Hacker News Reader

Comment by natrik | Hacker News Reader

Great article.

Important takeaways for me -

`Being employed by someone is by its very definition, an exploitative relationship, even if your job is great. Your employer can only afford to hire you if you make more money than you cost (again, with a few exceptions of course) so no matter what you are getting paid less than your true value.`

`It’s much, much easier to get to the top, or near the top of the wordpress plugin directory than it is google (essentially it’s making sure the description of your plugin has the right keywords, and then you’ll be there essentially instantly).`

View on HN

>Your employer can only afford to hire you if you make more money than you cost (again, with a few exceptions of course) so no matter what you are getting paid less than your true value.

This seems like a somewhat simplistic way to view a company. The amount you "make" for the company isn't the same thing as your "true value," because that isn't a real concept. The value you are able to provide changes based on context and objectives. It's leverage in the moment, not "value" in some inherent sense. Do you think every employee in the world should be able to just quit their job and suddenly realize the same return without changing their costs at all?

I code, and probably get paid less than I output in value; but what I output would not be nearly as valuable if not for the others that contribute to the company. My boss, having created the initial value, and other investors and shareholders take the overage.

This is so important. I used to actually hate the sales team at my very first 'real job'...so much that any time I had to go to the bathroom I would walk down two flights of stairs to pollute the air on their floor. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, this dislike came from their tendency to stretch everything and over-commit to get a sale. It ended up souring my opinion of the entire profession and I had zero respect for it...until I tried it myself. I went through this process a few times until I really came to an understanding of how many different personalities and proclivities it takes to successfully run any company of appreciable size.

"Being employed by someone is by its very definition, an exploitative relationship ... so no matter what you are getting paid less than your true value" stuck out to me as well. But I think it's wrong. For example, imagine you're incredibly good at something very narrow. At a big company which has important needs that align with your skills, you could be making them enormous amounts of money and getting a solid chunk. Working independently, you can spend far less of your time on your top skill, and you may not be able to find any needs nearly as large as the ones big companies are hiring for.

It’s complete nonsense. Quit your job and sit at home doing whatever tasks you used to do at work, and see how much money you get paid. My guess would be $0.

Another way to think of it is the value you get paid as an employee, should reflect how much the labour market values you. I don't think it's fair to say it's unavoidably exploitative.

For every Ryan (OP) who started their own project and succeeded, there are many more who failed (or gave up too early) and lost money they would have earned if they worked for an employer.

Risk always have a premium, so taking risk (starting your own thing) will have a higher expected payoff; at the cost of more variance (risk).

Totally agree. It was a relatively simplistic way to think about employment. It also ignores all the downsides and stress that come from self employment. But there’s also many mental benefits around the agency you feel: not feeling like a cog in a wheel working towards unclear goals, being able to see the fruits of your labor, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com