This article is not sensational. It does not tell you what you should do with your life. It does not say VCs are evil. It doesn't say funded companies are a waste of time.
The "if every developer" line is clearly just as much grandstanding as PG makes when he compares hackers taking a job to caging a lion. To take this line in this essay literally -- and be offended -- but not to take PG's line about lions literally is to be intellectually dishonest.
Here's what this essay actually says:
* there's a monetary reason that we're all soaking in VC/fund/"liquidity event" news
* there's a psychological reason that we seek out VC/fund/"liquidity event" news
* reading about this stuff isn't even the remotely same vein as working on it, or making real money
* the author is angry that he believes people are being pushed towards lives/businesses that don't make them happy
* every developer is capable of making a product for an independent income
* and everybody might be happier if they did
Gee, not so controversial, is it?
All the hullaballoo about this article can be only one thing: overly identifying with your life/business choices and attacking anyone who dares call them into question. In a general sense. Not in a PERSONAL attack, for example labeling someone's work "a lifestyle business" or "like duping credulous customers into overpaying for a time-tracking tool styled with this month's CSS trends".
The only reason anyone even paid attention to this article at all is because 98% of what everyone hears, all the time, is pro-big startup, pro-VC, pro-liquidity event, pro- this and pro- that.
There is so rarely a dissenting voice that the moment there is one, however mild, everybody is in attack mode.
> The only reason anyone even paid attention to this article at all is because 98% of what everyone hears, all the time, is pro-big startup, pro-VC, pro-liquidity event, pro- this and pro- that.
Perhaps because you're so far out in the (physical) hinterlands of software, you hear a time-delayed different message. Living close to the epicenter of the startup world, I hear very few people really talk about flip-based startups anymore, and the general consensus is to be wary of VC and take it as late as you need it. Indeed, if I had to describe a "pro-" that has infected Valley culture right now, I would call it the "pro-lean startup" fetishism. It gets a little tedious, but it's a far more reasonable sentiment than the pro-flip culture that dominated the Valley back a few years ago.
Really, the difference between the idea put forth in this essay and a game-changing techcrunch-courting startup is scope. I could work on a small lifestyle product (and I have a few in mind that might be fun), but they're not... game changers. I'd like to work on a product that really makes a difference to a large number of customers. Very few independent products have the resources or scope to achieve this.
Coming out of college, people think they have to work either for a big company or a big idea. The truth put forth in this article is that you need not do either, And That Is Okay. Indeed, there is a great deal of freedom that comes with it.
> Look, dominant paradigm: You need to chillax.
"Dominant," you say? Hardly. "Glorified," perhaps. The vast majority of people do what you do; sell small-scale contracts and services to small-scale partners and customers. And that's fine and good and noble and grist for the mill of global economics. But let's not kid ourselves, it is not an ambitious path, and western culture glamorizes (unfulfilled) ambition.
The "if every developer" line is clearly just as much grandstanding as PG makes when he compares hackers taking a job to caging a lion. To take this line in this essay literally -- and be offended -- but not to take PG's line about lions literally is to be intellectually dishonest.
Here's what this essay actually says:
* there's a monetary reason that we're all soaking in VC/fund/"liquidity event" news
* there's a psychological reason that we seek out VC/fund/"liquidity event" news
* reading about this stuff isn't even the remotely same vein as working on it, or making real money
* the author is angry that he believes people are being pushed towards lives/businesses that don't make them happy
* every developer is capable of making a product for an independent income
* and everybody might be happier if they did
Gee, not so controversial, is it?
All the hullaballoo about this article can be only one thing: overly identifying with your life/business choices and attacking anyone who dares call them into question. In a general sense. Not in a PERSONAL attack, for example labeling someone's work "a lifestyle business" or "like duping credulous customers into overpaying for a time-tracking tool styled with this month's CSS trends".
The only reason anyone even paid attention to this article at all is because 98% of what everyone hears, all the time, is pro-big startup, pro-VC, pro-liquidity event, pro- this and pro- that.
There is so rarely a dissenting voice that the moment there is one, however mild, everybody is in attack mode.
In short...
Look, dominant paradigm: You need to chillax.