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There's something I find morally and intellectually dishonest about this article. Although Joel ultimately decided Noah deserved a bonus in this case, he never

There's something I find morally and intellectually dishonest about this article. Although Joel ultimately decided Noah deserved a bonus in this case, he never outright rejects the argument that bonuses aren't deserved for such cases in general. Rather, he argues that a software company is an idea factory, therefore he was already paying Noah for his ideas. That is patently absurd. He was most definitely NOT paying Noah to come up with ideas for new business opportunities. To the extent he was paying Noah for his ideas, it was with regard to their existing products and the work he was assigned to. Noah went above and beyond his duties, and fairly compensating him for that is not the act of benevolence that Joel makes it sound like. There's also some shocking cognitive dissonance on display here. On one hand, Joel repeatedly refers to Noah's contribution as a million-dollar business. On the other, he wonders what an appropriate bonus would be and even contemplates giving Noah a video game console worth a few hundred dollars. The elephant in the room is that Noah deserved a fair portion of the new-found profit. Now, this compensation may well be unsavory for any number of reasons, not the least of which are Joel's business concerns. But shouldn't that argument be made, rather than pretending that an idea literally worth a million dollars is hard to quantify?

zmimon 18y ago
One point you (and a lot of people) are missing: Joel was the one who took the business risk of posting those ads. It may seem risk free in retrospect, but they didn't know that in advance. It could have pissed off all his software customers, cheapened and diminished his brand. It could have had technical problems and become a nightmare with people wrongly charged or spammed. Just about anything could have happened. Noah took no risk, he just suggested an idea. Joel paid him to implement the idea, he didn't go "above and beyond" in that sense. So in all this righteous speak of what is a "fair" reward for Noah, keep in mind that his contribution, vital though it was, is dwarfed by that which Joel had to make to enable it to be realized.
whatusername 18y ago
The elephant down the hall is that if Noah put the job board on his own personal web-site - it was a $100 business, not a $1,000,000 one. The spolsky/fc brand is what made it valuable - and Noah had nothing to do with that. Isn't one of the HN mantra's that it's execution not idea that's valuable?

zmimon 18y ago

One point you (and a lot of people) are missing: Joel was the one who took the business risk of posting those ads. It may seem risk free in retrospect, but they didn't know that in advance. It could have pissed off all his software customers, cheapened and diminished his brand. It could have had technical problems and become a nightmare with people wrongly charged or spammed. Just about anything could have happened. Noah took no risk, he just suggested an idea. Joel paid him to implement the idea, he didn't go "above and beyond" in that sense. So in all this righteous speak of what is a "fair" reward for Noah, keep in mind that his contribution, vital though it was, is dwarfed by that which Joel had to make to enable it to be realized.

whatusername 18y ago

The elephant down the hall is that if Noah put the job board on his own personal web-site - it was a $100 business, not a $1,000,000 one. The spolsky/fc brand is what made it valuable - and Noah had nothing to do with that. Isn't one of the HN mantra's that it's execution not idea that's valuable?