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Comment by throwaway191817 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway191817

No undue criticism intended, I have never understood patio11's lore and reverence. He built a site that addressed the needs of bingo players- kudos. He built other moderate internet businesses that scratched a B2C itch.

Do those credentials warrant the adulation he is granted?

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The business credentials likely do not. However, he has longevity on this board, an approachable writing style, and mostly solid advice. The small cult of personality around him seems to work here because his self promotion is memorable and not obtrusive. Something to be said for years of free advice while asking nothing in return.

His "you should charge more" advice is pound-for-pound the single most impactful advice I've ever heard for developers: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2006/08/14/you-can-probably-stand-...

Nope. It’s because he writes clearly and insightfully, over a long period of time, about a relatively consistent set of topics.

I was pleased with his essay on discount brokerages.

No.

But he told us to charge (or be paid) more and probably make us tenths of millions collectively.

In the real world, nobody tells you to charge more or raise your salary.

A different way of looking at this is that he contributed to rising inequality, inflated costs of living in the Bay Area, higher hurdles for those less able to market themselves as pompous rockstars, etc. A privileged white male made a group made up of mostly privileged, mostly white, mostly male people richer and more privileged. Hooray!

Your mileage obviously varies, but in my opinion we (privileged "tech" people) need to look beyond just our own personal selfish gains. Yes, earning more money feels good. Yes, the idea that your successful salary negotiation made Jeff Bezos/Mark Zuckerberg/Bill Gates less disgustingly rich feels good. But at the same time we should look at the bigger picture.

Heaven forbid a dude who lives in Japan and gives out free advice on what he did is responsible for the woes of the Bay Area, which I guess is the center of the universe?

If you somehow find success and try to share what you learned, now you are a villain, because a small, fucked area of the US will exploit it to their gain, trampling the poor in their wake. Everybody everywhere better stop writing about anything other than how to help the poor exclusively instead, because I can't wait to read those articles and how it'll help me also achieve success or get paid fairly for my skills or output. Oh wait, what if I was poor and I want to find a better way out? Man I wish someone would teach me that instead of saying I need help...

What a thread hijack, and on such a nice guy too. If it was someone else, maybe I'd have a shred of sympathy, but if you think this dude is in some way the problem? The dude who is trying to help you NOT get raped "by the man" in your career and in business? Jeez.

Can we agree the situation in SF sucks? Yeah, but it's not this dude's fault. Maybe I'm a privileged tech person too, but I don't live in SF or in the US, so I don't really care about their problems, yet I can't seem to not read about them constantly on here. This guy is on the other side of the fucking world in a completely alien environment by comparison.

> A different way of looking at this is that he contributed to rising inequality, inflated costs of living in the Bay Area, higher hurdles for those less able to market themselves as pompous rockstars, etc. A privileged white male made a group made up of mostly privileged, mostly white, mostly male people richer and more privileged. Hooray!

Yes, hooray indeed! (my sarcasm detector just blew up for some reason)

Making IT people richer doesn't make any poor people poorer.

Also, a lot of non-white people are working in IT nowadays (arguably the majority) and this population has the most need of patio11 advice. Divas in the bay area are only the top(-ish) 1% of IT crowd, and not a very representative sample at that. And they are not the prime target of his counsel.

Basically: Even if you love your job and could do it for minimal wage, ask to be compensated according to your merits instead. It won't make you love your job less.

> Making IT people richer doesn't make any poor people poorer.

Increasing inequality absolutely makes worse off people even worse off. Not just comparatively, but yes, even in "real dollar" terms: Raising IT people's (or whatever other privileged group's) incomes means they can and will spend more on housing, raising prices for everyone, meaning that poorer people will have to spend more on housing, meaning that they will have fewer dollars in pocket, even though their income hasn't changed.

> do it for minimal wage

... which nobody has suggested, of course.

> ask to be compensated according to your merits instead

Sure. How do you measure merits? Did CEOs' merits increase by 90 times since 1978? https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-has-grown-90-times-f...

"I'm in a position where I can negotiate a substantial pay rise" does not mean "I was previously not paid according to my merits". If the market changes and you are suddenly "worth more", that doesn't mean that your "merits" have suddenly improved.

There are many more people who I am interested in hearing from than I adore. I suspect that is true for most of us. Patrick is usually worth listening to, has a style which appeals to many, and is well-known on HN. That's sufficient for a story like this to make the front page.

regardless of the success of his businesses, I think his understanding of many types of business models (and systems in general) makes him a significant outlier. Combined with his excellent communication abilities, he probably is somewhere around the 99.999999 percentile.

The above, combined with years of building a positive online presence, and you could see how he ends up in demand.

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