
One Thousand Dollars an Hour - jamesjyu
http://samsoff.es/posts/one-thousand-dollars-an-hour
======
patio11
There exist many, many things one could do with a computer worth piles of
money. Knight just blew $400 million in 45 minutes. What rate could you have
charged them in the middle of that for credibly offering a fix?

That's worth a few orders of magnitude more than a lot of work, but there are
plenty of companies with revenues in the millions or tens of millions with
very specialized IT needs. They might be unable to hire for them or unwilling
to spend 6 months interviewing and training when they could hire an expert to
parachute in now. That expert might well charge a project rate that works out
to a bit of money, but crucially, anchor it to business value rather than
things which have a cheap, non-expansive dynamic range like "price per hour."

~~~
johnnyg
Sometimes the dam just breaks. If you are so good as to be able to predict
such an instance, you can see the future and should BE trading stocks, not
working on the systems that facilitate trades.

If you are very good at building the systems that facilitiate trades, you
should be paid well, but you will be paid for building stable, reliable
systems and not for predicting one off gotchas. That is impossible to do
consistently.

No amount of money can prevent the one off events. You can only hedge. As a
result, is $1000/hr worth a hedge? Likely not.

Now, is a guy worth $1000/hr if there's a crisis, he can come it and make it
better and we are talking millions of dollars. Likely so.

All of these things to say: no, he's not worth $1000 on any given hour, but
might be on a very particular hour.

------
johnnyg
Good marketing ploy. Causes people to freak out for a minute with thoughts
like "is this a trend? Can this rate be sustained? Am I behind?". And here I
am commenting, so he wins.

All that said, please keep in mind:

1\. Gravity still exists, financially and otherwise. Reality too.

2\. Strong teams still win. "Pay me $1000/hr with $10,000 NDA bonus or I'll be
in my trailer" might get press, but the assumptions and arrogance behind it
won't make meaning over the mid or long terms.

3\. CheddarApp is just ok. As a card carrying yearly CheddarApp subscriber, I
can say that I've used it for a week and meh. I'm hoping he gets enough press
to get enough people to put $20 on the table to build out that spartan feature
set.

4\. Employers can pay what they want. In the end, if someone thinks they can
get ROI on $1000 an hour, why not. God bless America, right?

~~~
cageface
_CheddarApp is just ok. As a card carrying yearly CheddarApp subscriber, I can
say that I've used it for a week and meh._

I'm all for bringing up programmers' hourly rates but I think I'd want to have
a little bigger feather in my cap than another to-do app before I tried a ploy
like this.

~~~
Falling3
I'm an android user and I don't know the man or the app. Is this really his
only feather?

~~~
mintplant
According to the About page [1], he created one of the first third-party iOS
apps [2] which now has usage numbers in the millions, worked at the creators
[3] of Hipstamatic [4] (a fairly well-known iOS app), has contributed a
sizeable amount of open-source code [5], and has worked on a number of other
projects [6].

[1] <http://samsoff.es/about> [2] <http://www.youversion.com/mobile> [3]
<http://heysynthetic.com/> [4] <http://hipstamatic.com/> [5]
<https://github.com/samsoffes> [6] <http://samsoff.es/projects>

------
noonespecial
Usually, when you get to the stage where you charge this kind of money, you
are really charging not for the work, but all of the work that you've done
before and the experience that came with it. An hour with someone worth their
salt can easily save you 20 hours paying the $50/hour developer types.

You don't hire these guys to build your project, just to point you in the
right direction. The real question is "does _this particular_ guy have
$1000/hour advice to offer". His customers ultimately decide this.

~~~
CaptainZapp
There's an anexdote for that:

woman is strolling through a local park, when she happens upon Pablo Picasso
sitting on a bench. Struck by her good fortune, she summons the courage to
speak to him.

“Excuse me. You’re Pablo Picasso right?”

The man smiles.

“Would it be possible to have you sketch my portrait? I’ll pay.”

Picasso accepts the offer.

He considers the woman carefully for a few moments and then takes out a pen
and paper. He quickly sketches a single line on the page.

He takes one last look at the page and hands it to the woman.

“That’s incredible!” She says. “You’ve managed to capture my essence in a
single stroke of the pen.” “That will be $5,000,” Picasso replies.

“$5,000? But it only took you seconds to draw it!”

“Actually, my dear, it took me my whole life.”

(from [http://morethanaliving.com/2007/03/20/pablo-picasso-
anecdote...](http://morethanaliving.com/2007/03/20/pablo-picasso-anecdote-or-
apocrypha-or-whatever-its-still-a-valuable-lesson/)

~~~
ladon86
This kind of dynamic exists in a few professions.

About a year ago I was locked out of my house and had to call an emergency
locksmith - the cost was around $150. He turned up and inserted a piece of
rigid plastic into the gap between door and frame, opening the lock. The
process took 5 seconds, and I immediately realized that, given the knowledge
that this would work, I could have opened the door myself using a credit card.
But I didn't possess that knowledge, and the value of gaining access to my
home was worth what I paid. I had paid not for hours worked, but for
experience.

~~~
patio11
Locksmiths are sort of a weird case: you can learn to open 95%+ of
commercially relevant locks with $100 of tools and less than an hour of
training. The biggest reason it costs $150 and not $25 is that your locality
makes it illegal to advertise as a locksmith, and illegal to possess
locksmithing tools, without certification. There's a nebulous security
rationale for this, because apparently normal people can be allowed to own
credit cards and compressed air cans but if we allow them to open locks for
money as well then they'll burglarize every house in sight.

~~~
tomjen3
It very much depends on which locality you are in. In plenty of places it is
legal to own locksmithing tools. You can find many videos of lockpicking on
youtube.

------
bravura
Also worth noting on his "hire me" page (<http://hire.samsoff.es/>):

"I prefer not to sign NDAs. If this is a requirement for you, there is a
$10,000 fee to sign your NDA. You will need to sign my consulting agreement.
It has confidentially agreement included."

He then has a very simple work-for-hire contract that includes an NDA.

There's something appealing about this approach, because reading arcane
contracts while a project is still being spec'ed is quite annoying. So instead
he shifts the burden to the client. But, obviously, many clients won't swallow
that.

I'm curious if he can make this work.

~~~
chmars
Is this an American speciality?

In most legal systems, confidentiality is part of hiring someone. You often
sign an NDA nevertheless but its value is mostly declarational.

~~~
roel_v
"In most legal systems, confidentiality is part of hiring someone."

I assume you're talking about European systems, in which case it's not true,
at least not to a significant extent. And when you hire a contractor it's even
less defined - a contractor can freely talk about what kind of work he did for
a company, right down into quite specific detail, without a proper NDA or
clause to that extent in the contract.

------
wallawe
If you've ever read a book called "Influence: The Art of Persuasion" [1]
you'll recall a story about a store that sold rocks in New Mexico. The woman
who owned the store was trying to offload all of her turquoise during peak
tourist season, so she set the price a lot lower than normal. Although this
was the most popular sell typically, fewer people started buying thus having
the reverse effect of what she wanted. She relocated the stones' showcase to
the front and center of the store. Sales plummeted further.

As she left for a short vacation, she left a note for one of her employees to
drop the price to half of what it already was, and at least try to make a
little bit of money back. But the employee misread the note and accidentally
_doubled_ the price of the turquoise. By the time the store owner got back,
the rocks had sold out, at DOUBLE the price.

The store owner contacted the author of the book, a psychologist (I forget
why) and he explained the reasoned this may have happened. Most of her
customers were affluent and wealthy tourists who had been under the
subconscious impression that you get what you pay for. When they saw high-
priced stones, they knew that they were getting quality stones, at least
that's what they had been led to believe through years of dealings.

This is why this guy's experiment will work and is a great idea. He is
probably no more skilled than many of the hackers on here, but he stands out
with his exorbitant price tag and some companies figure, 'hey, you get what
you pay for.' This is especially true in the business world. So regardless of
the fact he may not be worth it, or may not possess superior abilities, if he
is getting the money which I hypothesize he will, more power to him.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-
Busine...](http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Business-
Essentials/dp/006124189X)

~~~
caw
I believe in the same book, the author explains black pearls. They were
previously trinkets--very cheap. It wasn't until they were put in a high end
jewelry store in New York that they were suddenly desired, and commanded a
price premium.

------
zalew
I am unavailable this month, so for the moment my rate for new clients is one
billion euro per hour.

------
vacri
The article is a waste of time. It's just a newly minted consultant waxing
lyrical about being a newly minted consultant. Good for him if he can make it
work (I'd never be able to) but this is just what a high end consultancy would
charge for offering the same kind of services, nothing surprising.

------
rayiner
I don't think $1,000 an hour is unreasonable for an expert (I'll leave aside
the judgment of whether this guy is such an expert or not). There are quite a
few law firm partners that charge over $1,000 an hour for their services
([http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_TOPRATE0...](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_TOPRATE0222_20110223.html))
(and that's just the small publicly-available slice of what is usually pretty
guarded information).

The fact that people here on HN are reacting negatively to the rate reflects
what I think is a cultural flaw in the developer community: programmers seem
very reluctant to demand real money for their services. I rarely hear people
complain that programmers are too expensive, even during this current boom.
Given that people complain about everyone's rates: doctors, lawyers, plumbers,
etc, that's almost a sure sign that programmers charge too little and expect
too little.

Software is where the money is these days. Google, etc, have double the
revenues per employee of any major investment bank. Yet, the culture on Wall
Street is such that the investment banks (which are public companies too), pay
out ~50% of revenues in compensation. There is no reason software development
should be any different.

------
atirip
No. Most of you do not get it at all. It's like selling a house you built with
love and live in. You do not want to actively sell it, but if someone gives
you double of the market rate, then it will be foolish not to sell. That's
called passive selling. I passively sell everything :-)

------
JumpCrisscross
Is $1000/hr really a fuck-you rate for IT? Coming from finance and eyeballing
management consulting rates that are a healthy multiple of those I didn't get
the marketing ploy at first.

~~~
georgemcbay
Yes, $1000/hr really is a fuck you rate for software development.

Most software development projects are months/years long and there are huge
context switching costs when trying to swap a new developer in for an old one
so you tend to get stuck with the same contractor for the duration which means
you're committing to paying someone $1000/hr for months/years. This is quite
different than finance/legal where maybe you just need some expert's time for
literally like an hour.

There are some situations like the one he referenced where you're just doing 3
hours of optimization or whatever to an existing codebase but projects like
that are few and far between (and I'm guessing the person paying for them will
often be disappointed... I'm sure Sam is a great programmer, but 3 hours isn't
much time to devote to making really substantial optimizations to an existing
codebase nor to train another programmer how to do them him/herself).

~~~
einhverfr
If you look at what he is selling in his blog though it's a few hours of
consulting time here and there as a mentor, imparting expertise on others.

I don't think $1000/hr is a fuck you rate for expert assistance of that sort.
I don't know if I would consider him an expert worthy of hiring at that rate
but I could see others doing it.

Here's a case where I could see $1k/hr making a big difference (granted I
think the customer only paid $200/hr for this but it would have been work
$1k/hr if necessay). We had a stored procedure that was performing really
badly, and needed some advice on what to do better. I spoke with a database
expert for approx an hour and he explained what was probably happening and
gave me some pointers to fixing it. If I was trying to fix it on my own, it
would have been a week's effort at least because the problem was not in a
single statement but poor performance as an emergent property of several
hundred or thousand statements running in a specific order and throwing off
caching.

------
artursapek
This is conceited as fuck. Nice to-do app.

~~~
illicium
It's a PR stunt, and a pretty lame one at that. And he should be building a
massively cross-platform data sync framework (ala Dropbox, but not just files)
-- not a to-do app whose defining feature is sync.

------
Falling3
Well I'd better get moving on Provolone... I can't wait to be charging
$1000/hr.

Seriously though, that's pretty stellar if he can pull if off, and someone
that's knowledgeable and creative enough is certainly worth it to get things
going in the right direction.

~~~
vegas
peccorino romano man, peccorino romano. You could charge $2k/hr

------
jmduke
Sam's resume:

<http://assets.samsoff.es/pdf/Sam%20Soffes%20Resume.pdf>

This, to me, is more surprising than the rate.

~~~
gav
It was surprising to me too, I work as a consultant and am regularly billed
out at up to $400/hr. I have a resume and a "consulting resume", which is a
list of all the projects I've been staffed at for my current employer with the
company name's redacted.

People are willing to pay the high rates because you bring a wide range of
knowledge about how other companies have done things, your level of technical
skills is usually secondary.

The dirty little secret of consulting is that at a high level everyone is
obsessed with NDAs and the like, even to the point of not letting you claim
we've worked for them in any capacity, however once they've got you there they
want you to name names. When it comes down to making a choice between several
options, the option that company X chose is seen as the "safer" one.

Edit: after re-reading, I wanted to be clear that I wasn't suggesting that
consultants do (or should) divulge this information; my emphasis should have
been more on the experience vs. skills part.

~~~
rada
I used to be billed out at $325/hour as a junior programmer and it wasn't
until later that I fully understood why.

It's not your "wide range of knowledge" but rather the risk profile of your
employer. Some RFP's demand that the consultancy have 10k+ employees, 20+
years in business, and so on. Some of these requirements are government
mandated, some process mandated, etc.

In other words, if you, with all your knowledge, were to strike out on your
own, you would find yourself quite unable to bill at $400/hour, even if you
were to be hired by the very same clients (which is not going to happen
because they are paying the higher rate specifically so that they can get the
low risk profile as per above).

In my experience, $400/hour at a large consultancy translates into ~$150/hour
as a sole consultant, wide as your knowledge may be.

------
pka
For that rate I'd maybe hire Simon Peyton Jones, but $1000 for iOS
"optimization advice"? The market must be in a really bad place.

------
jacques_chester
It's great marketing for his app, if nothing else.

"The guy who makes this app charges $1000/hr, he must be amazing!"

~~~
speednoise
Nah, there's another guy (from 2010!)
[http://le.mu.rs/motherfucker/Entries/2010/6/24_What_money_ca...](http://le.mu.rs/motherfucker/Entries/2010/6/24_What_money_can_buy.html)

------
callmeed
Mike Lee did this 2 years ago

[http://le.mu.rs/motherfucker/Entries/2010/6/24_What_money_ca...](http://le.mu.rs/motherfucker/Entries/2010/6/24_What_money_can_buy.html)

------
kayoone
I know a similar thing from top online poker players. Many of them offered
training lessons for ridiculous rates simply because they would make more
money playing the same time, so why bother teaching people for a lesser hourly
rate ?

Other successfull players still took these lesseons at these very high rates
simply because these top players were the only ones able to help them improve
their games and this was worth thousands to them, as they already were making
alot of money.

------
LinaLauneBaer
I had a quick look at his SSToolkit framework which he published on github. I
reviewed he source code because he said he is doing iOS code reviews for
$1000/hour. After five minutes or so I stopped taking him serious. In my
opinion his code is good but really far from brilliant. There are even some
serious flaws in his code - at least in my opinion. Here is a short and
imcomplete summary of his code ( <https://github.com/samsoffes/sstoolkit> ):

The method -randomObject (NSArray+SSToolkitAdditions) is supposed to return a
random object but when he is generating a random number he is generating non-
uniform random numbers.

In general his category methods are not prefixed. This will definitely break
something sooner or later.

He is not using the designated initializer or NSDate - although it would make
sense in -dateValue (NSNumber-SSToolkitAdditions)

He is drawing patterns in -drawRect: where he could simply set the background
image to a pattern color.

He is not using the shortcut functions for handling CGRects.

He has a file containing utility drawing functions (SSDrawingUtilities). This
file contains functions like CGRectSetWidth, CGRectSetOrigin and so on which
pollute the CG namespace which is owned by Apple...

~~~
mistercow
>The method -randomObject (NSArray+SSToolkitAdditions) is supposed to return a
random object but when he is generating a random number he is generating non-
uniform random numbers.

You mean because of the modulo operator, presumably, and yes, the technically
correct way to do it is to retry if the raw random number is larger than
N*floor(UINT32_MAX/N). Still, that's a pretty minor bug considering what a
minor deviation from uniformity it causes.

>In general his category methods are not prefixed. This will definitely break
something sooner or later.

Yeah, this is a common mistake for people making "additions" frameworks, and
it just strikes me as egotistical. When I was doing ObjC development, I'd even
prefix my own private category methods, because hey, you never know.

~~~
LinaLauneBaer
> You mean because of the modulo operator, presumably, and yes, the
> technically correct way to do it is to retry if the raw random number is
> larger than N*floor(UINT32_MAX/N). Still, that's a pretty minor bug
> considering what a minor deviation from uniformity it causes.

Yes, because of the modulo operator and this is not a minor thing in my
opinion. Especially with small arrays his implementation will return the the
0th or 1st element much much more often than other elements.

I think the correct way would be to use arc4random_uniform(...).

> Yeah, this is a common mistake for people making "additions" frameworks, and
> it just strikes me as egotistical. When I was doing ObjC development, I'd
> even prefix my own private category methods, because hey, you never know.

Yes. He even did create about 30 functions which use the CG-prefix.

~~~
mistercow
Edit: I just realized for my math below I used 2^32 as UINT32_MAX instead of
2^32 - 1. The rest of my reasoning holds up though.

>Especially with small arrays his implementation will return the the 0th or
1st element much much more often than other elements.

 _Much, much_ more often? Correct me if my reasoning is wrong, but for a, say,
6 element array, this bug would make a difference less than 0.0000001% of the
time ((UINT32_MAX%6)/UINT32_MAX). For a 3 element array, it would make a
difference about 0.000000023% of the time. Maybe you mean by small "less than
100 elements", in which case the worst case is 96 elements, where it happens a
whopping 0.0000015% of the time.

Indeed, the problem is only pronounced for _large_ arrays, because that's when
there's an opportunity for UINT32_MAX%N to be large (since A%B < B). There is
_no_ case where the 0th and 1st element are significantly skewed ahead of
everything else. The bias is characterized by the last few elements of the
array being selected significantly _less_ often, but the "significantly" part
only kicks in for very big arrays.

In fact, the first array length for which you will even see a difference 0.01%
of the time would be 430,142 elements [ed: this holds up even adjusting
UINT32_MAX to the correct value]. Considering that this is a framework
intended to be used for iOS development, I think once your NSArray has grown
that large, you might have more important fish to fry than worrying about a
small bias in your randomization.

~~~
LinaLauneBaer
You are correct. I have just checked my code that I used a couple of years ago
to generate random numbers using %. I had the impression back then, when I
then switched to arc4random_uniform that it works much better. It must have
been something different or my perception tricks me. Nevertheless not knowing
or caring about uniformly distributed random numbers and charging $1000/hours
seems a bit strange. One could argue that % needs less CPU cycles but then
again: Does this matter? Using arc4random_uniform makes your code much more
readable etc. So from a pure code review standpoint of view I would argue that
arc4random_uniform should be used if possible. Of course he might also not
have used it because of compatibility reasons. Who knows.

Btw: I would like to talk to you in private. How can I contact you?

------
irunbackwards
What is the average hourly rate for high-level engineering consultation? It
seems that's the service he's offering, and I don't really think he is
overcharging.

~~~
h6o6
About $350/hr

~~~
tptacek
Data points to back that up? That sounds high for mobile dev.

~~~
h6o6
Sorry that's the cost of a civil engineering professors consulting time being
the top in their field. I misunderstood op

------
samstave
1000/hr == ~2MM per year.

There are thousands upon thousands of people who make more than this annually.

I think one of the things that keep people self-limiting is looking at their
income per hour. I have long stopped looking at my income per hour and focus
on what I want to make annually.

------
antidaily
This has been done. Off the top of my head: Thomas Fuchs
(<http://script.aculo.us/thomas/> $800/hr). I even think this was posted to
HN.

~~~
manmal
It's not up to date - he's also not living in Vienna anymore AFAIK :) With
their 2 products churning out big $, I'm not sure Thomas would do consulting
at the moment.

------
danso
I don't think the rate is unreasonable, given the value of great advice. But I
could see some internal techies at a company scoffing at a consultant who is
using Rails to run his personal blog:
<https://github.com/samsoffes/samsoff.es>

I'm not defending that scoffing, mind you, as playing around with frameworks
is good initiative...but anyone who's been burned by a consultant/vendor who
recommended a bazooka to kill a mosquito will be wary.

~~~
oinksoft
What's wrong with using Rails to run your blog? If your website is built on a
given web framework, it is often more sensible to run the blog on that than to
introduce a standalone blog engine.

~~~
epochwolf
Because you can use octopress and only have to serve static files.
<https://github.com/epochwolf/epochwolf.com>

~~~
xentronium
From README:

> This is my new blog in Rails 3.1. I moved my blog to Jekyll a few months ago
> and really missed playing with a Rails app, so I'm moving it back and
> starting from scratch.

------
nwp
My issue with this has less to do with the rate and more to do with the
overall tone of it. Sam has done some excellent work, no doubt, and should
charge whatever rate he finds appropriate. However, the presentation of this
is likened to a gold cufflink clad lawyer with a monogramed shirt who
proclaims with a laugh, "I don't get out of bed for less than a grand an
hour," as he sips the brandy and takes a draw on the Cuban cigar before
expelling its smoke in your face.

------
thejerz
If his time was really worth $1000/hr, he wouldn't have time to write blog
posts like this

~~~
zevyoura
Given the response this is generating, I have to disagree.

------
lazyjones
If you run a successful company, you'll be getting that hourly income at some
point ... It's not likely to be a todo list company though.

------
rachelbythebay
Pay me the right amount of money and you too can have many of my cycles
devoted to solving your problems. Exactly how much money depends on what the
problem is. Or, you know, you can just pay me to learn (really, internalize)
your stuff and point out problems or potential problems. I tend to find things
in complicated systems. It's what I do.

I'm dead serious. Bring it on.

~~~
manmal
I'm inclined to think that such amounts of money aren't paid for some things
you find out in systems, but they are paid for you knowing every last bit of
the system and giving advice on how to exploit it.

------
joshu
Charging a bunch is a good weed out.

I charge per day at a high rate, but have a discount for interestingness
(since my goal isn't really money per se).

~~~
knwang
How do you advertise to find clients?

~~~
joshu
I'm somewhat well known; they come to me.

------
dkkarthik
Heh, sounds like it started out as something in between an ego-trip and a way
to shoo customers away which has taken a life of its own and is now hotly
being debated by the HN community. Now I'm following him on twitter to see
what he's doing right :-)

------
staunch
I think you're better off just charging per project. People are more
comfortable paying $10k for some specialized help, even if it only takes 10
hours, than they are paying $1000/hour for 10 hours of work.

Something like what Paul Rand did when designing the NeXT logo. He charged
$100k flat to "solve the problem" of creating a logo.

Fixed fees only work well when the client has a discrete problem that needs
addressing, but in my experience those are the best projects anyway. Imagine a
team of people struggling with some hard problem for 6 months and then you
(because you're a specialist) solve it in 10 hours. Those are the absolute
most fun things to do. Hero Projects.

------
nisse72
If waffles cost $450, then $1000/hr wouldn't seem so unreasonable. Oh wait...

~~~
heretohelp
I should start measuring my income in waffles per hour.

~~~
daimyoyo
Nobody pays me in waffles. :(

~~~
joshu
Waffles on demand? Waffles as a service?

~~~
hboon
If there's a growing trend for the rising demand of waffles, we'd be selling
machinery to make waffles instead and ebooks and courses on how to get rich
making waffles.

~~~
joshu
Waffles are overpriced. That's why I am introducing my new technology:
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Waffles.

This will allow you to create high syrup capacity waffles from an array of
lower-quality waffles.

------
welcomebrand
I don't get why everyone is so up in arms about this. I come across folks
every day who say they charge "$x" or "$y" and think it's way above market
rate for what they say they do.

The reality is that perhaps this guy and his todo app might score some work at
that rate or he might not, it's his prerogative to decide what he wants to
charge.

I might look at someone elses folio today and when they tell me they want $500
a day I'd look at their work and think good luck.

There's a massive difference between saying what you charge and what you
actually charge on the invoice at the end of the day.

------
gyardley
Good for Sam. Now you just need to get your prospective clients to get wind of
this, right before you quote them your steal of a $300/hour rate. Level-
setting is a powerful thing.

~~~
citricsquid
I don't think that is the point at all. His own projects are so important to
him that unless someone offers him $1,000 per hour to work for them, it isn't
worth his time. He isn't trying to get new business: he's trying to keep
business away, unless it's so lucrative ($10,000 for 1 days work) that it's
nonsensical _not_ to take it.

~~~
gyardley
Yes, what I wrote obviously isn't _Sam_ 's point, which is plainly written and
quite clear.

I was writing about what you as a contractor could potentially do, independent
of Sam.

------
DigitalSea
I think the part that shocks me the most is the fact that he has a client who
is willing to pay him at this rate for 3 hours. I can see the benefits of
doing this, but lets be frank here unless you're good and have the proof to
back up the rate then you'll be laughed at by everyone for charging so much
and be undercut. It's more than obvious Sam is more than just mediocre and can
justify this hourly fee, I wish I could do the same myself.

~~~
vegas
You can and should charge at least $225/hour if you are a competent software
person. There are far less competent software people then there are mediocre
lawyers, and mediocre lawyers can charge $225/hour.

~~~
MBlume
Not that you're necessarily wrong, but you've only addressed supply, not
demand.

~~~
vegas
"The main reason for the rapid growth is a large increase in the demand for
computer software." [http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-
technology/s...](http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-
technology/software-developers.htm)

<http://www.bls.gov/ooh/legal/lawyers.htm>

~~~
danso
How is the stock photo for the software dev page not yet a meme?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
That is a glorious mustache.

Edit: I did a Google image search on it. Here's the stock photo page:
[http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-58442602/stock-photo-male-
pr...](http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-58442602/stock-photo-male-programmer-
with-headset-working-on-laptop-computer.html). "computer hacker in black shirt
working at laptops" -- I wonder what the annual salary of black-shirted
computer hacker is. BLS doesn't seem to have stats on that one.

Here he is looking manic: [http://www.123rf.com/photo_7515672_computer-hacker-
in-black-...](http://www.123rf.com/photo_7515672_computer-hacker-in-black-
shirt-working-at-laptops.html)

------
arank
Precisely the reason why we built TapFame (tapfame.com) Businesses always have
hard time finding the developer under their budget and we developers don't
want to waste our time dealing with the low budget projects or just the idea
people. After connecting a couple of projects we are realizing the tremendous
value we can provide to the app ecosystem.

------
truth_dude
cheddar is a glorified to do list app

come on bro...

~~~
batista
No, it's a todo list app, period.

It doesn't pretend to be something else or more, so the 'glorified' here is
meaningless.

That said, it doesn't matter what Cheddar is. He asks for that pay for iOS
consulting in general, not for recreating his own app.

------
Knighty
Well if demand can sustain the price on a daily basis then good luck to
him/her ... and I'm very jealous.

Work like this would tend to be ad-hoc, not 9-5, and the work he's received so
far (in his example) would seem more like what an architect might charge to
make a drawing or two.

So the price seems entirely fair if the skills really are specialist enough to
demand it.

------
devs1010
you are missing the point entirely of hourly rates, quite simply, if your time
is averaged out to be worth 1000 an hour you would most likely find yourself
in a position as a business owner / executive, etc, whose pay is dispersed
differently than it is for a lower wage hourly worker, such as stock options,
etc... as a contract developer youre better off acting as your own project
manager and charging rates on a per project basis, ive worked on 400k projects
that are considered relatively small by the companies paying for the software
being developed, id take being able to pull in a few 400k projects a year, and
executing on these than getting 1000 hr as a contractor, of course ive never
accomplished either as im a salaried midlevel devloper

------
axx
Paying money for an app from guy who says "pay me $1000/hour or go fuck
yourself"

not in a million years...

------
robryan
The challenge is to fill hours at a rate like that. Sure if you don't need to
consult at all and you manage to fill a few hours a month at this rate then
power to you.

For most freelancers though, they need to fill a lot more hours.

~~~
nostrademons
He doesn't want to fill hours. He wants to be working on his startup. But if
he can pull in $3K by showing up for a morning, it's not really a bad deal.

------
RedwoodCity
There are many lawyers that have their hourly billing rate set at $1000/Hr.

~~~
roel_v
No, there aren't. There are _some_ biglaw partners who for _some_ , very
specific work charge amounts that are in the general vicinity of USD 1000. And
that kind of money includes office costs (or whatever the term is that the
firm uses to describe the fixed overhead rate they apply to billables to cover
secretaries, stationary etc.)

Actually, USD 1000 per hour is special enough to merit an article in the WSJ
about it:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870407130457616...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704071304576160362028728234.html)
. I certainly wouldn't say that 'many' lawyers bill those amounts.

~~~
dkkarthik
Also, consulting a lawyer for specific work is different from hiring an iOS
programmer. You get specific help that you cannot get otherwise and the law
firm is on the hook for the services provided. iOS programmers are dime a
dozen. Assuming this guy is the best of the lot, I still don't see him giving
the kind of concrete guarantees a law firm would provide with their service.
Lastly, the value-add from a law firm consultation is different (and much more
concrete) than a top-notch iOS programmer, assuming he is one.

------
prezjordan
Controversial, just like he wants. I see the same things come out of dcurtis
(in fact, the "minimalist" web design is eerily similar). Either way, very
pretentious - but I wish him all the best.

------
robryan
Even if I was willing to pay this rate, I would worry whether his mind was
really in it. For $1000/hr you would want someone with pretty specific skills
really switched on and ready to work.

------
jawr
For $1000/hr you would think he could afford a valid certificate for his app's
webstite.

~~~
ryangilbert
that's not necessary at all...

------
schwa
I'm having lunch with Sam in 30 minutes… Any questions you guys want to relay?

~~~
zachwill
If he just started iOS programming today, what are the major missteps he'd
tell his novice self to avoid? (I've read he's not that keen on nibs, etc.)

------
burnkit
Cheddar is awesome and Sam seems to have the ambition to do great things.

------
OwlHuntr
That copypasta tastes delicious.

------
michaelochurch
Makes a lot of sense to me. I don't think it's a marketing ploy.

Going out and trying to get work is massively annoying. So is context-
switching. Plus paying your own benefits, dealing with non-paying customers,
legal fees (yes, you need a lawyer if you're going to freelance) and having a
complete lack of job security. I don't envy freelancers when I look at what
they have to put up with. With all this, a typical hourly rate (and this is
generally considered fair) is 1/800 of salary.

He also has an existing project that he's working on full time, and that he'd
presumably be taking time away from to work on the consulting gig. When you're
already working full-time, it makes sense to tack a factor of 3 on to your
hourly rate, on the supposition that leisure time is worth (when you work full
time and have little of it) 3 times as much as regular work time.

Given all this, a reasonable consulting rate might be 1/250 of annual salary,
so he's rating himself as being at the same level ($250k/year) as a mid-career
Wall Street quant. I don't think that's unreasonable.

~~~
ninh
It's quite simple actually. If your business is not dependent of consultancy,
i.e. it's not your primary source of income, you'd do yourself a disservice by
not _TRYING_ to charge a significant amount: you never know who might be
willing to pay it. In particular, an amount that would be at least the lower
bound of what you expect your app to generate in terms of income on an hourly
basis.

After all, you're not dependent of those consultancy funds, but if you find
someone who's willing to pay the requested amount, it's win-win. You're
basically put in a unique situation where you're able to experiment with that
and you might end up with a few interesting contacts as well by doing so.

------
rprasad
Holy cow. If CheddarApp justifies a $1000/hour rate, then good programmers
could easily justify $100k/hour or better.

Lawyers who handle multimillion dollar deals can justify $1000/hour. Security
specialists can justify $1000/hour. Some guy who makes a mediocre todo list
application can't.

~~~
joering2
You don't get it. he can charge whatever he wants to. Nothing stops him for
charging $10,000 per hour, just like Lady Gaga or Biber or some other crazy
POPular artist would.

Its really not about how much he asks; its about how many people can answer
it. He tries to go against the current and assume 1 gig at $1,000/hr is better
than 5 gigs at $200. It makes sense. I would love to see people paying for my
work 5x more than average, I think I would be more excited too.

Also the guy doesnt seem cocky. He mentioned twice that this is too much to
pay anyways.

~~~
brc
It's my experience that most IT professionals grossly undercharge.

Get a plumber around. Chances are he'll charge you more for fixing your toilet
than you will to build him a website. Both are equally easy jobs using off-
the-shelf components.

As an experiment, I had someone ask me recently for an hourly quote to do some
work. I didn't really feel like it, so I quoted double the normal rate. They
didn't even blink.

If you're not a corporate consultant getting charged out at $400+ per hour,
you're probably undercharging.

To be clear, I'm talking about consultant type work here, not 'code me a CRUD
app on an hourly rate'.

~~~
colkassad
How much would you charge to code a CRUD app?

------
hk_kh
I still remember when I decided to go from 10$/h to 50$/h on freelancing, and
besides earning more, started to get better and more serious clients. Nothing
compared to 1k/h, but still reminds me of something important:

The first thing to accomplish a goal is believing it.

(also, there will almost always be someone ready to pay any amount you ask,
the best approach is an equation that maximize income/clients and minimize
hours)

------
crafter
Sam, I really like your branding for Cheddar, and you have a consistency about
your personal brand as well. And you're stirring the pot dude! That counts for
something.

Personally, I think the $1000/hr isn't too much, especially if someone is
getting branding advice from you.

Good luck!

------
franzus
Ok, his link baiting articles start to get ridiculous.

