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Comment by johngalt | Hacker News Reader

But that's not really what's happening.

A skilled engineer who focuses solely on engineering will produce much better work than a skilled engineer that also has to focus on /marketing /sales /investors /accounting /facilities /IT /management /HR

Either a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond.

Edit: Also consider that you may be a person that can produce a lot of value specialized, but practically no value when juggling all the above items. You'll find that if you can produce a lot of value at any level then you can negotiate from a position of power.

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Note that an engineer at a startup doesn't necessarily need to focus on anything other than engineering. If your startup has 2-3 people, then sure, everyone's gotta wear multiple hats; in a startup with 10-20 people, specialization makes sense, and probably wouldn't be that different from a big company.

(One big difference, however, is that even if you're doing only engineering work, a big company will probably give you more time to think long-term; at a (competently-run) startup, you're more likely to be focused on short-term, tactical, quick-and-dirty work.)

With a name like johngalt I would think you'd be supporting his argument ;)

Atlas Shrugged is a fun fantasy, but in reality there are many different valuable specialties. It's all too easy to dismiss anyone that doesn't do what you do as worthless.

That said I do agree that a very small number of people in any organization are responsible for the lion's share of the productivity and are inadequately compensated for that.

I'm not really arguing against these points at all.

What I mean by my comment is that, as an entrepreneur, when I detect high marginal return on a given activity, I want to find ways of extracting more value from the situation for myself (profit seeking), rather than just getting a paycheck (profit taking).

All that value getting skimmed off and given to someone else is a lost opportunity, especially when you're working for someone else, as there are rarely ways to insert yourself at a higher point in the value chain.

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