
We do get out of bed for less than $10,000 dollars per day - jrnkntl
http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/We+do+get+out+of+bed+for+less+than+10000+dollars+per+day
======
hasenj
He read it too literally. The point is not 10k or any magic number. The point
is "don't be desperate for money". The point is to view yourself as something
valuable. If you have no value for yourself, you'll be happy to get a low pay
in exchange for a low-quality service. The more respect you have for yourself,
the more people will respect you and the more valuable you become.

His counter argument is basically like this (he's B):

A: Doing X pays, just look at K (where K is a person)

B: No, you can't do X, and don't look at K, he's a special case.

A: Duh, he's special because he does X; he wasn't born special.

Someone should coin a name for this kind of argument ..

As JM himself notes, Linda Evangelista is not that special when it comes to
prettiness or friendliness. He should've paused for a second to ponder how she
became a brand.

(For the record, I have no clue who this Linda girls is).

Consider Steve Jobs. He says[1] he does not ship garbage. Why is that? Is it
because he's rich and he can afford it? No, it's because this is who he is. He
wasn't born rich; he got where he is because he could never ever produce
garbage. A simple way to prove this is to consider: if he had shipped garbage
through out his career, why would he stop now? Just look at Oracle and
Microsoft.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu0qeb_rJYU>

~~~
kenjackson
Steve Jobs mixes garbage, the AppleTV/MobileMe, with things that look pretty
but are garbage under the hood, iMac, with things that aren't garbage, iPhone.

The beauty is that Jobs has created an aura where everything looks like gold.

~~~
itg
This place is turning as bad as reddit. You can't even discuss technology
without some fanboy frothing from his mouth.

~~~
kenjackson
I agree, and you get metacomments that add absolutely no value to the
conversation. And you get upvoted for adding no value, but downvoted for
noting it. Gotta love the HN Apple fans.

------
peteforde
I generally love JM's postings, but it's clear that he did not actually read
much of the article at all. Unfortunately that cheapens the discussion.

For what it's worth, I think that Sebastien's reasoning for not having
advertising on his site should be summarized, screen printed and dropped
propaganda style from airplanes over the financial districts of the world so
that when bored fund guys hire us to build web properties, they might be
slightly more likely to have a non-advertising business model in mind.

~~~
todayiamme
What Sebastian is advocating is a method of hard bargaining that may or may
not lead to brand building. What Jacques is advocating is being careful about
not crossing the line between bargaining and delusions about your own market
worth. It's a perilous balance to maintain if you're playing this game and
falling either way might ruin you.

~~~
endtime
Actually, he's not advocating bargaining of any firmness. He's saying that
one's personal brand (or dignity, or whatever) should have a minimum price
that is not necessarily $0.01. In his case, he's decided that the amount he'd
earn with advertising isn't worth the cheapening of his brand it would entail.

It's shocking to me how many people commenting here (plus Jacques) totally
misunderstood Sebastian's post.

~~~
todayiamme
It depends on how you read it I guess.

This debate I think is based on a perception bias and the failure of language
to communicate something like that.

I see something. Jacques sees something else. Sebastian sees another paradigm
entirely and you see some portion of sebastian's paradigm.

------
dools
I think JM missed the point of Sebastien's use of the quote. From the original
article:

 _"But like my freelancer friend wrote, or like Ms. Evangelista says – if
you’ve got the chops, you set your own rates to a large extent. I’m not
looking to pick up $80 per month at the expense of other things. More on this
in a minute."_

JM's entire post focuses on his use of the Linda Evangelista quote to
illustrate a point about not cheapening your "product" or your "brand" unless
it's really worth it. Maybe he didn't read the whole thing.

Sebastien's articles give me the shits and I think talk about winning,
success, victory and individualism is counter productive but if you're going
to criticise it at least get your facts straight.

~~~
crasshopper
Why is it counter productive? Because it makes us losers feel like losers? Or
because it == resting on laurels?

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Because the CEO of BigCo isn't likely to award you a big contract if he gave
you two dollars for coffee not five minutes ago. Picking up (advertising)
pennies is not without costs.

~~~
endtime
Can you elaborate upon how that answers crasshopper's question? What you're
saying seems like a non sequitur.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
You're right, I misread. Sorry; a shame it's too late to edit/delete now...

~~~
crasshopper
Your answer made sense. Tim Harford did a piece on why people who refuse to be
team players (e.g. take on some extra work that's "beneath" them) end up
making more money. I assume you mean a signalling scenario like that.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Yes, exactly.

------
sp4rki
I'll gladly take those 2k Eur to provide a day of reading comprehension
classes that would help avoid such misunderstandings. :) \

Sebastien's article had little to do with actual money and a lot to do with
the implicit value of one's skills, name, and work (and advises not to cheapen
your brand with puny advertisements unless it actually makes sense
financially). This response had nothing whatsoever to do with anything but the
link bait title.

------
nyellin
Is it just me, or is Jacques still reading and replying to articles that reach
the HN homepage?

Did Jacques replace commenting on HN with writing blog posts?

~~~
icey
Commenting with a blog post instead of in the comments seems to be a new trend
around here.

~~~
stcredzero
Actually, it's encouraged in the etiquette and advice pages of HN.

~~~
icey
I never said there was anything wrong with it. I just said it was a new trend.

~~~
stcredzero
I never said you said. I just think it's amusing that following the advice is
now a new trend.

------
jister
You miss the point of the article. "Don't be desperate for money" is the main
point of the article.

And for me, I don't think it's appropriate to mention that I earn 2,000 Euros
/ day.

------
Symbiont
If you ignore the references to Sebastian in JM's post and pay attention only
to the subject, it is clear that they're talking about different things.

------
richcollins
Wonder what you get from him for 2k eur per day

~~~
todayiamme
Your money's worth.

Seriously, this guy has implemented so many systems and has written so many
lines of code that I've lost count. Plus he has awesome business experience (
[http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/content/story-behind-wwcom-
ca...](http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/content/story-behind-wwcom-camaradescom)
) and is a pretty great guy to work with. Yet again, the thing is that what he
brings to the table isn't just pure coding skills, or business skills, but a
combination of both and years of experience. So, what you're actually doing by
hiring him for a day is hiring an army of programmers for all the human years
he has invested.

You know the thing is that when you have been in the market for that long and
people are willing to pay you that much for that long. There has to be a lot
under the surface.

~~~
richcollins
That didn't answer my question ;-)

Maybe seeing what he's done for other ppl for 2k eur a day would be a good
indication.

------
switch
For someone who usually writes very smart posts this is one strange post.

On one hand developers complain that they don't get paid enough and don't get
treated well. On the other hand, they refuse to consider the possibility that
perhaps not getting out of bed for less than $10,000 a day is exactly what
developers ought to do.

If you look at the cumulative worth companies like Microsoft and Google and
VMWare built up and break it down to the founders and first 10 developers -
it'd be a lot more than $10,000 per day.

------
tuhin
The $10,000 per day was just a metaphor to not actually do things that you
feel you don't deserve. Of course a lot of it has to fall in place before you
are _there_ to do that.

I mean for a man with no job and loads of skills he still needs to work for a
while before he is able to claim that.

Also a good idea might be to have a constant fallback of some form. A safer
job that gives enough time for freelance maybe?

------
csomar
_Linda Evangelista is a brand unto herself. That's why she's worth the big
bucks, not because she's a good looking girl (I know prettier ones!) and not
because she's that great to work with. It's simply because she moves product.
Most of us provide a service, we are not 'brands'._

I actually see no difference. If I'm offering a service, then I need to brand
myself. This is no different than products we sell, or buy. The Author,
jacquesmattheij, himself has a brand. He should be popular in his field, so
that he can touch 2K euro / day.

He has got skills in IT. Linda has got skills in promoting products. It's not
her beauty what makes a difference. He actually mentioned that, though. So,
she's not 'that girl'. She's someone that made it and become able to sell
products. She has got her own marketing strategies and that works.

She has got skills, same for the Author. They are just approaching different
fields.

------
macca321
Is he trying to being ironic by saying his fee is 2k? Its pretty much the same
as Eva Evangelista's gambit.

------
Bvalmont
I should stay in bed with my 3,5k a month it seems

It's a good income for 24 year olds in Belgium, though. Most everyone I
graduated with has 2k/month. I wouldn't know what to do with 2k a day like JM.

~~~
bad_user
I make 55000 USD per year, but live in a cheap place where 8500 USD per year
is considered a good salary.

It is all relative.

~~~
crasshopper
You consider 55000 USD per year low? Geez, I've never made over 20000 USD.

40000 is the median in the U.S. and that includes people at the peak of their
careers. Cops, teachers, and social workers don't necessarily make much above
that after a lifetime of hard work. Anyone over 40000 should feel proud and/or
fortunate.

~~~
bad_user
In the U.S. it is not uncommon for software developers working as employees to
make between 90k and 120k per year. In fact, AFAIK that's THE salary for
experienced devs in Silicon Valley; and independent contractors can make much
more than that.

Indeed cops, teachers, and social workers make much less, but salary is
usually a function of how much profit you can produce + a function of supply
and demand.

The demand right now for capable software engineers is pretty high, even with
this economic recession. And the supply is very low - so if you live in the
U.S. and are making 20000 USD per year, you're doing something wrong ;-) Heck,
that's not enough to pay the rent in San Francisco.

Even junior developers coming fresh out of college are making more than 20k.

In that light, yes 55k is much lower than I could earn if I were located at
the heart of the software industry, but I'm pretty happy and feel fortunate
about it anyway; although my target is 120k.

So again, if you live in the U.S. 20000 is way low without having extra
benefits - like being a co-founder in a startup that will make you rich one
day. Even if the projects you're working on are fun, don't sell yourself for
pennies. In the long run you'll suffer; not to mention, have you noticed the
ageism going on in this industry?

~~~
crasshopper
Yes, obviously I would like to be making more.

~~~
endtime
40k might be average for everyone, but for skilled and educated technical folk
(which most of us on HN are), 55k is low (at least if you're living in the
US).

~~~
stcredzero
If you are living in an industrialized country and have real technical skills,
just do a good job, cover your bases, then ask for 12% more every year. As is
often said around here, often your salary is just a line item in the books.
You can actually do stuff like look for a new job and say, "You know, I've
never made 6 figures. How about you pay me $100k?" and a lot of places will
just do it, even if this means they're jumping your income by 25% I know this
for a fact, because years ago, that's exactly what I did.

Hint: if you want to do this, try working for companies with money. Energy and
energy related companies are like this. Also be prepared for lots of politics
and soul-grinding nonsense.

