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Businesses Programming The Almighty Buck

Top Coders Tell Agents, "Show Me the Money!" 288

theodp writes "So, you're a 10x developer or a 25x programmer, but not getting paid like one? Keep your chin up! BusinessWeek reports that Silicon Valley is going Hollywood and top software developers can now get their very own agent through 10x Management, which bills itself as 'the talent agency for the technology industry.'"
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Top Coders Tell Agents, "Show Me the Money!"

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  • can I get (Score:5, Funny)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {dnaltropnidad}> on Thursday April 11, 2013 @05:34PM (#43427877) Homepage Journal

    residuals on the software I write?

    • by drakaan ( 688386 )
      What I want to know is what the qualifications for a "Software Programmer Agent" look like. Also, will I need to bathe regularly and get my hair cut? Will I need to have headshots distributed?
      • by geekoid ( 135745 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {dnaltropnidad}> on Thursday April 11, 2013 @06:07PM (#43428141) Homepage Journal

        "Will I need to have headshots distributed?"
        only if you are going to be making FPSs.

        • by Taco Cowboy ( 5327 ) on Friday April 12, 2013 @02:45AM (#43430473) Journal

          To many, coders are programmers

          They aren't

          Programmers program - from the inception phase all the way to the completion

          Coders, on the other hand, only code, as instructed

          That 10X management agency can't even differentiate the two

          • To many, coders are programmers

            They aren't

            That's your opinion, but it isn't fact.

            I've variously called myself or been called a software developer, programmer, coder, code monkey, C monkey, software architect, software engineer (not my doing since I'm not an engineer per se) and several other things not fit to print.

            It's like hacker v cracker -- I've always used hacker in a way which covers both usages, and occasionally use cracker but not as much.

            In fact, hacker was in use first before cracker came along, a

      • Re:can I get (Score:5, Informative)

        by WaywardGeek ( 1480513 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @06:13PM (#43428185) Journal

        "Agent" is just a rebranding of "head hunter", which up to now has been used to describe both the people representing companies, and the engineers and programmers looking for work. I suppose "agent" just means the head hunters who pitch talent to companies. It's clever. Athletes and movie stars have agents, not head hunters, so why not programmers?

        Maybe there's no difference, but head hunter always seemed like an appropriate term to me, because so many of them use questionable tactics, like pretending to be someone related to an engineer in a department to get past the receptionist, and after gaining confidence of one person, milking them for all their knowledge about who might be willing to leave their current job. I remember one very fine looking lady who we hired to help us fill a position who then worked hard to strip our current employees. That's why "agent" doesn't sound right to me, because head hunters quickly switch back and forth from representing companies to representing potential employees, depending on the economy.

        That said, the really good ones gain reputations based on their integrity, and these are good people to know. Most head hunters don't know anything about engineering or programming, and couldn't evaluate talent if their life depended on it. The good ones have personally hired plenty, and have an exceptional ability to match talents to roles. Moving a guy from a dead end job to a place where he can really make a difference is huge. These guys are rare, and don't deserve to be called head hunters, but "agent" doesn't do them justice either. They're more like match makers.

        • The good ones have personally hired plenty, and have an exceptional ability to match talents to roles. Moving a guy from a dead end job to a place where he can really make a difference is huge. These guys are rare, and don't deserve to be called head hunters, but "agent" doesn't do them justice either. They're more like match makers.

          This, right here.

          I've run the gamut recently (and over the years) from folks who only represent you, to those who only represent the company. Some will keep in constant contact with you, others will call once, say "you'll make an excellent fit! I'll get you two together immediately!", then you never hear from 'em again. Way too many flop out an email to you and do nothing more.

          Very damned few ever take into account the corporate culture, let alone compare it to your own. The ones who can make sure of both a

        • Re:can I get (Score:5, Interesting)

          by dristoph ( 1207920 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @07:27PM (#43428695)

          10x Management has found me gigs in the last year, after I'd been doing freelance Rails work for the year prior to that. I can tell you one thing for sure, there is a big difference between their agency and your typical headhunter. Ever try finding an actual short-term contract gig through a headhunter? It doesn't happen. Headhunters are not incentivized for that sort of thing. They want to get you into a full time position so they can score a percentage of your salary as a reward. So it follows that they aren't really looking out for the needs of freelancers.

          10x Management, on the other hand, gets a cut of your hourly rate; they're setup for exactly what a freelancer needs. They do a great job of representing you in negotiations so you can earn as high a rate as possible, which of course increases their own cut as well. And they're always looking for new gigs for you so you don't have to. If you're not getting paid, neither are they, which makes for a much more rewarding long-term relationship compared with a headhunter who just wants to get you placed in some salary, take their cut, and move on. 10x also takes care of the dirty work that comes with freelancing, from invoicing and making sure you get paid as agreed to mediating if expectations are not met on either side of the relationship. I feel that eliminating the burden of the administrative drudgery that comes with freelancing is alone well worth their cut.

          Overall, I understand your cynicism, especially since an agent and a headhunter look quite similar on a superficial level, and I certainly share your disdain for the vast majority of headhunters. But, in this particular case, I would say that cynicism is unwarranted. Headhunters and freelancers just don't mix. Speaking from experience, 10x has done a good job of filling that gap.

          • What is the pay like? That is my question. Overall I could see this as a good thing, because developer salaries are too low right now, considering the demand. A company like this could help increase developers' awareness of what they are worth. But that is only true if they are getting decent pay for people.
            • Re:can I get (Score:5, Interesting)

              by dristoph ( 1207920 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @08:21PM (#43428971)

              Without getting too detailed, I'll say that they've negotiated rates for me which are above what I'd get on average representing myself, even after their cut. Considering that I didn't have to do any of the extra work of finding the gig, negotiating the contract (besides specifying what I will and won't do in general terms), handling the paperwork, or invoicing, it's been a very profitable arrangement for myself. If you've done a significant amount of freelance work, you'll well know that this extra overhead cuts significantly into your time.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            Nice try, 10x management CEO
            • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

              by dristoph ( 1207920 )

              I figured someone would make this claim. Sorry, you've got the wrong guy! I'm actually the CTO of an entirely different company: http://sweetstak.es/ [sweetstak.es] As such I haven't had a whole lot of time for freelancing, so I haven't worked with 10x in a few months, but I do give my honest recommendation. I hope more talented engineers can make the leap to freelance work, which can be far more rewarding than working the wrong salaried position.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • residuals on the software I write?

      Are you going to accept responsibility for any trouble your software causes,
      or just offer it without "Warranties of Merchantability or Fitness for a Particular Purpose?"

      • residuals on the software I write?

        Are you going to accept responsibility for any trouble your software causes, or just offer it without "Warranties of Merchantability or Fitness for a Particular Purpose?"

        Do any of the idiots in the movie/music industry that get residuals take responsibility for the crap that they produce?

        • residuals on the software I write?

          Are you going to accept responsibility for any trouble your software causes, or just offer it without "Warranties of Merchantability or Fitness for a Particular Purpose?"

          Do any of the idiots in the movie/music industry that get residuals take responsibility for the crap that they produce?

          Not... really... the... same... thing.
          While bad movies/music might be hard on passengers, they'll never down a plane, like bad software could.

          • Well, they could use art to advocate for social changes that are catastrophic. Or think smaller... they could advocate for a scientific view-point to be accepted without further examination.... thereby short-circuiting the scientific method and causing great damage not only the science they pollute but also to the general-population view on how science is done.
        • by schnell ( 163007 )

          Do any of the idiots in the movie/music industry that get residuals take responsibility for the crap that they produce?

          Yes, they do. If nobody buys your music or watches your TV show, no residuals or royalties for you.

          If you're a programmer who wants the equivalent of royalties or a cut of gross or net receipts like an actor or musician gets, you're absolutely free to do that. Write your own mobile or desktop app, sell it and you're getting paid for every copy. Of course, that means you take the risk too. That's how it works.

  • How's that... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TWX ( 665546 )
    ...10x unemployment line looking?

    In all seriousness, working for someone else sometimes sucks. Being in management and already having to deal with headhunters on top of all of the bloated resumes sucks. Adding in another agent is just one more thing that those trying to hire doesn't need to deal with.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Well a few years ago I was working full time as a web developer, making 60k/year and working a 40 hr work week. I am over 50, and those jobs have disappeared because by that age you are expected to have management experience. I don't. I am not interested in management in fact. So, no more development. With the current economy up here in Canada, and the tendency of companies to outsource whatever the fuck they can, there are very few jobs available. I have loads of experience but I am self-taught. I am thus

  • Follow the money (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mangu ( 126918 )

    Developers who want to be paid really well should do what I did, go where the money is.

    First step, learn the ropes [google.com.br].

    Second step, use your knowledge of software to program your way to riches.

  • No?
  • by Anonymous Coward

    ...to sell my services as a professional Slashdot spam article submitter instead.

  • by femtobyte ( 710429 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @05:46PM (#43427973)

    Want "Hollywood" money? How about programmers banding together and insisting on the protections that stop Hollywood management from moving every aspect of production to the cheapest outsourced labor: Unions. Writers, actors, makeup, costume, camera --- they've all got unions, so their jobs aren't competing with $9/hour H1-B labor.

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Want "Hollywood" money? How about programmers banding together and insisting on the protections that stop Hollywood management from moving every aspect of production to the cheapest outsourced labor: Unions. Writers, actors, makeup, costume, camera --- they've all got unions, so their jobs aren't competing with $9/hour H1-B labor.

      So, without the SAG we would be swamped with actors coming over from Bollywood?

      • by femtobyte ( 710429 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @05:58PM (#43428067)

        Actors, gaffers, electricians, focus pullers, you name it. Do you think the typical Hollywood studio exec pays the folks who man the lights a living wage out of the goodness of his generous heart? Hell, no; they're greedy bastards just like the folks who run every other industry into a race-for-the-bottom cash-grab. Thanks to unions (a large variety of unions supporting each other in solidarity, so the actors don't say "screw cameramen, pay them less and us more"), the whole working class gets enough money to support their families and live with dignity (even in an expensive part of the country). And behold: having the "burden" of all those unions doesn't seem to make Hollywood a terribly unprofitable place, or prevent top talent from earning megabucks, or drive away the industry to some labor-hating hellhole of an anti-union town.

        • by geekoid ( 135745 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {dnaltropnidad}> on Thursday April 11, 2013 @06:12PM (#43428171) Homepage Journal

          Hollywood doesn't make a profit. Just ask any studio accountant~

          You are correct. Funny, I'm in a software union and I work 40 hour weeks and make a livable wage. I find that when paid by the hour the amount of extra work you must do after 40 hours approaches zero.

          Did you know most software developer who are paid salary shouldn't be?

          • Did you know most software developer who are paid salary shouldn't be?

            Salary can be great. I usually work 30 hour weeks as a result. Since I do good work, my employers accept this. I would not want to go back to hourly (not to mention, filling in an timesheet is insulting).

          • by bfandreas ( 603438 ) on Friday April 12, 2013 @12:38AM (#43430117)
            Depends on where you live. In most European countries the amount of overtime you can do and how you get compensated for it is heavily regulated. And any employer offering US working conditions would find themselves on the losing end of a lawsuit AND get a lot of press for it.

            Which doesn't mean that we don't regularly not comply with these regulations. But that is done in agreement with the employees who in turn have the option to opt out and will get handsome bonuses in pay and time off for overtime.
            A couple of my clients have serious issues with the bills we send them. We bill by the hour nicely broken down by day and activity. We often get ourselves into death marches for which we will take higher hourly rates and need double the effort in project management. Last year I myself had a period where I worked 16 hrs a day each day for a couple of weeks and during the Christmas holidays(and went on a nice long vacation on the bonuses we divided amongst us and time off due to amassed overtime). The client was the Asian tentacle of one of our larger corporate behemoths. The European HQ told us not to bill more than 10 hrs a day and nothing for Sunday because their working agreements also extended to contractors. We got official encouragement to invent employees to divide that time more evenly.

            In short you need regulation. Best way to do it is having an agreement between unions and employers. Worse way would be to have regulation by law. And yu are thouroughly fux0red if you need a legally mandated minimum wage to make sure that your people can actually LIVE on what they earn during 40hrs a week.

            Salaried pay only is bad when your market for employment is heavily stacked against the employees.
          • What union represents computer programmers? There were some weird fights here in La Jolla as to which union (or even whether any union at all) ought to represent the graduate-student-teachers (also known as TAs = graduate teaching assistants). The final result is at the UCSD website [ucsd.edu] and is that the graduate students are members of the United Auto Workers union:
            Graduate students appointed as teaching assistants, associates, readers or tutors (ASE'S) are represented by the Association of Student Employees
        • by Livius ( 318358 )

          Unions are their own class, and the actual working class resents them for it.

        • Are you kidding me? Hollywood is one of the biggest producers of useless 1%ers.

          • Without the unions, I doubt there'd be many fewer useless 1%'ers --- but there'd be a lot fewer productive middle-class workers, to the enrichment of a few 1%-of-1%'ers. You want a more meritocratic or even egalitarian wealth distribution? Then make that a priority of the union you form with your co-workers (you don't have to use anyone else' model).

            • a union is only going to have any power if it is big enough to not care about the individual any more. Too many places have high paying union jobs and lots of homeless where non union areas have much higher employment even if slightly lower pay.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Want "Hollywood" money? How about programmers banding together and insisting on the protections that stop Hollywood management from moving every aspect of production to the cheapest outsourced labor: Unions. Writers, actors, makeup, costume, camera --- they've all got unions, so their jobs aren't competing with $9/hour H1-B labor.

        So, without the SAG we would be swamped with actors coming over from Bollywood?

        Mexico, Eastern Europe, China.

        Hell, you could hire the top actors in Australia for half the cost of American prima donna's. And it's not like that wont work, I'm met a lot of Americans that think Eric Bana and Sam Worthington are Americans (hint: they're Aussies putting on a yank accent). The only thing stopping them are unions.

        Drop the protection for American pop stars and you can watch the market being flooded by cheap Asian pop stars. They're smaller, more complaint, create less controversy and wit

    • scale for a lead actor in a TV show at SAG rates is less than a lot of developers get
      • SAG rates set the lowest you can go; it's all uphill from there. A lot of developers earn more --- so do a lot of actors. A lot of developers will also be earning a lot less (or have no job at all) if they let the race-to-the-bottom in wages Walmartize their industry sector.

        • But most actors never get to be a lead actor in a show and earn far less on average than we do.
          • And most union hotel maids get paid less than programmers (and actors) do, too --- but better than their non-union counterparts (unless there is a high enough concentration of union shops in an area to force everyone else to compete on higher wages/benefits, instead of lower). Unionize, and you're better off than not --- not only in wages, but, perhaps more importantly, in not being treated as disposable and subject to whimsical brutalization by management.

            • I am not disagreeing I was branch secretary and area secretary for the largest M&P union in the EU. just pointing out that the free agent model that trade unions like BECTU and Equity/SAG have isn't perfect and might not be the best fit for Programmers.
    • by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

      yea that has produced a bunch of talent and quality for hollywood without ballooning costs hasn't it

    • Of course then you'd just have the few union coders that make the big bucks then the other 99% of them out only able to do open source stuff for free hoping to get "discovered"

  • Standard agents' cut (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    These guys take the same cut as hollywood or sports agents do: 15%
    Say you're a top flight programmer with an expected $150K+ salary... that's over $25K a year to the agent. Not a bad deal at all for them.

  • by undeadbill ( 2490070 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @05:52PM (#43428025)

    15% is a very reasonable cut to do basic business management and cold calling for freelancers. It is much better than what a lot of "recruiters" (aka pimps) take as a cut for their "consulting agencies", which can be as high as 80% of the hourly rate. Even using something like TriNet to handle most of the business stuff still doesn't compare because you still have to either find someone with business contacts or do all the calling yourself on unpaid time (which you then need to charge for later as part of your bill rate, or starve).

    I really hope this practice starts putting some downward pressure on the pimps and time wasters who populate the IT recruiting market to start doing better work for a more reasonable rate. Nobody deserves 80% of a developer's pay just because they made a few phone calls. I would definitely consider working for or with a group of freelancers if someone was handling the business side at 15%.

  • Not new (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheEffigy ( 2666397 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @05:52PM (#43428029)
    I am a programmer in Sydney, Australia, and for a few years I have had a contract management company handling all my sourcing and negotiations. They get 2% and I make the final decisions on accepting the work. The demand for non permanent programmers to tackle one-off projects is huge here, especially from the financial sector. Conversely the supply of decent people to fill it is low.
    • Would really appreciate if you could post contact details for this firm as I have a brother in Sydney who is currently looking for work in this area.

  • Oh, because the business representing them asserts that that is the case. I think an agent for freelancers is an interesting idea. but others are saying that's not new.

  • Did they patent the business method? I have been working through similar agencies for years, they charge $1-2 per hour to do the billing and get me new jobs. Nothing shocking here.

  • Basically looks like a recruiting company that has found a novel way to search for programmers.
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @06:20PM (#43428235)
    seriously. Can we? You're not a star. You're not special. You're a cog, and you will be replaced by an Indian or Malaysian or some other *-ian that makes less than you do because they don't have indoor plumbing and clean air/water.

    If you want a good life you need to start protecting it. That means Unions + a strong Federal Gov't (states are too weak to stand up to corps).
    • by 0123456 ( 636235 )

      You're a cog, and you will be replaced by an Indian or Malaysian or some other *-ian that makes less than you do because they don't have indoor plumbing and clean air/water.

      If you're one of those people, I'm not surprised you want a union. But those of us who aren't have no desire to be lumbered with dragging along dead weight just because their union says they can't be sacked.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dristoph ( 1207920 )

      I'm probably one of the guys who gets paid the big bucks to fix the code you write in the drudgery that you call your career. Seriously, if that's your attitude toward the craft, then you can't possibly be very good at it. I don't doubt for a second that it would be easy to replace you with anyone from any country ever. There are all kinds of problems with outsourcing development work, but they don't stack up to nearly the same problem as a developer putting code into production without a drop of passion or

      • you're the arrogant twit who thinks he's not about to get replaced. But nice try. Good enough is always good enough. Microsoft proved that. And desperation is an excellent substitute for passion and pride.
    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @08:19PM (#43428963) Journal
      Programmers are wary of unions for a few unions:

      1) We see in other industries they make it hard to fire incompetents. Do you really want to have it impossible to get rid of lousy coders? Unions tend to be based on seniority, which is only somewhat related to skill.
      2) We see in other industries that unions slow everything down. That's basically the opposite of Agile and Extreme. Do you really want yet another bureaucracy to deal with?
      3) It's not clear what benefit a union will provide. If a union doesn't promise to provide me with something tangible, why support it?
      • You know a neat thing about unions? They're made of the people in them. You want a meritocratic, agile, decentralized Union that represents a Hacker/techno-utopian ethos, with blackjack and hookers and bitcoin micropayments? Then make that union! What benefit does the union provide? Well, what would you want with a bigger voice in how your workplace runs? Higher wages? Better hours? Better security against being laid off or bullied by retarded managers? More freedom for side-project work? Advanced training/

        • by radish ( 98371 )

          The leadership of a union represents it's members in about the same way a government represents it's citizens - that's to say on paper, but really they're in it for themselves.

          I'm a developer, my wife's a teacher. She was recently laid off, and got nothing whatsoever. How helpful were the union? They did nothing. After years of being forced to pay dues to a union she didn't even want to be a member of they were completely useless the first time she had a problem they're supposed to be there to help with.

          On

          • Yes, it's a lot like government. The more the rank-and-file members work to take democratic control of the union, instead of turning it over to government/business management types, the more democratic it'll be. Because many nominally democratic governments suck at representing their people, do you think humanity should just give up and turn everything over to authoritarian dictators (the default structure for corporations)? Or, should we instead strive for more and better representative forms, at the natio

  • Shame (Score:5, Funny)

    by HRbnjR ( 12398 ) <chris@hubick.com> on Thursday April 11, 2013 @06:26PM (#43428277) Homepage
    I would clearly deserve to be recognized as a Top Coder through representation by such an agent, if it weren't for those Dunning-Kruger assholes.
  • by Shinobi ( 19308 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @06:27PM (#43428283)

    And that's supposed to be news?

    Common practice for high-end/specialist freelancers here in northern europe at least.

    I commonly work with one agent(who's also my lawyer), and sometimes with another agent, in a slightly different field. In fact, if you get a trustworthy agent, it's one of the best way to sort out the "grinders"(clients who try to pile on more and more work on a project), scammers and other undesirables.

    In fact, those two agents and those of us who use their services have formed a guild of sorts, blacklisting bad clients, blacklisting devs who negatively impact the reputation of freelancers by being scammers or just failures, helping each other out in case of sickness, or just the need for a vacation, yet we still compete with each other in bids for projects etc, so yes, it requires blacklisting out the sociopaths that can't cooperate.

    Might not work quite as well in the US though, US geeks seeming content with being exploited and seeing banding together in mutual defense as anathema......

    • by Shados ( 741919 )

      Agent the way you describe it is very close to being the norm in the industry, give or take a few big name companies that will only deal straight with potential employees.

      The article is talking about agents in the artist sense....which is honestly the same thing, just with some pretense of being more than that tacked on.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @06:46PM (#43428437)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Mod parent informative. These guys are nothing more than headhunters trying to pitch themselves at any top-notch dev that might come their way, but trying to play up how cool and Hollywood-movie-star the word 'Agent' sounds. Wow I even have visions of limos and red carpets wherever these smart devs go. If they are such smart devs and techs themselves, why have they felt the need to get into marketing to make money?
  • I'm a 1X programmer, but when it comes to writing user manuals, I can crank out a rough draft in a few hours and a polished version in a day. (The downside is putting out a gorgeous, finished user manual, only to have the front end guy change around the menus and graphics the next day. Doh!)
  • I had this same idea back in 1999. Why shouldn't top software programmer/developer/engineers have agents similar to sports agents or hollywood agents. They would be constantly looking out for a better position or your next position if you are coming off of a contract. They would also negotiate the best contract for you. They would know the market rates for your skills and would tell you how to be more marketable. They work for you and that they get 10% of you salary. Companies would love them because they d
  • I'm suspicious that this is just an fancy marketing gimmick by the agency. but I like the idea. Over the years I've worked with many programmers and I've noticed a huge range in talent. It's interesting because that range rarely occurs within a single company. Instead some companies attract very good talent and some attract mostly mediocre.

    I've seen small companies with just a few excellent programmers produce systems where larger companies with many more mediocre programmers have struggled.

    The question
  • Exactly what constitutes a Top, Best or Ultimate programmer?

    Is there a list somewhere I missed?

    -Hack

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I am happy at my company, but when I get C++ jobs that want to pay 50-60k I always email back and let them know that is a 125k job! do it.

  • by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Thursday April 11, 2013 @09:34PM (#43429337)
    I'm sure this will catch on, but my cynical self knows it's almost complete bullshit.

    It's a case of the Golden Child vs. the Goat. I've seen this stupidity in action for decades.

    Take two coders of roughly the same skill. One has flash and a high reputation, the other is plain spoken and just says what works and what doesn't. Management gives them both a task that has an unexpected issue and delivery is delayed. When the Golden Child has trouble management goes "that was much harder then we thought, lucky we had our ace working on it, or things would have have been much worse." When The Goat is late it's "so-and-so is just average, it's not a surprise they can't get the job done in time."

    Now add in the cost and visibility of the 10x or 25x parachute in super coder who is so extra special they have an agent!!! No matter what happen management is going to conclude that they made a good investment in the high priced person. If they say otherwise then it would reflect badly on them. Any internal dissent by existing staff will be seen as sour grapes/incompetence. If there is a failure it will be laid at the feet of anyone but the Golden Child. No manager is ever going to admit they made that kind of mistake.

    I wish I had understood this better earlier in my career. I could be sitting on my yacht right now if I had understood how much you can get for the right kind of hype.

    • I learned at a young age half of your job is just making sure people like you and trust you. I'm not saying lie to them or be deceitful, but have a good personality will take you pretty far. If you have a good personality and skills the sky is the limit.

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