Frugality is probably relative to the industry you're in. Amazon is a retail company, where margins are low, and the overall health of the company can hinge a

Frugality is probably relative to the industry you're in. Amazon is a retail company, where margins are low, and the overall health of the company can hinge a lot on managing all the seemingly small expenses that crop up in running a business. If you're in a higher-margin business like software, maybe the Frugality trade-offs look different. Would Fog Creek be doing substantially better if it spent substantially less per developer? They might be doing a little better, but I doubt it would be enough to materially impact the business. And it may require that they put more of the company's resources into recruiting and hiring, to handle increased turnover. I suspect that the author is heading to a startup as his next step, which may be why Frugality is standing out to him. If you're not cash-flow-positive yet in a business, then keeping your spend rate down by any means necessary can make the difference between success and failure.