froggertoaster

My greater point is: beauty (or boring) is in the eye of the beholder.

Some value a high-stress, cutting-edge environment. I don't and my employees largely don't either. Boring == predictable to us.

We are definitely not "move fast and break things" like NPM is. We move appropriately fast while de-risking our customers long-term.

My suggestion: figure out what kind of boring/not boring you like, and find a job that shares those values.

Thanks for your input. Somehow my employees manage to take lots of time on their own as ultimately they have agency, not me. There is no cultural blocker to them taking time (that I'm aware of).

More correctly: I state that I do not have a time-off policy. This is mainly to prevent administrative overhead - something that a minimum number of days would require. I know this won't scale, so I imagine we'll have a "formalized" vacation process long term, but I'm not there yet and don't plan on being there for at least 2-3 more employees.

Illustrating the "no cultural block" point: I had an employee tell me on a Wednesday that he needed the week off the next week to unwind for mental health reasons. I moved a few things around with customers and he happily enjoyed the week. That is signal enough to me that my employees feel fine asking for time off.

Basically: I built a network and reputation over years as a tech leader in a specific niche (think Java Spring). This was done with articles, speaking at conferences, and building rapport and reputation with peers at these conferences and with co-workers (including non-technical peers). I was the lead developer at a startup for a long time and spent time building the platforms they still use today, which gave me a lot of credibility amongst my peers.

Those relationships were invaluable. The speaking/articles got me into professional networks that then got me referrals. I kept up with former peers enough such that I was able to get both business and employees from them.

I have done zero advertising and have projected $1.5-2 million in revenue this year. Most of that is profit. I'll personally have a net income of over $1 million this year... and at this point I'm spending a good portion of the day playing FPS. ;)

As it should be. I provide stability to both customers and employees. In exchange, we work on stuff that other engineers frequently turn their nose up at AND add value to the companies we work for.

And the best part - we're often able to integrate new technologies into older, legacy systems gradually, which is fun for devs and risky-yet-risk-adverse enough for stakeholders. Win-win!

Disclaimer: I own a boring consultancy.

Boring, however, is contextual. We have flex hours. We have unlimited PTO (and frequent reminders to take personal time - I already know the data related to offering unlim PTO and how often people then take PTO, thank you very much). We make over $1 million in revenue a year with 6 people and no plans to have exponential growth, coupled with high margins so that we aren't rugpulled by a rainy day (and to take appropriate profits of course). My employees report high levels of job satisfaction and happiness.

Our focus? Maintaining boring legacy software for low-risk clients. We also do some greenfield work, but we like the stability that comes with working on older cash cow software.

The jobs are out there. We're just not super flashy about it.

EDIT: I appreciate everyone who commented :) if this wasn't a burner I'd totally reach out to some of you!

How dare you one up me with nuance! :P

Thanks for the link, I'll definitely give this a watch.

Fun fact: this movie sparked a huge cultural debate in China because of how accurate to Chinese culture it was. The center of the debate was the perception that Westerners were better at making a movie with accurate Chinese cultural elements than the Chinese themselves.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-film-panda/kung-fu-...

> The reality of modern American politics, though, as I think you demonstrate as do most people, is that Negative Partisanship is the only factor at all that matters. The people on "your team" can do anything at all, because "the other team" is worse. This is the sentiment that drives all American politics at the state and federal level.

Completely and utterly wrong assumption about me on your part. Both parties suck. There is a lesser evil, and that's the evil I unfortunately subscribe to. Wish there was a better way, but there isn't, so I'm stuck with what I got.

What should I be instead, a Democrat?

The answer to your question is no. Why on earth would I change my party affiliation based solely on the actions of two members of the party?

I'll also add, other than this small stain, Parsons has been good. No major changes or upsets. It's boring here in Missouri politically, and I like that.

I live in Missouri and am a Republican and can safely say - I did not appreciate Parsons going on a political witch hunt.

Not funny.

Hard agree.

I used to respond to recruiters, "here's how much I make - if you can match that then I'd be happy to listen". Most of the time they didn't respond.

The one guy who did has found me a lot of business since. (I now own a consultancy.)

I feel like qualifying companies as either "good" or "evil" are as unhelpful as the whole diversity section of the article.

> I'm not sure the diversity stuff helps. People who look different can still be dysfunctional.

It's almost as if diversity is more than skin deep.

Perhaps one of the strongest arguments for owning Apple tech is that they support their devices for long after everyone else would stop doing so.

Android has classically been a dumpster fire compared to Apple on this front.

I love that this would make Nvidia too powerful.

Uh, exactly what have Google and Microsoft been up to? I'd say they're "too powerful" at this point...

I already know that most of the BLM protests were non-violent. Notice that in my comment I didn't mention BLM or any other particular movement - your assumptions are appreciated though.

A great man whose life ended far too early. I only wish the dignity MLK showed would be alive in political movements today.

EDIT: to those in the comments suddenly bringing up BLM - I didn't mention a single particular political movement. I think both sides could benefit from a huge dose of dignity tbh.

It's hard to take someone seriously when they won't even type out Elon.

What is he now, He-who-shall-not-be-named?

> (I ain’t speakin’ his name; the dude gets enough press without me helping his SEO.)

I hope this comment was tongue-in-cheek. This person's SEO comparatively speaking does not even register.

I would love for the author to delve more into what made the interview so bad, with specific examples.

Entirely this. There are plenty of bad doctors out there - it does not hurt to be educated.

You probably wouldn't believe this since you're asking - but no, I'm not. I'm not at all involved in Better in any way.

You are quite perceptive. Yes, I find the ousting of Eich to be extremely distasteful. I haven't used a Mozilla product since. Can't speak on the SJW thing though, I have no "anti-SJW" feelings in general, esp. as it relates to Mozilla.

I'd rather endure Microsoft's bloated browser than ever, as the author suggests, use the browser owned by the morally and ethically bankrupt Mozilla.

CMV: As much as I hate the TSA (and security theatre in general) this is a bad patent and feels more like a loss than a win.

Agreed.

So calling out a non-substantial change designed to satisfy the bottom-feeders of the industry is “attacking”? Nice try guy.

Agreed. Who, exactly, are we serving with this change? The folks with an insatiable appetite for white knighting?

Side question: why on earth does Apple bother sending Apple Watches to someone like John Gruber? What exactly does his opinion offer anyone?

> clean, reliable, safe energy that gets us further away from carbon fuel > shut those all down first anyways

What grand conspiracy am I missing? How does a miss like this happen?