6 ms·

If you build something great in your free time and decide to give it to the company you work for you are a fool...

• inductive_magic 4y ago
  It's not that one-dimensional. Two things come to my mind: - innovations may require significant resources (think data or compute) - making a dent in the profitability of a multi-bn $ org should enable a very comfortable life unless you're wasting your hand (in which case you probably wouldn't make it on your own either)
  • friedman23 4y ago
    > making a dent in the profitability of a multi-bn $ org should enable a very comfortable life Life does not work like this, the world isn't about "should" it's about "is" and "can". So if you create something that makes the company 10% more money, at best you can expect a promotion and a small one time bonus that is a fraction of a percent of that 10% recurring revenue growth you just generated for the company you work for. That is the best scenario. The alternate scenario is verbal recognition with 0 reward and if you work in a truly dysfunctional organization you can expect outright retaliation at some small frequency.
    • inductive_magic 4y ago
      My position is rooted in a blog-post I've read a couple years ago, 'don't call yourself a programmer' (well worth the read). Core assumption: be visible and associated with profit -> good things will come your way. How much this works will depend on your hand and the table. Personally, I don't feel drawn to dysfunctional/bloated [...] environments at all and have no FAANG experience, so I can't claim to estimate the agency in those environments, but I would assume it to be >0. [0] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...