lady Gaga or Biber or some other crazy POPular artist would. Its really not about how much he asks; its about how many people can answer it. He tries to go against the current and assume 1 gig at $1,000/hr is better than 5 gigs at $200. It makes sense. I would love to see people paying for my work 5x more than average, I think I would be more excited too. Also the guy doesnt seem cocky. He mentioned twice that this is too much to pay anyways.
- PhrosTT 14y ago
  Exactly. Everybody in these comments is doing exactly what he said not to: debating the legitimacy of this price. The reality is he's in a position to not need work, and is able to afford turning down 95% of potential employers. Good.
- brc 14y ago
  It's my experience that most IT professionals grossly undercharge. Get a plumber around. Chances are he'll charge you more for fixing your toilet than you will to build him a website. Both are equally easy jobs using off-the-shelf components. As an experiment, I had someone ask me recently for an hourly quote to do some work. I didn't really feel like it, so I quoted double the normal rate. They didn't even blink. If you're not a corporate consultant getting charged out at $400+ per hour, you're probably undercharging. To be clear, I'm talking about consultant type work here, not 'code me a CRUD app on an hourly rate'.
  - colkassad 14y ago
    How much would you charge to code a CRUD app?
pagliara 14y ago
You might be under-estimating the incredible demand for mobile developers right now... especially talented mobile app developers who have proven themselves capable of building a well-built, polished iOS app. Right now, the mobile dev market might actually allow a rate like this.
tptacek 14y ago
I think security tops out at between 500-600; at that level, we're at a "scanning electron microscope" level of sophistication; this is "design verification for billion dollar cryptosystems" territory.
- rdl 14y ago
  With the guy I know who charges like that (although usually more like $50k-100k/mo, for about 50% fulltime), the price also includes his million dollar lab. (SEM, FIB Workstation, ...)
  - tptacek 14y ago
    At these rates you're also getting access to cryptanalysis. While I don't doubt that there are security projects that work out to more than $1000/hr, top-tier security people do not as a rule bill anything like that. For what it's worth: neither do top-tier BigLaw lawyers.
    - rdl 14y ago
      Top Bay Area law partners are $800/hr, although they're really soft on how they bill (I've never actually gotten a bill from ours; probably not until Series A, and partner work is minimal compared to $200/hr associates, and board meetings are free). I've personally never seen >$450 for security, except for people who have huge expenses bundled in doing the work, so it's not really labor. $100-200 is more normal for long engagements, $200-300 for shorter. (the most I ever billed was $350/hr x 4hrs). The funny thing is paying high rates for someone actually good for a few days is certainly cheaper than staffing up a huge project with a bunch of $35-55/hr idiots, but there are companies who just won't pay even $250/hr for people actually doing the work, so they end up doing this.
    - rprasad 14y ago
      Plenty of M&A lawyers bill $1000/hour. Hell, Big 4 accountants who handle M&A bill $1000/hour and get away with it. You're right, even BigLaw lawyers generally don't charge 4 figures an hour. But M&A is a special beast. When you're dealing with a hundred million dollar transaction, the legal and accounting fees are rounding errors.
knwang 14y ago
The OP didn't say the Cheddar App justifies the rate. He/she just said he/she would rather use the (high) rate to weed out boring projects to focus on his/her own projects And he/she doesn't have to justify that rate to everyone. If people hire him/her at that rate, it's justified. a bit off topic.. but I found this he/she thing really annoying.
- brazzy 14y ago
  I have to wonder though: are projects whose managers are willing to pay $1000/h really more likely to be exciting than others?
- btilly 14y ago
  a bit off topic.. but I found this he/she thing really annoying. Then use singular they. See http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-they-and-the-many-reasons-why-its-correct/ http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-th... for verification that this is acceptable English.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    I don't like the singular they. I find it far more annoying than the generic he or the construct of he or she. The generic he actually has an interesting history. In Old English, the word wifman (-> woman) is a masculine noun and wif (-> wife) is neuter. This is because man though meaning basically "human" is a masculine noun so any compound of -man is also masculine. If one wants to specify a male man in Old English one either uses wer (counterpart to wif, survives in werewolf, which is why I joke that all werewolves are by definition male) or wapman which is the counterpart of wifman. This led to an interesting problem. If you are talking about a specific woman and have perfect gender agreement, then "he" has to be used to refer to "woman." That makes things hard to read and so Old English has a rule which is that you ignore the grammatical gender of the word when you refer to a specific person. If we applied this to modern English we'd have amazing constructs like: "I went to the store and the woman at the cash register told me that I needed to give her an extra $5." vs "Any woman thinking about getting married should make sure that he has some level of financial independence first." The first is specific while the second is generic. He in the second refers to "any woman" not her prospective spouse! Similarly "My wife says she isn't up to coming to the party this weekend" but "A wife today still finds it has to do a majority of the housework." I don't like mixing numbers though. If "they" is an acceptable singular why isn't "it's" an acceptable possessive?
deleted 14y ago
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by rprasad 14y ago

joering2 14y ago

You don't get it. he can charge whatever he wants to. Nothing stops him for charging $10,000 per hour, just like Lady Gaga or Biber or some other crazy POPular artist would. Its really not about how much he asks; its about how many people can answer it. He tries to go against the current and assume 1 gig at $1,000/hr is better than 5 gigs at $200. It makes sense. I would love to see people paying for my work 5x more than average, I think I would be more excited too. Also the guy doesnt seem cocky. He mentioned twice that this is too much to pay anyways.

PhrosTT 14y ago
Exactly. Everybody in these comments is doing exactly what he said not to: debating the legitimacy of this price. The reality is he's in a position to not need work, and is able to afford turning down 95% of potential employers. Good.
brc 14y ago
It's my experience that most IT professionals grossly undercharge. Get a plumber around. Chances are he'll charge you more for fixing your toilet than you will to build him a website. Both are equally easy jobs using off-the-shelf components. As an experiment, I had someone ask me recently for an hourly quote to do some work. I didn't really feel like it, so I quoted double the normal rate. They didn't even blink. If you're not a corporate consultant getting charged out at $400+ per hour, you're probably undercharging. To be clear, I'm talking about consultant type work here, not 'code me a CRUD app on an hourly rate'.
- colkassad 14y ago
  How much would you charge to code a CRUD app?

pagliara 14y ago

You might be under-estimating the incredible demand for mobile developers right now... especially talented mobile app developers who have proven themselves capable of building a well-built, polished iOS app. Right now, the mobile dev market might actually allow a rate like this.

tptacek 14y ago

I think security tops out at between 500-600; at that level, we're at a "scanning electron microscope" level of sophistication; this is "design verification for billion dollar cryptosystems" territory.

rdl 14y ago
With the guy I know who charges like that (although usually more like $50k-100k/mo, for about 50% fulltime), the price also includes his million dollar lab. (SEM, FIB Workstation, ...)
- tptacek 14y ago
  At these rates you're also getting access to cryptanalysis. While I don't doubt that there are security projects that work out to more than $1000/hr, top-tier security people do not as a rule bill anything like that. For what it's worth: neither do top-tier BigLaw lawyers.
  - rdl 14y ago
    Top Bay Area law partners are $800/hr, although they're really soft on how they bill (I've never actually gotten a bill from ours; probably not until Series A, and partner work is minimal compared to $200/hr associates, and board meetings are free). I've personally never seen >$450 for security, except for people who have huge expenses bundled in doing the work, so it's not really labor. $100-200 is more normal for long engagements, $200-300 for shorter. (the most I ever billed was $350/hr x 4hrs). The funny thing is paying high rates for someone actually good for a few days is certainly cheaper than staffing up a huge project with a bunch of $35-55/hr idiots, but there are companies who just won't pay even $250/hr for people actually doing the work, so they end up doing this.
  - rprasad 14y ago
    Plenty of M&A lawyers bill $1000/hour. Hell, Big 4 accountants who handle M&A bill $1000/hour and get away with it. You're right, even BigLaw lawyers generally don't charge 4 figures an hour. But M&A is a special beast. When you're dealing with a hundred million dollar transaction, the legal and accounting fees are rounding errors.

knwang 14y ago

The OP didn't say the Cheddar App justifies the rate. He/she just said he/she would rather use the (high) rate to weed out boring projects to focus on his/her own projects And he/she doesn't have to justify that rate to everyone. If people hire him/her at that rate, it's justified. a bit off topic.. but I found this he/she thing really annoying.

brazzy 14y ago
I have to wonder though: are projects whose managers are willing to pay $1000/h really more likely to be exciting than others?
btilly 14y ago
a bit off topic.. but I found this he/she thing really annoying. Then use singular they. See http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-they-and-the-many-reasons-why-its-correct/ http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-th... for verification that this is acceptable English.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  I don't like the singular they. I find it far more annoying than the generic he or the construct of he or she. The generic he actually has an interesting history. In Old English, the word wifman (-> woman) is a masculine noun and wif (-> wife) is neuter. This is because man though meaning basically "human" is a masculine noun so any compound of -man is also masculine. If one wants to specify a male man in Old English one either uses wer (counterpart to wif, survives in werewolf, which is why I joke that all werewolves are by definition male) or wapman which is the counterpart of wifman. This led to an interesting problem. If you are talking about a specific woman and have perfect gender agreement, then "he" has to be used to refer to "woman." That makes things hard to read and so Old English has a rule which is that you ignore the grammatical gender of the word when you refer to a specific person. If we applied this to modern English we'd have amazing constructs like: "I went to the store and the woman at the cash register told me that I needed to give her an extra $5." vs "Any woman thinking about getting married should make sure that he has some level of financial independence first." The first is specific while the second is generic. He in the second refers to "any woman" not her prospective spouse! Similarly "My wife says she isn't up to coming to the party this weekend" but "A wife today still finds it has to do a majority of the housework." I don't like mixing numbers though. If "they" is an acceptable singular why isn't "it's" an acceptable possessive?

deleted 14y ago

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