> The prior year his "rack" rate was 20K/week. He didn't say "I put out a ridiculous rate and wouldn't you believe it this one guy bit!", but claimed that it wa

> The prior year his "rack" rate was 20K/week. He didn't say "I put out a ridiculous rate and wouldn't you believe it this one guy bit!", but claimed that it was a ongoing day to day rate that saw continued success. But how many weeks do you have to work at that rate to constitute "continued success"? He came off a salaryman job, if he kept his expenses in check he would only need a couple of those jobs per year. > (respected consulting shops -- the sort that you hire because no one ever gets fired for hiring them -- with armies of bodies yield less on their contract) The type of companies that hire those consultancies are generally big slow and bureaucratic. They have plenty of money, but they don't have the agility to hire a single consultant and effect quick changes that move the needle. A corollary is that they also have established tech staffs and probably have some reasonable level of optimization. By contrast there are a lot of mid-tier companies that have revenues in the 6-8 figure range which are generally not operating their tech with an enterprise level of sophistication. They fly under the radar of the tech establishment because they aren't tech-focused and they aren't really attractive to the big consultancies, but they are profitable because of domain knowledge and relationships in small niches. In these companies a hybrid technical/business consultant can move the needle far more than he can in a large company.