

A graphical comparison between employees, freelancers and makers. - elzr
http://elzr.com/posts/the-dream/

======
jbarciauskas
Any maker is lucky to have a single product in his/her lifetime succeed. Most
freelancers only work on a single project at a time, and the success of those
projects is mostly in the hand of the client who is responsible for the specs,
marketing, integration, etc. Employees of _good_ companies have the
opportunity to work in an environment where a process has been put into place
of creating, marketing, selling and distributing multiple successful products
and input from all levels is integrated and contributes to the future success
of the products.

Put another way: the median contribution of an employee at a great company is
much higher than the median contribution of a maker or freelancer. The average
contribution is up for discussion, but it is skewed towards the very few
outlandishly successful.

~~~
jerguismi
"Any maker is lucky to have a single product in his/her lifetime succeed."

Not nowadays any more, you can make several iPhone apps, web sites, etc. The
products don't necessarily create millions, but they may be good investements.

For example, I make a crappy iPhone app in two days -> publish -> app makes
$1000 -> good investment for me. For me, success=good investments of my time &
money.

~~~
sant0sk1
If making a crappy iPhone app is your definition of success, you and I define
success quite differently.

~~~
jerguismi
Well, success for a short time :) of course after that two days you have to do
something else and continue to make good investments...

------
deekayteez
If you are a successful "maker", you will occasionally need employees to help
you grow. I wonder if its wise to refer to this class of people as "servants"
which has a denigrating tone to it.

~~~
muddylemon
I think the point is to make unemployed people feel superior.

~~~
jerguismi
Being unemployed is not always fun, it's in society's interest to cheer us up
a little bit :) So we at least keep trying to make something.

------
dangrover
I made a rough diagram like this a while back kind of tongue-in-cheek:
<http://files.dangrover.com/hierarchy_of_work.png>

I think if I were to make a blog post or something out of it, I'd have to
change a few things

~~~
wehriam
While lacking poetry, your chart seems more intellectually honest.

------
GavinB
An employer is an abstraction layer that removes concerns outside one's area
of expertise--someone in product development doesn't need to worry about
getting press coverage or calculating payroll. Like any abstraction layer, it
has costs and benefits. It can be appropriate or inappropriate, depending on
your needs.

Employees, freelancers, and "makers" can all work on product, and can all deal
with customers. Don't try to tell me that a carpenter employed by a company
doesn't "make" product.

Also, this graph's comparisons don't work. A start-up "makes" products, but an
employee doesn't "make" a job. It's nonsensical.

~~~
nopassrecover
But an employee tends to be paid for performing tasks through an abstraction
layer. They may make products but the boss does not buy the product off of
them, it buys their service.

------
wehriam
The graphic lacks little beyond greater-than symbols in it's condemnation of
"servants". The connotations behind the language used, the number of lines
linking concepts, and the horizontal orientation in relation to the word
"work" illustrate a particular worldview. So makers are better than servants -
I wouldn't tell my startup's first employee that!

Eli is implying that those who provide products independently and directly to
consumers are superior to those working in a structured environment. It
explains his choice of profession, but little else.

~~~
nopassrecover
Depends, the first employee of a startup is probably in a different position
to most employees.

------
10ren
The servant-mercenary-artisan terms aren't really necessary.

A good maker is also servant - to a vision, a muse, a genius or an ideal; or
to the pragmatic makers who are also sellers: to a market need, to customers.

The diagram for an employee is also a little misleading, as today, most
employees will have a series of employers over time, just as a freelancer
mostly have a series of projects over time (though they can have them
simultaneously).

------
herval
freelancer - servant of a dozen different bosses (without the benefits of
being an employee)

there, fixed the chart for you...

------
omouse
So which of the people in this have capital and which ones are the wage-
laborers?

