Show HN: Announcing 10x Management
10xmanagement.comSomething isn't sitting right with me about this. Let me explore (my gut may be wrong here)...
I agree that it's important for freelance engineers and designers to have some business help. Being a good "creator" doesn't necessarily mean you're good at negotiations, and while its an important skill, there is something nice about being able to focus on doing the work (and doing a good job) vs having to find the clients, negotiate the deals, handle payment, etc. That can be an unwelcome distraction for some people who aren't naturally good at it.
But that's why design/development studios exist. Even in a small shop - there's a guy who specs the project, a guy who negotiates the deal, a designer, and a developer (yes, there's often overlap in those roles). You pay a premium for the full-service of those distinct roles.
I think what's bothering me here is that these guys are perpetuating the notion that, literally, hiring a "celebrity"/"rock star" engineer/designer ("10xer") is something that folks should be paying a huge premium for. And that if you are that rock star, that you're so awesome that you need talent management (who deserves 15%). The premium here isn't for a support staff to help manage the project - the premium here is to get that celebrity development talent.
Not saying this is necessarily a bad thing - maybe it's an innovation that's much needed in the industry. But my gut is that they're spreading the celebrity-worship mentality of the entertainment industry to the software industry, and I'm not confident that's the right move.
It works in the entertainment industry because the link is much clearer -- you put Vinny Chase in your movie, it's going to do better than if you put in a no-name actor (all else being equal). Does that same thing work in the software industry?
Thoughts?
>I think what's bothering me here is that these guys are perpetuating the notion that, literally, hiring a "celebrity"/"rock star" engineer/designer ("10xer") is something that folks should be paying a huge premium for.
Bugs me as well, but probably not for the same reason. It makes me sad how many programmers and engineers who aren't the mythical "rockstars" get left behind in all this. Average programmers. People who haven't founded their own company or created a popular software library, but are still capable of doing the work of a hundred number crunching people by themselves with a keyboard. So much rhetoric gets thrown around about ninjas and the skills gap, yet the median salary in the industry hasn't kept up with inflation in the past 15 years. A lot of time and industry effort is being spent on finding or importing people rather than supporting the ones they have or just hiring people and teaching them how to be more effective.
>the median salary in the industry hasn't kept up with inflation in the past 15 years
What are some of your reasons for believing that? Personal work experience?
http://www.npr.org/2013/02/19/172373123/older-tech-workers-o... somewhat casually mentions the stagnation according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's remarkably difficult to find wages by year.
I think the disconnect on this is how one will define celebrity/rock star type developers. I'm sure that ideally they feel they will be the agent to some of the bigger names in the business, who certainly don't need an agent for finding work but might like someone to handle their stuff.
Through my work running a Java users group for 13 years, when I reach out to big name speakers my reply comes from an assistant that handles that person's calendar and scheduling. This could be a service that someone who is speaking worldwide would pay for (as their employer pays for it if they are at Google).
In reality, talent agent's in tech will probably be managing very good coders who are probably not big industry names - and that's ok. They could be very good at coding but not very good at making career choices, negotiating, and the like.
The Vinny Chase reference seems to indicate that you feel that the quality of your engineers doesn't have an impact on the success of your software company. Is that accurate? I think that if you feel the quality of an engineer is not associated with the success of a product, at least to some degree, most of the people here would disagree.
The thing is that "celebrity status" is only loosely correlated with engineering ability. Someone who blogs a lot, is involved with a popular product, or is just very social and charismatic can build up a big following and become a celebrity without necessarily being a great coder. Likewise, a lot of amazing engineers are so amazing precisely because they keep their heads in the code and technical concepts all day, and don't spend time on self promotion. Of course, it's possible for someone to become famous purely through the weight of their achievements, but the I think the typical coder-celebrity has had to work pretty hard to become one.
Agreed, just like you can be a celebrity and not have any skills whatsoever in the entertainment or reality TV world. I think their message isn't necessarily about celebrity status but about the quality of work. It says they've done code reviews and reference checks on the 10x site, so they are saying that they've vetted the talent. My guess is that the types of people represented are probably not what one would consider celebrities, as many can afford their own support staff (assistant, scheduler, accountant, etc.).
As an aside, there is some value to hiring celebrity status folks, regardless of their coding ability (helps with recruiting, name recognition, company status, etc.).
I like the idea but not sure how much will the freelancer earn comparing with their current work. Saying it in a different way: if you already are a star developer you don't need them. As a consequence I see "star discovery" as a business instead of "star representation". They can discover stars outside the US or main US cities.
I know people who already did that, but the stars then moved to the Google(s), Facebook(s).
They help the small shops outsource the person who negotiates the deals. When you get huge volumes of request for contracted development for a specific set of talents, perhaps because you built some library that lots of people want contractors for, then it helps to have someone filter inbound requests and negotiate pricing at a premium so you don't spend 10% of your time doing it.
ps. hi nlh!
"10x represents the best freelance programmers and designers"
not to be too snooty, but couldn't they get one of their best design freelancers to give their site a bit of a makeover?
Or set encoding properly? The text of last quoted client has all kinds of escaping issues.
Some of the fonts are rendering strangely for me in Windows Chrome 25. The anti-aliasing is chunky. Not sure if it's some TrueType thing, it's been a while since I've had to work with such problems.
I think he was talking about Bootstrap. This is a good example of when it's not the best choice.
Our website is 10x worse than it should be
I have direct personal experience with 10x and I highly recommend them.
I found them to help me with a significant employment/management need.
10x focused on finding the best solution and provided ongoing contact and advice through the whole process.
I don't get anything by recommending them. I do believe fully in their business and value.
A few people here are asking for details: 10x helped me with a benefits/salary negotiation with one of my large clients.
Michael Solomon at 10x talked with me about various kinds of research into salaries, benefits, alternative compensation, and the like. Michael was open to creative solutions, able to research comparison positions, and always aimed for a good solution.
Overall I was entirely happy with his work, and he has a clear, solid, long-term vision for helping developers.
As I wrote above, I don't get anything for recommended 10x. I just like to see good people get good work.
It would be better if you expand a little about your experience with them, this just sounds like common spam.
They helped you as an employer or an employee?
Yeah, a full story would better help to evaluate the value they provided you.
1) More important than deal flow, I could see myself working with something like that if it increased my hourly rate, and if it did so substantially. I am 100% positive that most of the jobs/projects I got into I left money on the table because I didn't want to put too much effort in the negotiation process and just wanted to work on interesting things.
So it would be great if something like that managed to work as a market force to push things up. However, these guys would have to be completely transparent, pretty much like we see sport athletes getting their contracts disclosed, all of their "stars" would have each of their signed projects on a billboard, complete with stats and metrics of performance.
If it increased my rate by 20%, I wouldn't do it. Promise me that I would be able to live in New York and make $300-$400k/year without having to get into finance, and I could give them 10-20% of it easily.
2) Apologies in advance for my blatant stereotyping, but I couldn't help noticing that most if not all names of the guys leading this are Jewish. Coupled with the "Here's your Ari Gold" comment it makes me wonder, why is this such a Jewish-dominated field?
Transparency is critical in all things related to recruiting (and tech talent management if it is to become a 'thing'). Most of the problems that arise are due to a lack of transparency and the recruiter's incentives.
You wouldn't pay someone a percentage if it increased your rate by 20%? That seems a bit of a strange concept. Curious as to why not?
Not sure what to make on your assumptions of the guys leading this and their possible religious background, but since you went there - the Ari Gold reference was one I made in a similar article about agents being a possibility in tech, and I chose Ari Gold not due to any religious concepts (for transparency, I'm not Jewish) but because that his style as an agent is what everyone seems to want and he is probably the most known agent (even though fictional) in the world. I could have picked Jerry Maguire, who would be a close second I'd think. I'd have mentioned Drew Rosenhaus, but tech folks seem more knowledgeable about TV than sports.
If my gross rate goes up by 20% and I need to give you a 10% cut, my net rate increase is 8% (possibly less depending on things like taxes). My lizard brain will either try to cut you out of the loop or just forget about the whole thing.
Also, social capital. If you are already somewhat networked and you start telling everyone to "talk to your agent", I would guess lots of people would turn up their noses. Yes, it should be an absolutely professional relationship and all, but just ask people in Cleveland about Lebron or people in Boston about Ray Allen how they feel about them leaving and you'll see that there is more to money in any kind of relationship.
Another reason: we computer people love automation and streamlining of processes. If this actually becomes a thing, you will start seeing lots of copycats or actual startups trying to emulate parts of whatever process become established. This would just lead to either a new market norm (like the way YC has changed seed-stage funding) or forcing players in this space to go for a new level of risk/reward (the high-6-7 figure earners)
About the "Jewish" part, again I apologize for my ignorance. I think I wrote Jewish when I meant Jew (as in ethnic/cultural background, not religion? Semitic would be better?) and I was just going for last names. Coincidentally, if I had to guess, Rosenhaus sounds like a Jewish name to me.
If your bill rate (paid by the company to me as your agent) is 100/hr, and you give me 10% (10/hr), your pay rate is now 90/hr. If I get 'us' a 20% increase, I'm now billing you at $120 - of that I'm taking 10% ($12), leaving you with $108. You just went from 90 to 108 (20% raise). Not sure where the net 8% is from that you mention.
Some might turn up noses if you say 'talk to my agent', because it is a new concept. That is expected. Change is hard.
Regarding the 'Jewish thing' again - let's just put that whole line of thinking to bed at this point, I think you may be digging the hole a bit deeper. I'm not sure that you've offended anyone just yet, but you may be on your way.
The 8% come from the fact that I don't need you to negotiate the base pay. I was going from $100 without you to $108 with you.
Oh. Nice job and congrats on the raise. I think that the recruiter's rate (margin) in that scenario should stay static.
> You wouldn't pay someone a percentage if it increased your rate by 20%? That seems a bit of a strange concept. Curious as to why not?
Because nothing is free. Adding an extra layer to the sales process costs more than 20% of my time. I can't speak for rglullis, but I'd only accept 20% it if I was incapable of finding additional clients.
Adding an extra layer to the sales process that will be handling the entire sales process should cost you no additional time at all - actually, the inverse is what they are proposing. The services I provide to my clients as a recruiter save them quite a bit of time - bringing them opportunities saves them research time, fixing up their resumes when necessary, scheduling interviews, negotiating, etc. All I do is save my candidates time, and that service is free to them. If I negotiate a higher rate than they would have negotiated on their own, even better. As an agent, I would be compensated based on two things - my ability to get you more money (higher rate, low amount of downtime) and save you time.
I sense a lot of negativity here. Engineers are not good at dealing with customers. They deal with the customers so engineers don't have to. They have people skills. They are good at dealing with people!
Can't you guys understand that?
This is absolutely not true at all. This is the same non-sense girls are taught growing up that they are not "good" at engineering. My experience has been, once engineers start interacting with customers they like it and they are good at it. Some aren't but is not the norm.
Easy now. That was a movie line from Office Space.
I see what you did there.. and I like it
Oh, no. This doesn't feel right at all. This is giving me entertainment720 vibes.
10x has 11 x's in the logo. So, it also has Spinal Tap vibes too.
Odd that there's not a lawyer among the listed leaders. They say they'll bring in lawyers "if necessary." Aren't most agencies for artists or athletes packed with lawyers? If I'm hiring you as my agent, I'd think that at least half your job would be the contract part of it.
Most contracts for technologists are much less complex than contracts for artists/athletes. Actors/athletes might have incentives for performance, receipts, merch, etc that are very complex. Tech contracts are usually rates, duration, perhaps some liability, NDA and IP stuff, non-compete. Perm hire could include some stock option info as well, but you don't need a lawyer for most of this stuff unless someone is really trying to protect something.
Of course there are already talent agents for contracts and have been for years--maybe not so much short-run freelancers but plenty of businesses place contractors for six-month+ terms.
Most don't bill themselves as only for the 10xers--and for good reason--your supply of exceptional talent will quickly run out. Few 10xers get paid ten times of a 1Xer. (I bet you'd bill more with 50 1xers than 5 10Xers.) It could be that a boutique agency will get enough traction and recognition to draw enough 10xers to be crazy successful--it will be interesting to watch.
But coming from the side of someone looking for good developers I'm all for a little innovation in the recruitment and employment space.
Most people suck at negotiating, and in a field where so much value is provided, there is a lot of value that simply isn't captured by the employee. I think having a management company like this makes a lot of sense assuming that after your fee, you are able to make more than you otherwise would.
As far as the website goes though, it needs a ton of work. They should basically take out their life story in the middle and use that for a press release and create a simplified about us page. Overall it really just seems like they threw everything on the page, and while nobody wants to leave anything out, having so much text is very distracting and takes away from your message
I'd like to see this in the UK, i've always said one day i'd start that kind of agency. This is a great idea.
It exists! We are building a community at YunoJuno that provides all the support of a large company, but for people who choose to be freelance. We're not quite as gung-ho as these guys - and we're not offering to manage your career - that's your business - but we do want to support talented freelancers in the creative (design, ux, dev) community. www.yunojuno.com
(Oh, and we're not charging you anything - we charge the employer, fixed rate, no shenanigans.)
You're missing less web-centric dev skills.
Some suggestions: Haskell, C, Erlang, OCaml, C++.
Yup - this is true. The "skills matrix" for developers is a real bone of contention - too many and it's confusing, too few and it's limiting. In reality, for now we are focussing on creative agencies, and they are web-focussed - we are not meeting with companies who have low-level perforamnce or control issues. It's about building web and mobile apps. For now ;-)
Is this just an umbrella company under other name?
If this was such a good idea, why doesn't it exist for other professions? EG the very best lawyers, accountants etc? Is the supply more contrained for tech people?
Also, freelance IT people typically work through several agents. What happens if you find a role yourself, not through these guys? Do you still have to pay them a cut?
Lawyers and accountants tend to work for a firm rather than freelance project by project like actors and film professionals/entrepeneurs (e.g. lighting, sound, makeup, electrical, catering) will do.
The same is true of some programmers as well, but I would guess more programmers (and architects, designers, project managers, tech leads, etc) do the freelance thing compared to other professionals.
I suppose. But my understanding was that this 10x company would find you permanent as well as contract/freelance roles.
I think there's a fallacy in there; just because something hasn't been done doesn't make it a bad idea. Otherwise we should just stay shivering in the metaphorical cave.
But I think it's commonly accepted that there's a huge performance difference between a good programmer and a bad programmer. People disagree as to the ratio of course; I've heard between 3x and 100x. I don't believe that's as widely mentioned for lawyers or accountants. So technology talent seems like a great place for 10x to start.
I'm a tech strategist with an agent that is not 10X, and I am a very happy guy.
Ted Pearlman at Us Is Two (http://usistwo.com) was referred to me by a former business partner. He was scouring North America looking for someone with legitimate CTO instincts to advise a client on an ongoing basis. Their business (health and nutrition) aligned with my interests and their location (two minutes from my house) aligned with the stars. I met the client and they were nice, interesting people with a profitable business. It's been an exceptionally good relationship; fun and lucrative for them and me.
Ted and I became friends and now we work together often. I'm effective at pitching what I do and selling consulting (I started and co-ran Unspace for 8 years) but it's not what I enjoy doing. However, the real reason I'm excited to work with him is that no matter how good I am at keeping my pipeline full, there's no way that it's better than being recommended by a third party who is paying a fee to find someone with my skills.
Ted authored The Pudding Manifesto (http://puddingmanifesto.org/) and in my experience he puts his money where his mouth is. He sends an invoice up front and says, "don't pay this unless the person I introduce to you is as good as I say they are". You'll have to ask him what percentage of people end up paying.
As for developers uncomfortable with comparisons to celebrity culture and folks that complain about average developers getting left behind... this really isn't about any of that, or at least it doesn't have to be. Ted exhausts huge amounts of energy making genuine connections between people, often at his own expense. He's a hustler with a heart of gold, and has his client's best interest in mind far more often than a lot of the folks HN-types are so eager to take investment money from.
If you have any questions that I haven't answered, please feel free to ask. Moreover, I encourage you to set up a time to speak with Ted: http://usistwo.com/contact
I really like the emphasis on quality of talent. In my experience, too many recruitment agencies (the incumbents) are heavily focused on volume and optimize around their own compensation structure.
If 10x can stay focused only on genuine talent, giving the talent a steady flow of well-paying work from businesses that can't afford to have someone under-deliver, that seems like a win/win/win to me, and I'm sure they'll do well.
The hardest part of this is turning people down. Everyone feels they are high talent (almost everyone) or top 10%, but obviously they can't all be right. The amount of people they will have to reject could be enough to give people a negative impression of them - of how they evaluate and rate talent, elitism, etc. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
Tech pros love to hate how companies evaluate talent - tests, coding exercises, interviews, whiteboard work, Fermi problems. How they choose to evaluate talent, and whether they choose to tell some coders 'sorry, you aren't 10x material' will be very telling.
Definitely agree - I don't think this aspect of 10x's focus will be easy. But that's what I'd be paying for as a 10x customer - that they've done the difficult job of telling people that are perfectly competent "thanks, but no thanks".
There's no question that great people working together w/ clarity and harmony can do amazing things. But selling yourself as a 10x anything to someone you don't know isn't very useful. A "10x" developer working for a "10x" boss with different priorities & values is not going to end well.
This 10x elitism is total bull. I'm sure the top programmers are 10x better than the worst, but there's a vast spectrum in between. The 10x notion implies that there's the worst, the good, the better, then a massive chasm, the up on the mountaintop there are "the 10xers". I'm not buying it.
I laid out something similar here on HN last summer and Atlay (of 10x) was one of the first to comment. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4555165) As a longtime tech recruiter, what I find most valuable about the model is that it is much more geared towards helping tech pros focus on what they do best (code) and not have to worry about what they tend to do worst (handle the business side of their work, negotiate, etc.). I haven't switched my business into an agency model at this point as I think there are still a few kinks to be worked out.
Here is some recruiter-speak (what we are trained to say) that might make sense to some of the contractors out there or at least sound familiar. If you are working with a recruiter and you ask for $125/hr, and you feel that is a very fair market rate for the work you will be doing, and the recruiter is able to get the client to pay say $130/hr, chances are you won't care because you are getting your 125 and the recruiter is making almost nothing. So let's now say that the recruiter is an excellent negotiator and gets $150 - should you (as the coder) get more because the recruiter was able to negotiate a higher rate? At what point should the recruiter be rewarded for doing a good job negotiating? If the recruiter is getting $250 total and you are only at $125, surely you will feel slighted - but if $125 is the market rate for that skill, should the recruiter not be rewarded for the ability to negotiate and get a higher rate? I could argue both sides of this.
One way to alleviate part of this problem is to essentially split the difference. If you come to me asking for 125, let's say my standard cut is 10% (which is low, but this is just an example) - and anything I get above that 10% we split. So at 137.5, you are at 125 and I'm at 12.5 (10%). If I get the client up to 150, I get my 12.50 (10% of your 125) + 1/2 of the additional 12.50 (150-137.5) for a total of 18.75, while you get 131.25. This way the recruiter is rewarded for getting a higher rate, and the coder doesn't feel like a victim.
Unfortunately, most recruiters won't reveal the bill rate (paid by the company) to the coder or the coder's rate to the company, so all sides are in the dark except the middleman.
Almost all recruiting models are quite imperfect and have some really disturbing incentives for the recruiters (http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2012/09/17/disrupt/). Transparency between all parties is something I am offering my candidates so they can use their best judgment as to whether my advice is clouded by a higher fee with one company over another. Transparency is the real key to solving many of the problems in the industry.
The agent model seems to be the right track, and hopefully we'll get it right some day.
> "This way the recruiter is rewarded for getting a higher rate, and the coder doesn't feel like a victim."
Fair recruiter reward for results is also the case when the recruiter just takes a flat percentage.
And in trying to define a 'minimum acceptable rate', you'd be incentivizing all sorts of odd behaviors, as recruiters would preference the gap between 'acceptable' and 'final' rate, rather than a higher final rate.
You'd have created additional pressure to mask final rates, depress clients' understanding of their own value, etc. Those are not remotely healthy incentives for a client/manager relationship.
e.g. placing a 150 for 180 nets you 30. placing a 180 for 200 nets you 28. how many 180s do you expect to keep? what conversation do you imagine taking place when a client says "we should bump up my minimum from 150 to 180"?
Rather counter to your goal of keeping coders from feeling like victims, that incentive structure is maximized when agents explicitly take advantage of coders who least understand their value and then keep them there.
Fair recruiter reward for a flat percentage? Fair to the talent, certainly, but assuming I'm getting a low flat percentage that is much better for the talent. If I'm at 10%, you ask me for $100, and I get you $300 because I'm a master negotiator, I just made an extra $20/hr and you made an extra $180/hr. I did all the work there, didn't I? Is your coding going to be 3 times better because I negotiated you a 3 times better rate? Something to at least consider, from the recruiter's standpoint.
Odd incentives are so deeply ingrained in recruiting that it's almost impossible to get them out of the system. Recruiters have the incentive for motion - people leaving jobs all the time, regardless of whether it is a good career move. If an agent had tech talent paying $X,000 per year to tell them which moves were best for their career, that would be much more of a positive incentive for all sides. Instead, the incentive is for recruiters to get people to change jobs, regardless of how happy they are now or how happy they will be in the new job.
The pressure to mask final rates is much higher under current conditions. Take that incentive out entirely by showing your employees/contractors the invoices that you are billing the company.
Depressing a candidates understanding of their own value is a valid point, and very unhealthy. I don't think agents can take advantage of coders who understand their value, as they are able to leave. At a former company, I saw consultants leave over as little as $5/hr. The only thing that prevents coders from being taken advantage of by recruiters placing them for contract work is the coder's knowledge of their market value. If they know that, they should never get taken advantage of. Again, if they are being paid 'true market value', and a recruiter is able to negotiate a rate well above market value, that isn't taking advantage of the coder - that is taking advantage of the company paying the higher rate.
> "I did all the work there, didn't I?"
The negotiating work, yeah. Which is why you're getting 10% of every hour of work that someone saw fit to pay $300/hr for, despite your effort being of a fairly fixed quantity of time.
And regardless of your negotiating, the client has the option of choosing from more than one candidate. So if they look at the $300/hr candidates and they choose hypothetical me, then my $100/hr ask and the huge delta is far more a function of my ignorance/naivete than your skill. [1]
> "I don't think agents can take advantage of coders who understand their value, as they are able to leave."
You wanted to minimize feelings of being taken advantage of. Which is simply not a concern of people who understand their value. So who else were you concerned about wronging, if not the people who do not understand their value?
And I'm not saying good relationships couldn't be had under the system you proposed. Just that you have some perverse incentives built-in that makes the antidote seem worse than the disease.
> " Take that incentive out entirely by showing your employees/contractors the invoices that you are billing the company."
That's a solid move. Though if you put the person who is advantaged by information mis-match in charge of erasing that mis-match, don't be surprised when short-cuts are taken. But that's simple enough to avoid by having administrative staff handle that directly.
> "[if] a recruiter is able to negotiate a rate well above market value, that isn't taking advantage of the coder - that is taking advantage of the company paying the higher rate."
Yes, but as we all know, one of those tasks is far easier and more common than the other.
[1] And I'm not trying to write off the value of skilled negotiators. I'm just saying that competition means you simply don't get huge deltas on negotiation alone.
Points well made, and in my position I'm able to argue both sides on this one. I should probably preface my comments with the fact that I have done contract work in the past, but for the last couple years I've focused almost entirely on permanent placement, and part of the reason is this lack of trust between coders and recruiters and this whole dialogue.
In perm placement the incentive of the recruiter is usually to maximize the coder's income (fee = n% of salary), but contract placement is the opposite (margin = bill rate - pay rate where minimizing pay rate leads to higher margin). I don't remember ever being accused of gouging by any coder as our margins were pretty low relative to others, but I would hate to have to explain/argue in the real world to a coder why my ability to negotiate a ridiculously high rate deserves to be rewarded (and as I said earlier, I'd split the reward, but I don't feel splitting at a flat rate is fair to the recruiter).
You seem to be downplaying the value of the negotiation work just a bit in my view, and you say as much at the end with the 'we all know...one of those tasks is far easier and more common than the other'. You say you are not writing off the value of negotiators, and competition should mean that there are no huge deltas, but as long as you are truly getting at or above market rate I'm not sure I can see the fault in a recruiter getting a huge delta.
You are correct in that I can't do what coders do, and I can do things that coders can't do also. On a site like HN, frequented by coders, everyone here will agree that what coders do is far more difficult than what recruiters do. There is not point in arguing that, particularly here where most people seem to equate recruiting with the lowest form of humanity. But I can assure you that I help people get jobs and solid comp packages that probably lacked the tools to do it on their own. It's a symbiotic relationship with many of my candidates, at least in my case.
You keep alluding to the fact that if I negotiate a huge delta that it is a function of your naivete - couldn't it be the naivete of the company that is paying that rate? If you pay $200K for a car that can be had for $20K elsewhere, you as the buyer are the 'victim' if there is one (certainly not the car). Of course cars don't care, but hopefully you get my point.
Who is the true victim here if a coder is being fairly compensated based on market rate? The victim, if there is one, is the company that is being overcharged - yet the coder seems to think he/she is the victim when they are being paid a fair wage.
Again, we stress coders need to know market rate, and the ones that are 'victimized' are the ones that don't know market rate. They are victimized by recruiters who gouge. But if the coder is getting market rate, and the recruiter is able to negotiate a higher-than-market hourly rate (with a high delta), you seem to believe that the coder is a victim - it's not the coder, it's the company.
> I just made an extra $20/hr and you made an extra $180/hr
This is implying you would be negotiating as long as I will be coding. But once the client signs the contract your work is pretty much over and you will get $20/hr even if you sit at the pool.
My negotiating a higher rate for you is like an annuity, since your earnings every hour have increased for the same level of work. So you are rewarded every hour for the fruits of my labor. Yet I should only be rewarded once?
No, you get a percentage and the more hours I work the better for you?
I tweeted this idea back in December 2011: https://twitter.com/capotribu/status/147730720192872449
looking forward to receiving shares as a thank you ;-)
Pop goes the bubble.
Would you care to elaborate?
The reason artists have agents is so they can get work. Because there are more artists than paid work. Programmers are in such demand that one does not need for such thing. Thus, this kind of service popping up signals that there is so much frees money flowing around (the bubble) that people are looking for ways to grab a bunch and runaway.
Let's be honest here. Aside from the ego stroking of having an agent, what value do these people provide?
I have a friend, a Thiel fellow actually, who for personal reasons is no longer pursuing his project. He is extremely talented and creative, but, despite his credibility, ability and connections, he swears by these people because they take all the bullshit out of the equation and just let him focus on what he wants to do right now which is get paid the most money possible to work on the most interesting and intellectually stimulating projects he can. Why is that so offensive to you?
I'm not offended by this. At all. I'm happy your friend benefits from it.
One of the nice things about having an agent in the movie business is that they can play the role of Bad Cop with the producers when needed.
This allows the talent to maintain good relations with the person signing the checks. Or at least the pretense of good relations, which is just as good for most purposes.
Under http://www.10xmanagement.com/#what_we_do
Contract negotiation, scheduling, planning, invoicing. Basically all the paperwork + customer relations, you just do the work. I don't know what their fee is, but if they do this right it could be worth it.
>The reason artists have agents is so they can get work. Because there are more artists than paid work.
Plenty of hot, in-demand artists have agents.
Does 10x take 10% of whatever the client makes?
10% would be on the low side for either a recruitment agency or, to run with the Ari Gold analogy, a talent agent. 15% would be more realistic, although I see recruiters trying to charge considerably more. Unscrupulous recruiters often will try to hide how much their cut is from their freelancers.
Aside-
Hollywood agents are capped at 10%, Hollywood managers typically are more like 15%. Agents are "forbidden" by California law to produce projects, though that line can be awfully blurry. Managers can't, in theory, directly negotiate contracts. In theory.
A lot of talent ends up with both a manager and an agent, each with their own percentage.
Toss in an attorney at 5+% and you can see how the Hollywood money really flows.
Recruiters for contractors in the UK generally take 20%, i've caught agencies try to take more.
As more big firms opt for management comapnies such as ResourceSolutions, this is been driven firmly down. Often its below 3% for people who've been on site 18+ months.
The worst thing about RS (guess which side I'm on!) is that they advise on rate reductions. As they are often working with your competitors too, they can effectively advise that a 10% hair cut is OK because OtherBank just did a n% cut.
It's gradually getting managed down, I believe, due to Preferred Sipplier Lists etc.
Recruitment agencies get paid by the employer. Hollywood talent agents in contrast, get paid by the talent.
Do you we know which party pays 10x?
Grant Cardone in the Cardone Zone
Please stop with the '10x' bullshit. Using this term makes you sound like immature children.