Work environment
2004-07-29 18:39:41.335151+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
I just made a proposal to a company this morning. I've no idea if they'll bite, mainly because what I bring to the table is a long-term proposition, and the company is in a fairly short-term mode. But I offered to ameliorate that by working for equity for up to three months, and part of the reason I did that is that several of their people understand technology at the right level. With that in mind, go read Paul Graham's Great Hackers:
A couple years ago a venture capitalist friend told me about a new startup he was involved with. It sounded promising. But the next time I talked to him, he said they'd decided to build their software on Windows NT, and had just hired a very experienced NT developer to be their chief technical officer. When I heard this, I thought, these guys are doomed. One, the CTO couldn't be a first rate hacker, because to become an eminent NT developer he would have had to use NT voluntarily, multiple times, and I couldn't imagine a great hacker doing that; and two, even if he was good, he'd have a hard time hiring anyone good to work for him if the project had to be built on NT.