biztos

62 ms·

1. 781.▲
   by biztos 5y ago

   > I think the majority of continental Europeans feel the same and support this idea to some degree. I guess that must be true of the political elite in the major (remaining) EU countries, or it wouldn't be the policy, right? But fo
2. 782.▲
   by biztos 5y ago

   Beyond the amusing tautology, I think the US offers a pretty good example of how you can end up with non-secret courts issuing secret judgements based on secret proceedings, and still say "rule of law" with a straight face. I&#x27
3. 783.▲
   by biztos 5y ago

   Just to give one example, in Thailand right now it's the year 2564. 1 BC for some is not "-1" for everyone.
4. 784.▲
   by biztos 5y ago

   What does that insurance look like? What's it called (in Danish if necessary)? I don't think I've seen something like "dry-spell insurance" before. Seems like it would be expensive, since the risk of a freelancer
5. 785.▲
   by biztos 5y ago

   I guess you can get fired, but isn't that a differentiator for the agents? Like: Agent Amy has awesome people who don't get fired, Agent Bob has so-so people who get fired sometimes, and thus if you want Amy to be your agent yo
6. 786.▲
   by biztos 5y ago

   As I understand it, no. An agent, in the film-world sense, traditionally gets a cut of all your work while you are contracted with that agent, and -- crucially -- gets it from you. There is a contract, you're going to gross $X, you
7. 787.▲
   by biztos 5y ago

   Thanks, that's very informative. Yes I am wondering about the rank and file actors/programmers, if there are only agents for the stars then it's not much of a system. In situations like this do you have insight into the actu
8. 788.▲
   by biztos 5y ago

   Thanks, that's one example for sure, hope they are still doing it. Before posting this I read a previous HN article about 10x and their "negotiation as a service" offering, and in that thread it seemed like indeed they were i
9. 789.▲
   by biztos 5y ago

   > contract terms are much more standardized Yeah but I wonder, how much of this is because we (as a group/subculture) are terrible at negotiating and don't have agents helping us with it? I mean, I have to actually work with th
10. 790.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    Yeah I agree that this is the closest thing to an agent model that I've seen reliably work in the software world, but in a way it's also close to the "packaging" thing/problem in the film world. I worked for someon
11. 791.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    Anybody can get crap offers, the point of the agent is to get you good offers, because otherwise the agent doesn't get paid. My understanding of the system is that the final negotiation is on you in the film business too, but your age
12. 792.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    One of my best friends owns a modeling agency specializing in new talent. As far as I can see, it's very hard work to find modeling talent, which I (stupidly?) think is not even "talent" in the same way that actors, writers,
13. 793.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    I've commented on that difference before, in a pro-union sense, but I don't see how it makes any difference to the role of agents. What about the presence/absence of a union affects the viability of agents?
14. 794.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    Yes but in that situation I'm no longer Leo DiCaprio, actor; I'm Appian Way Productions[0]. For me the missing piece (hence the question) is people doing that sales/biz-dev work and taking their cut, on behalf of people who w
15. 795.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    I believe the agent's 10% is contractually guaranteed and you deal with them whenever there's a contract to negotiate, but after that you just have to pay them. The point is that if I have an agent, I have a relationship with my c
16. 796.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    I'm talking about the last part mostly. But yeah, the "bill $200 pay $70" seems to be the thing we have instead of a real agent model? Because an agent model would be, "pay $X and take 10% of it" and so the agent&#
17. 797.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    I don't know. I also have some recruiters who respect my "not now, ask again in 6 months" reply, but for actual job-jobs. Does your guy call you when he has a gig for you or is he trying to get you to take a full-time posi
18. 798.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    Did your contract say anything about that? If I start a consulting company and want it to grow, then sooner or later I have to play the same game as the big players: Principals come and close the deal, Juniors do the actual work, billing re
19. 799.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    Thank you, but I didn't Ask HN for a job, I Asked HN for opinions on why the agent model isn't common in our industry.
20. 800.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    But they only hire the top 1%, easily trumping Toptal's top 3%!
21. 801.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    Thanks, that's helpful. I did consider that the grips et al don't have agents, but the few actors I know in LA -- modestly successful people you would probably not have heard of -- all have agents. My understanding is that the ag
22. 802.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    Maybe I'm missing something about how Toptal works? It looks to me like they bill the hiring company $X and pay the talent $Y, but the relationship with the company belongs to Toptal and the difference between $X and $Y is their (proba
23. 803.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    That's interesting, how do the contractors and the agency find each other? I'm loosely based in Berlin but there it seems like an even more "BYO Connections" arrangement than in the US, at least if you want to make real
24. 804.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    PS, I'm aware of the moral hazard in the agent model, which already was on HN a while back[0], but then why isn't this our problem instead of the "BYO connections" problem? [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com&#x
25. 805.▲
    Ask HN: Where are all the software-contracting agents?

    48 points by biztos 5y ago|52 comments
26. 806.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    Thanks for explaining, I stand corrected!
27. 807.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    LMS stands for Learning Management System in case anyone else didn’t know. And it’s a misnomer as far as I can tell, because it’s a system for managing the teaching, or the administration maybe, but is not actually used by the learners.
28. 808.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    I was recently talking to a friend in Spain about a startup idea and he said no way could he join a startup (in a senior role) because if it failed his career would never recover. AFAICT it really is the attitude pushing so much innovation
29. 809.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    > suggesting Word .DOC was going to replace all text files Outside of the tech world, it pretty much did.
30. 810.▲
    by biztos 5y ago

    That was the glory of the good ole Gannt Chart in what I might call Microsoft Project Based Project Management. If you set your dependencies right, the dates would just slip by themselves, and it was easy to tell the bosses what slipped. R