Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

Re:Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or ... by nostrademons on Thursday September 28, 2017 @06:43PM (#15361396)

Note that engineers who do this become Sociopaths (in the MacLeod sense) - suddenly they are running a business, hiring employees, and taking every advantage they can, because if they don't, they're Clueless. The rest of the Ribbonfarm essay series expounded on this a bit more thoroughly - many of those Sociopaths are actually Losers until the right opportunity presents itself.

There isn't actually a way out, on a systemic level. On a personal level, though, you should be very honest with yourself about which of the three categories you want to be, and go after it. People who refuse to accept the trade-offs or deny that there is one are by definition Clueless.

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Re:Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or ... by lliamander on Monday October 02, 2017 @01:44PM (#15386036)

> Note that engineers who do this become Sociopaths (in the MacLeod sense)

Which is actually what Dietrich is advocating, with a careful caveat: these developer partnerships only hire other Sociopaths (or Opportunists, as Dietrich calls them) insofar as it is possible, and generally avoid growing large enough to need a gooey Clueless middle.

The MacLeod system describes organizations of all sizes, but only reaches its full flowering in large enterprises.

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