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Comment by switch | Hacker News Reader

A little clarification.

Really good developers are priceless.

Anyone who is smart knows this. You just have to look at how much companies are willing to pay developers in signing bonuses and retention bonuses.

As a developer you should be aware of this.

Also, life is short.

Instead of choosing a company or line of work where you have to focus on things you don't want to focus on or change yourself -

pick an area you love and where people love you as you are.

Only idiot pointy haired managers would pick a clean-cut mediocre programmer over a superstar coder who doesn't shave.

And in my experience the superstars are nearly always not concerned with GTL (gym, tanning, and laundry).

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The advice is not going to apply to the top of the top or even near the top. It's for the other parts of the bell curve.

If you're really good or make money for people (take Lady Gaga as an example) you can get away with anything. But most people or the people that that post is directed to aren't.

As a side note I always wondered why back in the day Bill Gates, when he was the richest man in the world (or near that) always wore a suit to business meetings. I mean you would think he would just do whatever he wanted to. But apparently he still had to answer to "someone" and felt it wasn't appropriate.

The world is changing. It's very different now.

There was a time when there were Feudal Lords and now there aren't.

Similarly, we're moving away from a time of microserfs to hackers and coders who are free.

Love the downvotes - Guess people would rather take advice on how to be mediocre and miserable and do things you don't want to do than take control of their own destiny and find a company they love being at or start one themselves.

This is an awesome discussion, this post was surely not aimed at rockstars or CEO's. There are a contingent of people that are happy to work to for others, even if their policies are less than ideal. Some people enjoy the safety that comes with a regular paycheck.

Also for many people there are a lot of factors that go into picking a career, location, amount of time spent with family, benefits etc. That limits options for a large number of people.

So while it's nice to "control your own destiny" it's also important to consider that to some people destiny is more than a career path, and that being mediocre doesn't mean being miserable. There are tons of people that are perfectly happy being mediocre.

>Similarly, we're moving away from a time of microserfs to hackers and coders who are free.

No, we really aren't. Yes, it's easy to be independent if you have a marketable skillset, and it's a great time to launch a startup. That said, the vast majority of programmers are still employed by big organizations where these rules are very much in effect. They aren't directed at people who are working on their own; they're directed at the majority who are working in a corporate climate.

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